Mathematical Modeling of Church Growth: A System Dynamics Approach

Autor:	Hayward, John
Rok vydání:	2018
Předmět:	Physics - Physics and Society
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
Popis:	The possibility of using mathematics to model church growth is investigated using ideas from population modeling. It is proposed that a major mechanism of growth is through contact between religious enthusiasts and unbelievers, where the enthusiasts are only enthusiastic for a limited period. After that period they remain church members but less effective in recruitment. This leads to the general epidemic model which is applied to a variety of church growth situations. Results show that even a simple model like this can help understand the way in which churches grow, particularly in times of religious revival. This is a revised version of Hayward (1999) using System Dynamics and some small modifications to the SIR model. Comment: 35 pages, 13 figures
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.08482 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv