Introduction
Since the 1960s, there has been an ongoing feeling that the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) is rapidly growing. To many of its adherents, the ACK has experienced a tremendous numerical growth during the twentieth century, becoming the second largest denomination to the Catholic Church. It should be noted here, however, that although the ACK is numerically second to the Catholic Church, it is historically the first denomination to be planted in Kenya, having been started by Revd Dr Ludwig Krapf at the East African coast in 1844. Currently, the Catholic Church has about 9,028,545 members while the ACK has about 3,711,890 members.Footnote 2 The first Catholic congregation was started in East Africa in 1860 by Father Fava who was sent by the Holy Ghost fathers.Footnote 3 The Portuguese Catholic missionaries, explorers and traders had earlier, in the fifteenth century, attempted to evangelize East Africa, but due to the fact that many of them lived a life different from the gospel which they propagated, their mission to convert Africans to Christianity failed totally. Their perpetual chauvinism and their uncontrolled interest in commerce coupled with their other rotten morals led to the complete death of their mission and in 1729 they were completely expelled from East Africa by the Arabs. From that time East Africa remained for a long time without any Christian presence until the Anglican Missionary Society (CMS) sent Ludwig Krapf in 1844.Footnote 4 The Anglican Church is thus the pioneer of Christianity in East Africa and has been experiencing a tremendous growth.
In the ACK Strategic Plan 2004/2008 it is estimated that the ACK has a membership of about 4 million Christians. David Barrett in the 1980s estimated that by the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Anglicans in Kenya would be about 2,290,000 representing a percentage of 7.4 of the total Kenya population which he estimated would be 31,020,000.Footnote 5 This paper explores the training needs in the ACK today in relation to mission. The Church exists because of mission and as Professor J.N.K. Mugambi argues, the major business of the Church is to be in Mission.Footnote 6
Mission remains an indefinable term and Professor David Bosch warns that we should be careful not to ‘incarcerate it in the narrow confines of our own predilections’.Footnote 7 Nevertheless, mission remains the backbone of the Church's activities since its inception by Jesus of Nazareth more than two thousand years ago. Thus Jesus’ words to his disciples ‘Therefore go and make disciples…’ (Matt. 28.19-20) remains as fresh as if they were uttered yesterday or this morning. Mission in the twenty-first century cannot have many definitions apart from that it is an activity whereby God calls his disciples and sends them as salt and light to add flavour and shine to the world. Mission therefore refers primarily to Missio Dei (God's Mission) and has to do with transforming or changing the world. The Church exists because of mission as it was first called to be involved in it. If mission entails the process of calling disciples and sending them to transform the world, we need to ask whether these disciples need to be prepared or trained for the mission ahead of them. When Jesus called his first twelve disciples he had to train them for three years before he sent them out to transform the world. This is a reality which the Church in Africa has not taken very seriously. Mission and training for leadership need to go together.
The ACK was started in Kenya in 1844 but it was not until 1888 that the formal training of the African church leaders was started with the opening of a Divinity School at Frere Town. The question we may ask is why it took such a long time for the Missionary Church to start preparing Africans for church leadership. The main problem, however, has been that even when the Missions became autonomous African Churches after the African countries attained political independence, the new churches did not make it a priority to train their church leaders. This paper looks at how theological training has impacted the ACK's mission. The ACK is a mission Church and the question we need to ask is whether there can be any successful mission without proper training of church leaders. How serious has the ACK been in developing its leaders for mission? The one success story in Africa, especially after the colonial period, is the growth of the Christian Church. The Christian world's centre of gravity is currently shifting southwards to Africa leading to a rapid growth of the African Church, including the ACK.Footnote 8 But what causes this growth? Is it that the African Church has well-trained disciples involved in mission or it is just a natural growth? Is the African Church necessarily happy because it is a growing Church? The next section looks at the numerical growth of the ACK from the beginning of the twentieth century in relation to its clergy so that some of these questions can be answered.
