The Spiritual Experience of Adventist Students: The Case of Newbold College

Abstract

Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted among a
randomly selected sample of students at Newbold College, Bracknell, England.
All of them were between 18 and 21 years of age and came from European
countries. The purpose of this project was to investigate the nature of the
informants' religious experience past, present, and future and how Adventist
higher education had affected their faith development. The following basic themes
emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) Early faith experiences (i.e., home
and family, especially mother, were most significant in early religious
development); (b) Conversion (i.e., most participants stated that they had
experienced a religious conversion and went on to describe it); (c) The church
organization (i.e., the church is perceived as a desirable institution with strengths
and areas that need improvement); (d) The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) lifestyle
(i.e., most informants agreed with the expected SDA lifestyle but warned about the
danger of forgetting the bases); (e) The role of SDA higher education (i.e., peer
positive influence appears as the most prominent factor in faith development
during higher education); (f) The importance of religion (i.e., religion consistently
appears as one of the most relevant factors in participants' lives); (g) Faith in the
future (i.e., almost all participants showed determination to remain faithful
members of their church).