2024-2025 Faculty Research Grant
Boubakar Sanou, Petr Cincala, Yuri Drumi (World Mission) and Rene Drumm (Social and Behavioral Sciences).
Discipleship and Reconciliation Study Post-Genocide Rwanda.
The history of the Rwandan genocide within Adventism remains understudied and rightly understood. The unprecedented growth in church membership in post-genocide Rwanda is a phenomenon worthy of study with lessons to be applied globally. This study proposes to investigate the discipling strategies and approaches used by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Rwanda post-genocide. The research highlights the following questions: (1) What role has the Adventist Church played in reconciliation in Rwanda post-genocide?; (2) What types of discipling strategies have the Adventist Church employed in Rwanda post-genocide?; (3) In what way are those approaches to discipleship different from those used before the genocide? (4) How have discipling strategies evolved over time?; (5) What has been the rationale behind the discipleship approaches used?; and (6) How have the reconciliation and discipling efforts intersected to increase successful outcomes across Rwanda? To answer these questions, the research team will first conduct a comprehensive investigation of existing documents (archival and web-based) that pertain to discipleship in Rwanda pre and post-genocide. This investigation will focus on the public statements that church officials have made about their discipling strategies, news reports, governmental documents, as well as books and articles. Second, researchers will contact and interview key informants who have knowledge about discipleship approaches, including rationale behind those approaches that the SDA Church has utilized post-genocide. Third, researchers will integrate the information gained from the document search and the data gleaned from key informants to address the research questions.