Growth of the ACK from 1900 to 2008
Krapf started the first Anglican congregation at Mombasa in 1844, and he was followed later by other CMS Missionaries including Revd Johannes Rebman in 1846 and Jacob Erhardt in 1849.Footnote 9 The Church which we have today is as a result of these early missionaries and many others who followed later assisted by the local African evangelists who vigorously and tirelessly spread the gospel of Christ in Kenya and the rest of East Africa. Prior to the year 1900, there was no Anglican diocese covering Kenya only, however in 1897, the Diocese of Mombasa which covered the whole of Kenya and the northern part of Tanganyika was created. In 1899, according to the statistics conducted by Bishop Peel, who was the first bishop of Mombasa, there were about 1199 Anglican Christians in the new diocese of Mombasa and three African Clergy. By then the Anglican missions were five, namely Mombasa, Frere Town, Rabai, Sagalla and Jirole.Footnote 10
In 1900, according to the statistics of David Barrett there were about 2000 Anglican Christians in Kenya. This represented 0.1 per cent of the total Kenyan population which he estimated to be 2.9 million. The African clergy remained three.Footnote 11 In 1910, the Mission Stations increased to 15. The Anglican Christians were about 4275 but the number of the African clergy remained unchanged. It is interesting to note here that as the Mission Stations and the Anglican membership in Kenya increased, the number of trained African clergy remained stagnant.
The emphasis of the CMS missionaries to create a self-governing African Church as had been advocated by the CMS General Secretary Henry Venn (1796–1873) therefore needs to be assessed.Footnote 12 Does it mean that Africans were unwilling to become full-time ordained church leaders? The main problem, however, was not that Africans did not attend the Divinity School for training, but that after training most of them opted to work at the Railway Construction Company where the pay was higher than in the Mission Stations and at the same time the Western missionaries wanted to retain the control of the Mission Stations. Unlike in West Africa where the missionaries were very swift to implement Revd Henry Venn's three-selves mission policy of self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating, in East Africa they were a bit reluctant.Footnote 13 The Africans may not have liked this approach of the missionaries to mission but it might have saved the Kenyan Church to be what it is today. Bishop Stephen Neill asserts that the West African Church failed because the CMS missionaries working there applied Henry Venn's ‘three-selves’ mission principles very early. He notes that,
The first attempts to carry out principles of Venn's dictum proved almost disastrous. The establishment of the ‘Native Pastorate’ in 1860 with the complete withdrawal of the missionaries from participation in the affairs of the pastorate inflicted on the Church a paralysis from which a whole century has not availed to deliver it.Footnote 14
In 1920, the Mission Stations increased to 17 and the Anglican Christians increased to about 6594. The African clergy also increased to eight. By 1930, there was one Anglican diocese covering the whole of Kenya which was referred to as the Diocese of Mombasa. It had been established in 1927 when the Diocese of Central Tanganyika was separated off from the Diocese of Mombasa leaving Mombasa Diocese to cover Kenya only. The Anglican Missions were 20 and the number of African clergy was 28. The population of Anglican Christians in Kenya had increased to 21,962.Footnote 15 In 1940, there were 38 African Anglican Clergy, one diocese (Mombasa) and about 69,212 Anglican Christians in Kenya.Footnote 16 The rapid growth was not only experienced in the general church membership but also in the number of baptisms and confirmations conducted. For instance, in 1945 the statistics for the Rural Deanery (present Mount Kenya Region) alone showed that there were 2312 baptisms and 6197 communicants.Footnote 17 In Maseno there were 1865 baptisms and 3742 communicants in that year.Footnote 18 In 1950 there were 60 African clergy and about 315,000 Anglican Christians in Kenya. In 1960 the clergy increased to 109 and Anglican Christians to 432,000.Footnote 19
In 1970, there were about 200 African Anglican clergy and about 742,000 Anglican Christians in Kenya.Footnote 20 The Anglican dioceses were six, namely Mombasa, Fort Hall (later Mount Kenya), Nakuru, Nairobi, Maseno North and Maseno South. In the same year the Anglican Church in Kenya became a Province under the name ‘Church of the Province of Kenya’ (CPK).Footnote 21 Previously, there was the Church of the Province of East Africa (CPEA) covering Kenya and Tanganyika.
