Leadership in growing churches : a qualitative study of 35 growing churches in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to show how the church can use leadership in building up the local church as a model of Pastoral theology and as a method to address the weak or even wrong leadership that has caused a negative effect on the growth of churches. The research methodology used is grounded theory within qualitative methods to collect and analyze data to develop a model of ministry for the present-day society. Fifty eight interviews were conducted including laity and clergy of Harare churches. Grounded theory analysis yielded patterns of leadership and ministry in of building up local churches. The process was intended not only to evaluate the previous effectiveness of the leaders, but also to provide validated suggestions for future leadership improvement based on the research findings. Furthermore, it was anticipated that the research would provide findings that could be of significant value to other churches that intend to create and implement their own internship programs for leaders. The descriptive method of the empirical research was used with a questionnaire and an interview as the most important instrument utilized to gather the needed data. The researcher found out that the leadership in the local churches are weak or even wrong and that has negative effects in growing churches Many leaders would agree that leadership development is a very important area in the building up of the local church. However, the shortage of time and ministry demands on church leaders and the challenges involved in this attempt often result in the neglect of this very important area of the church. It is also significant that these growing churches also have the laity involved in relational evangelism teaching, training and discipleship. Recommendations were given to map the way forward with some areas were the researcher has found that they should be a further research on issues that were not covered but came out during the interviews.