Not all rosy in church based jobs

I happened to read an article By MERCY GAKII (mgakii@ke.nationmedia.com) Posted on Monday, January 3 2011 at 18:00 on the nation media group website (www.nation.co.ke). The article speaks volumes; I, having worked with a few churches and also having been in a few faith based institutions, beg to agree with the findings below. Even so, it is my sincere and uttermost prayer that the church and all faith based institutions would recognize some of their members professionalism and engage them to take up some work that call for such. I hope the article widens your scope of thinking if you are a church or faith based leader.

In Summary

• Religious institutions turn to members in search of staff sometimes ignoring the professional needs of organisation

You may have at one time entertained the idea of working with a religious organisation with notions of a cool, friendly and hospitable environment.

It could be a place with likeable people, and an atmosphere of perceived niceness. But it isn’t all rosy and haleluya in these institutions, as one cleric disclosed recently.

“There is a biting problem of professionalism in the church and other religiously run institutions,” said Reverend John Daau, a Sudanese cleric living in Kenya.

He says that even where there is need for real skill-based approaches, many of these institutions will not bother to make use of the expertise that its own congregation has been endowed with.

Some projects and areas of specialisation that require experts include media-related work and professional practice such as health and education.

Himself a cleric with a mainstream denomination, Mr Daau feels that religious organisations need to work with both their brains and faith.

“The only organisations in the world that enjoy a very large pool of human resources within easy reach are mostly religious institutions such as churches,” says human resource practitioner Amos Otieno.

Mr Kirimi Barine, a professional with a church-based publishing house says that churches are organisations as well and would benefit a great deal if they employed the expertise of human resource practitioners.

“From the manner in which churches do their recruitment, motivate and manage their employees, it is clear that the need for HR professional services is absolute,” says Mr Barine.

The problem arises when leaders ignore a wealthy pool of expertise, who are mostly to be found within their ranks. He cites low pay as an area of concern where most projects will not pay workers at market rates for their professional work.

“Also think of the ignorance that most of these religious-run institutions operate in. The lack of awareness of the importance and benefit of engaging professionals in church-run projects is unfortunate. Another problem is failing to establish standards. Many of these institutions may prefer to evaluate work performance using faith rather that an individual’s personal efforts, since there is no clear line between faith and professionalism,” says Mr Barine.

He says that whether one is a faithful adherent to one’s denomination or faith does not mean they are competent to run an organisation.

This, Mr Barine says, leads to stalled projects or complete failure in turn affecting many followers who may still have faith in their leaders.

“Talk about pressing the faithful to always give their funds, which are in turn lost in the name of an incomplete project X or Y, and this leads many to lose faith in such spiritual leadership,” says Mr Otieno.

Yet, he adds, if these institutions had offered attractive packages to their own faithful who are professionals in various areas, the results would be different.

“You see, it is only in religious institutions that people are not allowed to question their leaders. This gives them freedom to run organisations the same way they would conduct a church service.”

It is a point where spiritual leaders fail the test of trust, Mr Otieno adds. He says that leaders today will want to be looked up to like they know everything, yet it is obvious they are not all-knowing.

Another problem is the mushrooming of various churches, in what he sees as a recipe for mediocrity.

“Today, there are so many centres of worship, and more are coming up with every passing day. But there is not a sure way to regulate them. I believe that the New Constitution will rein in such practices in order to keep these institutions accountable,” he says