In 1980, there were 390 African Anglican clergy and about 1,129,500 Anglican Christians in Kenya. The communicants were 350,000 while the total number of the baptized Anglicans was about 910,000. The dioceses were 7, the parishes were 52 and the congregations were about 2,344. In the same year the archdeaconries were 14 and deaneries were 52.Footnote 22 In 1990, there were 1010 African Anglican clergy and about 1,858,200 Anglican Christians in Kenya. The total dioceses were 20, the parishes were 779, the congregations were 3885, the archdeaconries were 66 and the deaneries were 202.Footnote 23 At the beginning of the year 2000, there were 27 Anglican dioceses in Kenya, 4076 congregations, 1023 parishes, 108 Archdeaconries and 282 deaneries. In the same year the ACK clergy were about 1136 and the total Anglican membership was about 2,538,240.Footnote 24
At the beginning of the year 2008, I wanted to establish the situation in the ACK in terms of Church membership, the number of parishes, deaneries, archdeaconries, and other physical facilities such as sponsored schools, health centres and polytechnics. With the assistance of the Archbishop's office we designed a statistical information form that was to be filled by all the dioceses and returned to either the Provincial Secretary or to myself by the end of May 2008. The information from these diocesan statistical information forms was also used in my doctoral study at the University of South Africa (UNISA). This information is analysed in Table 1.
Table 1 ACK provincial statistical information for the year 2008
Note: In the above table:
• A parish refers to more than one congregation usually under a priest referred to as vicar. In some cases, however, a congregation can form a parish by itself.
• A deanery refers to two or more parishes usually under a priest referred to as a Rural Dean and in the Anglican Church he/she plays a pastoral role.
• An archdeaconry refers to more than one deanery usually under a priest referred to as an Archdeacon. In the Anglican Church he/she plays an administrative role in the area of his/her jurisdiction.
• Active Christians refer to baptized and mainly confirmed ACK Christians who attends the church services regularly. In the ACK Register of Services’ books they are called ‘Daily attendants’.
• Adherents are general ACK members in Kenya. They are baptized ACK members but may not necessarily attend church services regularly. They include adults and children.
• The clergy include both priests and deacons serving in the ACK.
Observations
From the above discussion concerning the growth of the Anglican Church in Kenya since the year 1900, it is clear that the ACK has experienced a tremendous growth in the past 100 years of its existence. Since the year 1900, the Anglican membership has been increasing tremendously. Today the ACK is a large denomination with a Christian population of about 3,711,890 Christians, 4996 congregations, 1352 parishes, 1782 sponsored primary schools, and 547 sponsored secondary schools. An important thing to note, however, is the number of clergy available to serve this rapidly growing Church. As Table 1 indicates, the number of clergy seems to be too low. Only about 1555 clergy serve an Anglican membership of about 3,711,890 Christians. This means that one clergy is supposed to be serving about 2387 Christians, which translates to a clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 2400. With this kind of ratio one wonders whether the ACK is happy that it is a growing Church. How do we expect one clergy to effectively nurture 2400 Christians spiritually? In Table 1, it is clear that in spite of the fact the ACK has a membership of about 3,711,890 Christians, only about 1,565,056 (42 per cent) Anglicans are active members. The remaining 58 per cent are Anglicans by names. It is possible to attribute this to the low number of the trained personnel available to serve the rapidly growing Anglican Church. The challenges of the twenty-first century are immense and call for a pastor who is near to his/her sheep so that he/she can understand them and their challenges fully. The situation whereby the ACK lacks enough clergy has therefore greatly affected its evangelization. To explain this more, let us look at situation of the ACK since the beginning of the last century. The growth of the ACK in successive years from the year 1900 to 2008 is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2 A summary of the growth of ACK from 1900 to 2008
