Facilitating the development of the learning organisation to enable vision implementation in the Methodist Church.
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Date
2015
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Abstract
The Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) is recognised as one of the
biggest churches in South Africa. It operates in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland,
Mozambique, Lesotho and South Africa. The current Secretary of Conference of the
Methodist Church has commented that the Church has three times branches as
compared to PEP stores around the Connexion. This testifies that the Methodist
Church is a very large organisation which has influence and touches lives of many
people.
In 1999 the Methodist Church adopted a vision which is ‘A Christ healed Africa for
the healing of the Nations” and a mission statement of ‘God calls the Methodist
people to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ for Healing and Transformation”. In
2005 there was a special Mission Congress to evaluate and identify obstacles that
were hindering the implementation of the vision. Since 2012 there was still not clear
indication of how the church is implementing its vision. The conference raised
questions whether the vision is still relevant and if it is achievable, if the ministers
understand it and if there is something the church needs to do differently. These
questions were the motivation of this study.
The study employed the Learning Organisation disciplines as they are presented by
Peter Senge to assist the MCSA to respond to these questions and to implement the
vision and mission statement. The qualitative research method was used for the
purpose of this study. The study focused on the ministers who are custodians of
strategy implementation in local churches. In-depth interviews were held with ten
ministers. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.
The research discovered that there is a lack of strategic leadership, ministers are not
taking ownership and there is a lack of knowledge sharing. Another critical finding
was the lack of passion for continuous training and learning beyond ordination of
ministers. The research also discovered that there was a lack of systems of
monitoring and evaluation. This was critical because other ministers felt that they
were working towards the vision but there are no systems for monitoring and
evaluating their work. The study concluded with recommendations that are in
consideration of the findings and are inspired by learning organisation disciplines.
Description
Master of Commerce in Leadership studies. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.
Keywords
Methodist Church of Southern Africa., Methodist Church--Africa, Southern--Management., Christian leadership--Africa, Southern--Management., Clergy--Africa, Southern--Management., Theses--Leadership and management., Church ministers.