Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T06:51:26.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Equipping Church Leaders for Mission in the Anglican Church of Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2011

Dickson Nkonge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Leadership remains the biggest challenge facing the Church in Africa today. The Anglican Church in Kenya (ACK) was started in 1844, but was it was not until 1888 that the official training of church leaders was commenced with the opening of a Divinity School at Frere Town. Since its inception the ACK has experienced a tremendous growth in membership, growing at the rate of about 6.7 per cent per annum. In spite of this rapid growth, the ACK is in leadership crises due to lack of enough and well-equipped clergy to run it. The Anglican population of about 3,711,890 Christians is served by only about 1555 clergy, translating to clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 2400. This affects the Church's mission in that it is impossible for one clergy to effectively provide spiritual care to 2400 Christians. On top of this, the majority of the clergy currently serving in the ACK are not properly trained to match the rapidly changing Kenyan society. About 83 per cent of these clergy have diploma and below theological qualifications. If the ACK has to be successful in its mission in this century, it has to reconsider its training systems.

Keywords

Anglican Church of Kenyachurch growthtraining church leaderslay vocations
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 26 September 2011 , pp. 154 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

Dickson Nkonge is an Anglican Priest currently teaching at Chuka University College (Egerton University). Previously, he was the Hospital Chaplain at Kenyatta National Hospital (2005–January 2011) and the Administrative Secretary in the Anglican Diocese of Meru (2003–2005). He holds a PhD degree from the University of South Africa and an MA degree from the University of Nairobi.

References

2. Revd Ludwig Krapf was the first Anglican Missionary Society (CMS) missionary in Kenya. The statistics of the Catholic Church and the ACK were obtained from their national offices in Nairobi.

3. Baur, John, The Catholic Church in Kenya (Nairobi: St Pauls, 1990).Google Scholar

4. Baur, , The Catholic Church in Kenya, pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

5. Barret, David, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World 1900–2000 (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 432.Google Scholar

6. Mugambi, J.N.K., The Biblical Basis for Evangelization (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 13.Google Scholar

7. Bosch, David, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (New York: Mary Knoll Orbis, 1998), p. 9.Google Scholar

8. Hendricks, H.J., Sustainable Seminaries, Reliable Leadership: The NetACT Story, 2000–2010, available at: http://academic.sun.ac.za/tsv/netact/PAPER-TEA-LIMURU%20AUG2010.pdf (accessed 23 March 2011).Google Scholar

9. Nkonge, D.K., ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the Anglican Church of Kenya’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 2009, p. 48.Google Scholar

10. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’.Google Scholar

11. See Peel, W.G.'s ‘Letter to the CMS, London’, dated 30 September 1900, available in the ACK Archives Nairobi (CMS File No. G3A5/017, 1900). Peel was the first bishop of Mombasa when it was formed in 1898.Google Scholar

12. Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia.Google Scholar

13. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 50Google Scholar. Henry Venn was the General Secretary of the CMS between 1841 and 1872. He had called for indigenous churches which were self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating.

14. Neill, Stephen, A History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 1964), p. 260.Google Scholar

15. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 55.Google Scholar

16. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’.Google Scholar

17. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’.Google Scholar

18. Karanja, John, Founding an Anglican Faith: Kikuyu Anglican Christianity 1900–1945 (Nairobi: Uzima, 1999), p. 253.Google Scholar

19. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 56.Google Scholar

20. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’.Google Scholar

21. Barrett, , World Christian Encyclopedia.Google Scholar

22. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’.Google Scholar

23. Church of the Province of Kenya, A Brief History of the ACK (Nairobi: CPK, 1980).Google Scholar

24. Provincial Unit of Research (PUR), From Rabai to Mumias: Short History of the Church of the Province of Kenya 1844–1994 (Nairobi: Uzima, 1994), pp. 26, 106–29.Google Scholar

25. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 56.Google Scholar

26. Barrett, , World Christian Encyclopedia.Google Scholar

27. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 65.Google Scholar

28. See the ACK Strategic Plan 2004–2008, ‘The God of Heaven will make us prosper and we His servants will arise and build’ (Nairobi, May 2004). See also the minutes of the ACK Provincial Synod held at All Saints’ Cathedral Nairobi in 1999.

29. See Kenya Vision 2030: Transforming National Development (Nairobi, January 2007). This is Kenya's National Development Plan in which the country plans to be fully developed by the year 2030.

30. See the statistics of Nkonge, in ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 68Google Scholar. Nkonge predicts that by the year 2030 the ACK is likely to attain the four mission principles of self-governance, self-propagation, self-support and self-theologizing if it puts more emphasis on personnel development through proper training.

31. See ACK Strategic Plan 2004/2008.

32. Mbiti, J.S., New Testament Eschatology in an African Backgound (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 177.Google Scholar

33. See Nkonge, D., ‘Developing Leaders for the Church in Kenya Today’, November 2009, unpublished paper.Google Scholar

34. Mugambi, J.N.K., Biblical Basis for Evangelization (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

35. ACK Provincial Terms of Service 2007/2008, ‘Recommended Salary Scales for Clergy and other Church Workers’, Nairobi, January 2007.

36. Oliver, Roland, The Missionary Factor in East Africa (London: Longmans, 1952).Google Scholar

37. Nkonge, , ‘Leadership Training for Mission in the ACK’, p. 236.Google Scholar

38. Oliver, , The Missionary Factor in East Africa, p. xGoogle Scholar. See also Mbiti, , New Testament Eschatology, p. 177Google Scholar.