By the year 2008, Kenya had a population of about 35 million people. This means that the Anglican Christians constituted about 10.6 per cent of Kenya's population. This was an increase in percentage of 3.4 per cent from 1980 in relation to the 7.2 per cent shown by David Barrett's statistics of 1982. Figures in Tables 1 and 2 indicate that the ACK has been growing at a rapid rate since the beginning of the last century. It is, however, important to note that this growth rate has not been static. In the early years of the Anglican Church in Kenya particularly from around the 1920s, the Church was growing at a rate of slightly more than 20 per cent per annum (This is calculated from Table 2). This was a quite a high growth rate which could be explained by the fact that the Church was involved in vigorous evangelization and the desire to get as many followers as possible by the missionaries and the African evangelists was quite strong. The Kenyan population was also not as high and complex as it is today. Therefore, it was a bit easier to reach out to as many people as possible and convince them to accept the gospel. This fact can be verified by the statistics of David Barrett. According to Barrett's statistics, by the year 1900, only 0.1 per cent of Kenya's population was Christian and by 1970, the Christians constituted 63.5 per cent of the country's total population.Footnote 25
Another factor could be that the competition between various denominations to win converts was not as high as it is today. From the time of the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 which divided Africa into various imperial spheres of influence, the Mission Societies followed the same trend of partitioning the continent among themselves. They targeted their own particular areas for mission and since the Anglican Mission (CMS) was already operating in fertile highlands of Kenya such as Kabete, Murang'a and Nairobi where the population was also high, then it (Anglican Church) was able to get many converts and this possibly explains the high growth rate of Christianity in the first decades. From 1960 onwards (the time when most of the missions in Kenya were becoming autonomous churches in line with the country's political independence), the Anglican Church was growing at the rate of about 5 to 6 per cent per annum. This trend continued until the late 1980s. From 1990 to 2000 the annual growth in membership in the Anglican Church dropped to only 2 per cent. Interestingly, this annual average growth rate went up again to about 6.7 per cent from the year 2000. (This is calculated from Table 2.)
I wanted to find out why there was this disparity in the annual growth rate in these two decades, that is, 1990 to 2000 and from 2000 to present. I therefore took some time in October 2007 interviewing some ACK leaders so as to hear their feelings on this and why they thought it was happening. A population sample of 50 church leaders including 10 theological students, 11 clergy, 4 bishops, 5 Kenya Anglican Youth Organization (KAYO) members, 10 Kenya Anglican Men's Association (KAMA) leaders and 10 women (Mothers’ Union) leaders were considered for this exercise. The observation that the ACK was growing at an annual average growth rate of 2 per cent in the years between 1990 and 2000 and 6.7 per cent as from the beginning of this century (year 2000) was explained to the respondents. They were expected either to agree or disagree with this observation. If they agreed they said ‘Yes’ and if they did not agree they said ‘No’. Further, the respondents were required to explain their answers. On explaining these answers, each respondent was supposed to examine the situation in his/her parish critically. This explains why I had mainly picked the church leaders on the assumption that they were more acquainted with Church matters.
Out of the 50 respondents, 44 (88 per cent) agreed with this observation, while 2 (4 per cent) respondents did not agree and the remaining 4 (8 per cent) did not have any answer. Eleven (25 per cent) of those who agreed with this observation felt that in the period between 1990 and 2000 the Anglican Church was not very keen in evangelism and some went further to explain that while Anglican membership was low in the said period, the highest number of dioceses were created during that period in comparison to all other decades since the inception of the ACK. In Table 2 this observation is correct because between 1990 and 2000, the dioceses increased from 20 to 27. No other decade experienced this kind of increase in dioceses. This is mainly attributed to ‘power struggles’ in the Church. As various ethnic communities strived to have their own ‘sons’ as bishops, more dioceses were created.Footnote 26 Thirty-one (70 per cent) of the respondents who agreed with this observation, however, cited ‘the influence of Pentecostalism’ as the main contributing factor. They felt that in the said period (1990–2000) the Anglican Church was very conservative in its way of worship. Such practices as dancing and clapping of hands were not accepted in the Church. The East African Revival brethren who were the majority advocated for a very conservative Church. During this period, however, there was mushrooming of so many Pentecostal churches and charismatic movements in Kenya. These allowed their members to worship freely and as such attracted so many people, especially the youth, from the mainline churches. It is believed that this period saw the ACK lose so many of its youth to these churches and movements.
