A strategy for keeping leadership focused on Mission activities involving the laity at Sonke Seventh-day Adventist Church in Zimbabwe

Abstract

About seventy-five percent of the Sonke Seventh-day Adventist Church membership has not been actively involved in evangelistic activities because the leadership degenerated into performing operational duties at the expense of providing the strategic agenda of setting strategy, vision, culture, teams and allocation of resources. This resulted in a tense working relational atmosphere. Baptisms occurred only during camp meetings. The laity felt that they were not part of the greater whole of the church and that their desire to contribute to a larger purpose of their organization was thwarted. It was then imperative that attention be paid to them as fellow co-workers and colleagues in the same way that attention is paid to structures and statistics. The problem then necessitated the development of a program to include the majority of Sonke Seventh-day Adventist Church in evangelistic activities. The program was designed to mobilize, motivate and involve the church in the evangelistic activities.It was discovered that decision making was centralized and the leadership was task oriented at the expense of the laity’s needs. Relations among the leadership were strained. The leadership had obvious conflicts that hindered progress and muffled a conducive relational and working climate. The atmosphere was tense, hence the laity could not actively participate in evangelism. A careful analysis established that leadership had a vital role to create a church environment conducive to Christian development characterized by positive working relations and active membership participation. The Jethro leadership principle was recommended as in Exod 18:13-25. The leadership desisted from conflict and friction.