Abstract:
The church is an assembly of the professed believers under the discipline of the word of God, organized to carry out the great commission, administer the ordinances and minister with spiritual gifts and has to have a strong mission purpose and give priority to evangelization and witnessing. Despite the attention given by scholars on the church’s mission strategies of evangelism and social work, very little is known about the effects of the strategies on church growth in Protestant churches. The general objective of the study was to determine the effect of mission strategies of evangelism and social work on church growth in protestant churches in Molo Sub-County Nakuru County. The study specifically sought to establish to determine the availability of mission strategies of evangelism and social work in Protestant churches in Molo sub-county Nakuru County the study also sought to establish the effectiveness of the mission strategies of evangelism and social work on church growth in Protestant churches in Molo sub-county in Nakuru County. The study made use of stakeholder’s theory to explain the role of various groups of individual in the missionary work. The study made use descriptive research design. The target population was examined in the view of the unit of observation and unit of analysis. The unit if observation was churches in Molo Sub-County while the unit of analysis was 116 pastors and Church leaders. The study sample size was determined using Yamane formula of 1973 to get a sample of 89 respondents. Primary data was sourced from the respondents through questionnaire. Data collection process commence by first getting a formal letter from Kenya Methodist University and NACOSTI. After the necessary authorization, the questionnaires were delivered to the respondent on drop and pick later method. Data processing was done through editing, coding, classification and tabulation. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 24 statistical software. The extracted data was quantitative in nature and was presented in tables due to ease of interpretation information presented in tables. The researcher concluded that majority of the churches are involved in social work which is the calling of the churches by Good to proclaim the good news and to minister to the needy in the society. The churches which participate in the social welfare of the needy individuals in the society have social amenities like children homes, hospital and boreholes. From the findings the researcher concluded that the share the gospel of Christ by visiting the sick in the hospital, visiting the elderly and organizing for free medical check-ups. Basing on the findings of effective mission strategies adopted by the churches today, it can be concluded that majority of the churches adopt open air crusades to the mission of the body of Christ, some adopt door to door mission, other espouse seminars and crusades while other use social media to spread the gospel of Christ. Although some churches have evangelism department but majority of the churches don’t have the evangelism department, therefore the protestant churches ought to the evangelism departments which oversees the evangelism activities effectively. The church leaders together with the head of the evangelism department should plan strategically how to conduct the evangelism activities including the social work of the church which is the divine calling of the church.