This trend, however, changed as from the beginning of the twenty-first century. The ACK became more open in its way of worship and started allowing its members to worship more spontaneously in the Church congregations. In the Provincial Synod of 1999 held at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, the issue of worship in the ACK was seriously deliberated upon. In this synod it was resolved that young people be allowed to participate fully in worship without discrimination. They were also allowed to lead worship in the churches. This would make them feel that they were full members of the church and that the church was theirs. On top of this, they were to be allowed to fully participate in church leadership.Footnote 27 The ACK had to stop treating the youth as leaders of tomorrow and accept them as both the leaders of today and tomorrow, an idea which has not yet been fully conceived in many Anglican congregations. This completely changed the trend of the ACK in the period from the year 2000 to the present. The ACK is now not losing many people to other denominations. Were it not for the poor leadership in the parishes and dioceses, the ACK would be the fastest growing denomination in Kenya. Currently the ACK is growing at the rate of about 6.7 per cent per annum and this can be improved if the ACK leadership is more focused. The fact that the young people were coming back to the ACK was noted in the ACK Strategic Plan of 2004/2008 which stated:
We are delighted to note an interesting turn of events as we see many of them [youths] coming back. This has been a great learning for us as a Church which is committed to growth and change. A key question for the Church is how to sharpen our focus to offer a ministry that will appeal to them.Footnote 28
A Church that is committed to growth and change must think seriously about its leadership and how this leadership can be improved mainly through training. If a Church with a membership of about 3,711,890 Christians is served by only about 1555 clergy, then something needs to be done. The idea of having enough shepherds for a growing Church does not need to be over-emphasized. I shall discuss this in detail in the next section.
Training Needs for a Growing Church
We have already seen that although the ACK is a rapidly growing Church experiencing a growth rate of about 6.7 per cent per annum, it is not necessarily happy. The ACK is in leadership crises due to lack of enough shepherds involved in its mission. If mission has to be effective then leadership has to be improved. If we correlate the total number of Anglican Christians in Kenya with the total number of ordained clergy currently serving in the ACK, we find that the ratio of clergy per Christians is about 1 : 2400. This is likely to change as the population increases. For instance, in 1970, when the Anglican Church in Kenya became an autonomous province under the name ‘Church Province of Kenya’ (CPK), the total Anglican Christians in Kenya were 742,300, and the clergy were 200, which translated to a clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 3700. In the year 2008, about 38 years down the line, this ratio reduced to 1 : 2400. This is still not a pleasing ratio because as we have already said, it implies that one clergy is supposed to cater for about 2400. This is a real challenge for a Church involved in mission.
If this trend continues, then it means that by the year 2030, when Kenya aims to be fully industrialized,Footnote 29 the projected number of the Anglican Christians in Kenya will be about 10,207,698 implying that about 18 per cent of Kenya's population will be Anglicans. By then (2030) Kenya's population is likely to be about 55 million. Currently only about 10.6 per cent of Kenya's population are Anglicans. The retired ACK Archbishop, Dr Benjamin Nzimbi, while addressing the Provincial Synod on 29 June 2009, urged the ACK leaders to develop the Church in line with the country's Vision 2030.
This would ensure that by the year 2030, the ACK would be fully self-governing, self-propagating and self-supporting.Footnote 30 These are good goals set by the ACK, but the biggest challenge is that for any organization to effectively achieve its set goals there must be an availability of qualified personnel. Human resource development is an indispensable prerequisite if the success of any organization, the church included, is to be enhanced. This implies that if Archbishop Nzimbi's vision is to be achieved by 2030, then the ACK leadership has to work extra hard especially in the area of equipping more church leaders through effective training so that they can carry on the Church's mission and vision.
