The development of management skills for effective church management in pastoral preparation programs in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The paper focuses on the development of management skills for effective church management in pastoral preparation programs in Zimbabwe, and underscores the need for the use of secular principles and practices in church management. It identifies the management challenges faced by the pastors, explores the extent to which management skills are being developed in pastoral preparation programs, and looks into alternative management practices which could be adopted into the Church for ministry effectiveness. The research instruments used were self- administered questionnaires distributed to a sample of fifty-three Evangelical and Pentecostal Pastors in Harare whose churches are registered with the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) and/or the Zimbabwe Council of Evangelical Pentecostal Churches (ZCEPC); and six face-to-face interviews held with three seminary deans and three senior pastors for churches which do in-house training. The study found that pastors are currently facing management challenges because the course content of the pastoral preparation programs is more skewed towards the spiritual aspects of ministry. Recommendations were thus made to the effect that pastoral preparation programs should consider collaborating with business schools and business persons to assist in the amendment of their course content to ensure that proper management skills are developed in the pastors by the introduction of management studies alongside theological studies. Some of the suggested management aspects are strategic planning and implementation, financial management and internal control systems, and organizational development and design. As such, the researcher attempts theoretical generalization by proposing that the theory applied in business skills of management, can be generalized in church circumstances. Key words: Management principles and skills, training and development, church management, ministry effectiveness, church leadership.

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