Personal Commitment to God Among Students of Saengtham College

Abstract

The purposes of this mixed methods research were to study 1) The level of personal commitment to God among students of Saengtham College and 2) The guidelines for promoting personal commitment to God among students of Saengtham College. The sample group was students of Saengtham College majoring in Philosophy and Religion, Christian Studies, Theology or Moral Theology in the academic year 2023. The sample size was in accordance with Krejcie and Morgan table–the 123 students were obtained by stratified random sampling from each class. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and focus group discussion. The data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation and content analysis.

The findings were as follows:

1. Students of Saengtham College have the highest level of personal commitment to God overall (=4.48, S.D.=0.415). When considering each Commandment, ranking the commitment according to each Commandment from the highest to lowest, the first Commandment–You shall not have strange Gods before me–ranked the highest (=4.51, S.D.=0.414), following by the second Commandment–You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain–ranked high (=4.45, S.D.=0.474), and the third Commandment–Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day–ranked high (=4.43, S.D.=0.479)


2. The guidelines for promoting personal commitment to God among students of Saengtham College according to the opinions of the experts were as follows:

The first Commandment–You shall not have strange Gods before me:

1. Lecturers and those involved should encourage students to recognize the importance of the faith they receive from God through prayer of intercession


2. Lecturers and those involved should encourage students to experience intimacy with God in various ways.


3. Lecturers and those involved should enable students to have opportunities to express their faith in concrete ways through various activities.

The second Commandment–You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain:

1. Lecturers and those involved should enable students to be aware of a missionary spirit in regularly preaching the good news and put it into practice.     


2. Lecturers and those involved should enable students to recognize the value and meaning of prayer more deeply by experiencing intimacy with God in various and appropriate ways.

The third Commandment–Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day:

1. Lecturers and those involved should enable students to better understand the meaning and value of the Eucharist and liturgy by providing intensive advisement of spiritual life through a Spiritual Director.


2. Lecturers and those involved should encourage students to take time to reflect on their lives that must be consistent with the liturgy, prayer, and the scripture to be able to express these in everyday life.


3. Lecturers and those involved should encourage students to participate more in the Eucharist, liturgy, and prayer so that students will put their hearts into these moments as well.