The ACK leadership may boast of having a large following but it is clear that the majority of its members are not taken care of spiritually. The situation whereby as we have already said 58 per cent of ACK members are just Anglicans by name is very telling. There is a real problem of evangelization in the ACK, which needs to be resolved urgently. Possibly the remaining 58 per cent run away because they lack enough shepherds to pastor them or that pastors are irrelevant. The ACK has named this decade ‘a Decade of evangelization’,Footnote 31 but the lack of enough personnel to carry on the vision of evangelization has greatly affected it. This is, however, not a new problem. In 1971, Professor J.S. Mbiti expressed concern that the Church in East Africa and Africa as a whole had grown evangelistically and not theologically. The Church in Africa had experienced a tremendous numerical growth but there were no sufficient theologically sound leaders to lead it.Footnote 32 What surprises is that this trend seems not to have changed. What is happening in the ACK is being experienced in all the other main line churches in Kenya. For instance, according to the statistics which I conducted in 2009, and which have been used in another paper,Footnote 33 the Catholic Church which has a membership of about 9,028,525 Christians is served by 1479 priests translating to a clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 13,000.
The Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) which has about 2,835,000 Christians is served by about 372 full-time ministers translating to a clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 7600, and the Methodist Church in Kenya (MCK) which has about 1,150,000 Christians is served by 247 ministers translating to a clergy per Christians ratio of about 1 : 4600. This means that in terms of personnel development, the ACK is doing better than the other main line denominations in Kenya. The Catholic Church, however, addresses this problem by ensuring that all its other leaders, including sisters, brothers and catechists, are trained people. This is different from the Protestant churches where the elders in the case of the PCEA, accredited preachers in the case of the MCK and lay leaders in the ACK are not necessarily trained people.
Qualifications of the ACK Clergy
The other issue of concern is the qualification of the few clergy serving in the ACK. In the statistical information form, we asked to be informed of the academic qualifications of the clergy serving in the ACK dioceses. The results that we got are analysed in Table 3.
Table 3 Academic qualifications of the ACK clergy in the year 2008
Key:
1. Less than 3 years in theological training
2. Certificate in Theology
3. Diploma in Theology
4. First theological degree (BA, BD, BTh)
5. Two theological degrees (MA, MTh, M.DIV)
6. Doctor of Ministry (D.Min)
7. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)/ Doctor of Theology (DTh)
8. A secular degree and a bit of theological training
Figures in the table show that:
• Out of the total number of clergy serving in the ACK, 14 per cent (218) have less than three years theological training, 21 per cent (322) have Certificates in Theology, 48 per cent (753) have Diplomas, 11 per cent (177) have first theological degrees, 4 per cent (61) have two theological degrees, 0.5 per cent (8) have Doctor of Ministry degrees, 0.87 per cent (12) have PhD degrees and 0.26 per cent (4) have a secular degree on top of their theological training.
• The majority of the clergy in the ACK have Diplomas in Theology (48 per cent), followed by those with Certificates in Theology (21 per cent) and then those with less than three years theological training (14 per cent). Therefore, about 83 per cent of the ACK clergy have no theological degrees and barely 4 per cent have two theological degrees.
• There is a visible lack of full-time clergy with doctorates in ACK as columns 6 and 7 indicate.
It is therefore an observable fact the ACK lacks properly trained clergy to lead it. This is dangerous for a fast growing Church. The current Kenyan society is changing very fast and therefore if the ACK is led by unqualified clergy, then we doubt the success of its mission. The society is so complex and as such needs leaders who are well-prepared to face the challenges of today. Evangelization can only be fully achieved if there are well-trained personnel to carry on the task. The Church therefore has a problem which needs to be addressed urgently.
