FACTORS AFFECTING PASTORS’ LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT EFFECTIVENESS IN MULTI CHURCH CONTEXT

Abstract

The pastors in the Multi-Church Context in A.I.C Kisumu County are faced with huge challenges. Pastors in this context in Kisumu County find themselves in leadership and management positions without leadership and management knowledge and skills. This has resulted in inadequate leadership and mismanagement in the A.I.C Kisumu county MCP context. Therefore, there is a serious leadership and management need in this context of work. The challenge of inadequate leadership and mismanagement in the A.I.C Multi church context in Kisumu county calls for an investigation on how to enhance leadership and management effectiveness of pastors in the MCP context in Kisumu County. The study focused on 40 sampled leaders out of 400 leaders in AIC Kisumu County. These included 25 pastors and 15 elders and deacons across the selected six regions. These six regions in AIC Kisumu County are Kisumu city, Kisumu, Central lake, Muhoroni, Nyakach and Western lake. The respondents were classified using a cluster sampling technique to ensure that leaders comes from six regions that are from different locations in Kisumu county to meet some diversity technicalities in terms of colleges attended, geographical factors and background factors of the pastors. The purpose of this study was to investigate how to enhance leadership and management effectiveness of pastors in the AIC Multi Church Context in Kisumu County. Arising from the study, the following were findings, conclusion and recommendations made: 1. Findings: i. Pastors are either not trained or under trained in management. ii. Pastors ascend to leadership positions based on tribal, sycophancy and nepotism qualifications rather than professional training, temperament, experience and performance. iii. Pastors are overworked without priorities in ministry. iv. Pastors have chronic financial difficulties leading to personal and church failure. v. Pastors lack leadership development strategy for youths and women resulting in gender and age limitation in the church leadership structure. Conclusion The purpose of the research was to find out how to enhance leadership and management effectiveness of pastors in A.I.C multi church context in Kisumu County. MCP context is undergoing effectiveness crisis in Kisumu County. Pastors have problems in their spiritual life, they are not trained or under trained in management, they lack integrity, are overworked, makes unilateral decision and do not know how to manage personal and church finances leading to personal and church failure. Pastors lack leadership development strategy for youths and women resulting to limits in terms of gender and age in leadership structure.

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The research finding reveals that leadership skills can be learned and developed through education, experience, mentoring and modeling. With enhanced management skills, pastors will be able to create genuine vision, empower others and maximize the use of organizational resources to achieve their goals. Pastors’ relationship quality will also improve significantly affecting human growth and development which is critical in determining the organizational effectiveness. The researcher, therefore, recommends that curricula of learning institutions be re-evaluated in the light of management need and management units be taught along with theological courses. Seminars and workshops will be conducted to help upgrade pastors’ management knowledge and skills. And Pastors to take personal initiative to enhance their management capability through experience, mentoring and models.