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Equipping Church Leaders for Mission in the Anglican Church of Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2011

Dickson Nkonge
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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

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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

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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.

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