One question we need to ask ourselves is why the ACK suffers from lack of enough and well-trained leaders, more than 165 years since it was started in Kenya. Is it that the majority of young academically qualified Kenyans are not willing to join the Church ministry or there could be other issues? I shall discuss this in the next sections.
The Challenge of Training and Retaining
One of the major challenges which theological training in the ACK faces is that the ACK is not able to retain some of its highly trained clergy. Professor Jesse Mugambi asserts that personnel development is one of the major problems facing theological education in Africa today. Training is expensive. It takes a long time and the drop-out rate increases with every increase in the level of specialization. Thus, only very few of those who join theological colleges end up as professional theologians.Footnote 34 The problem here is that very few theologians who qualify at the highest level of training are often retained by their respective dioceses. This is mainly contributed by the financial difficulties encountered in the dioceses and the poor terms of service for church workers. Many years since its inception, the ACK is not able to pay its workers well. In many ACK dioceses, the clergy go for months without their stipends. Even in parishes which are able to pay their pastors frequently, particularly those in urban areas, the clergy are paid very poorly. For instance, a parish priest with two theological degrees earns a basic salary of Ksh.14,680 while the one with a doctorate in theology earns Ksh.17,890.Footnote 35 This is many times below the salary scales in secular employment and may explain why many well-trained clergy seek secular employment after their training instead of serving in the dioceses.
In 2008, I interviewed 99 ACK clergymen and women to find out the specific places/areas they preferred serving/working. The question asked was, ‘Given an option to choose, where would you like to serve/work? Give reasons’. The options given were: in the parish setting, in the theological college as a lecturer, in the institutions as a chaplain, in the secular organizations, in business, in Para-church organizations, in the diocesan offices as departmental heads, No specific places and others. The responses of these clergy were as follows: 24 (24 per cent) preferred working in Para-church organizations, 23 (23 per cent) preferred secular institutions, 18 (18 per cent) chose lecturing jobs, 15 (15 per cent) were more comfortable with chaplaincy work, 8 (8 per cent) preferred serving as departmental heads, 6 (6 per cent) chose the parish setting, 3 (3 per cent) were comfortable with business while one (1 per cent) chose to participate in active politics and one (1 per cent) said she would serve wherever God sends her. The reasons for the choices made were mainly job satisfaction and monetary benefits. It is interesting to note that given an option to choose, only 6 per cent of the ACK clergy would prefer serving in the parishes as vicars. The remaining 94 per cent would be more comfortable serving in other places. This is a big challenge for a church involved in mission.
In Table 1, there are about 1352 parishes in the ACK served by 1555 clergy. If only 6 per cent of the clergy are comfortable with working in the parish setting, then it means that if the clergy are allowed to choose where to work, the 1352 ACK parishes would be ministered to by 93 clergy (6 per cent of 1555). This would mean that one vicar oversees about 15 parishes. Still, this implies that the 93 clergy would serve the Anglican population of 3,711,890 Christians translating to a clergy per Christians ratio of 1 : 39,913. Therefore the ACK has a problem which if not urgently addressed may lead it to what Roland Oliver referred to as ‘disintegrating at the centre while expanding at the circumference’.Footnote 36
The other problem is that rather than being seen as a blessing to the Church, the highly trained clergy are viewed as enemies of powers that be. Quite a number of bishops and archdeacons feel that well-educated clergy are a threat to their leadership. As such, they are not given opportunities to exploit their talents. Even those interested in serving in the parishes are posted to the remotest parishes so that they can be silenced. When this happens, it is the congregations which suffer most because the Kenyan society is growing very fast and the churches are full of professors, doctors, teachers, successful business people, lawyers, politicians and other professionals. It is unwise to expect a pastor with just a certificate or a diploma in theology to satisfy the spiritual needs of such congregationers. Most of the ACK bishops are well trained and it is hard to see the reason as to why they should feel threatened by some of their pastors who advance academically.
The Church Ministry and Other Vocations
The fact that the ACK has failed to attract well-educated young Kenyans into its ministry is supported by most of its leadership including bishops, clergy, lay church leaders and theological lecturers.Footnote 37 This is not a new situation in East Africa because in the 1950s Roland Oliver (a missionary in East Africa) was abashed by the utter failure of the African Church since the 1920s to attract even a handful of the best-educated East Africans. In the 1970s John Mbiti observed that the East African churches could not count even more than half a dozen African theologians engaged in theological output, teaching, preaching and writing.Footnote 38
We need to ask ourselves the question: Why is it that other vocations attract more academically qualified young Kenyans than the ordained Church Ministry? To verify this, the author conducted a research between 4 and 16 August 2009, targeting Kenya Anglican Youth Organization (KAYO) members aged 16 to 30. These were mainly drawn from Christian Union groups in secondary schools and youth groups in some ACK congregations. Those from youth groups were mainly secondary school leavers who had attained a C+ (plus) and above in their ‘O’ Levels, which is the minimum university entry requirement in Kenya. Others had training either in tertiary colleges or universities. A total of 252 KAYO members were selected for this exercise.
The respondents were asked what vocations they preferred and why, and whether if given a chance they would prefer serving in the church as ordained ministers. Out of these 252 KAYO members, 236 (94 per cent) preferred secular vocations with the medical profession being preferred by 102 (40 per cent) respondents, followed by law with 69 (27 per cent), information technology 37 (15 per cent), teaching 16 (6 per cent) and the remaining 12 (5 per cent) opted for other vocations such as business, farming, journalism, and so on. Only 13 (5 per cent) KAYO members said that they would prefer to serve as full-time ordained Church Ministers (clergy) in the ACK. The remaining 3 (1 per cent) were undecided. The main reason given by the respondents for the choices of the careers or vocations made was financial consideration, which was cited by 231 (92 per cent) respondents. Many KAYO members felt that the pastors are poorly remunerated.
It is therefore clear that the ACK fails to entice academically qualified personnel into its mission and ministry as a result of its poor terms and conditions of service. In most cases the ACK attracts only those who cannot fit into any other profession due to their poor performance in the secondary school examinations. This has become very detrimental to a Church operating in a rapidly changing society. If the ACK has to succeed in its mission to the Kenyans in this century which has many challenges, it has to consider this as a priority. A Church led by ‘peasant priests’ cannot stand the challenges of today. The terms of service for church workers need to be reviewed continually to match those of the government and other employers. This will ensure that the Church does not lose in the competition for the well-qualified personnel.
We need to note here that the creation of so many dioceses and parishes has greatly affected the financial stability of the ACK. Some of the parishes have very few Christians, which means that they cannot support their pastors. Some dioceses are also unable to support themselves financially. It is therefore important that rather than creating more ‘tribal’ dioceses so as to have ‘our sons’ as bishops, we need to develop the existing 30 dioceses. Weak parishes which are unable to support their pastors should be merged to have fewer but financially stable parishes.
Conclusion
The ACK is a rapidly growing church and this growth is likely to continue as the Kenyan population increases and as the ACK engages itself in evangelization. We note, however, that in spite of this rapid growth, the ACK is in leadership crisis. This is because it lacks enough clergy to pastor its members and the few available are poorly trained. There is therefore a need for the ACK to reconsider its training systems with the aim of recruiting more personnel and also training the already serving ones properly. The current trend whereby there are very few clergy serving in the ACK and out of these very few are theological graduates needs to be reversed in all the dioceses. The Church has to be led by well-trained people as it is happening within the government sectors, non-governmental organizations, companies, and so on, if it is to effectively face the challenges of this millennium. We also need to re-emphasize that rather than the ACK concentrating on how it can create archdioceses and dioceses, it should focus on how it can amalgamate the current dioceses and some parishes so as to create strong dioceses and parishes that are self-supporting, self-propagating, self-governing and self-theologizing. It does not augur very well to keep a diocese that is not able to pay its bishop, clergy and other church workers for years.
