The Role of Church Leaders in Growth and Survival of a Church
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following are the objectives of this study:
- To examine the role of church leaders in the growth and survival of a church.
- To identify the functions and duties of church leaders in a church.
- To identify the other factors militating against church growth and survival.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
This literature review will focus on three areas of leadership: leadership in general, leadership styles, and church leadership with an emphasis on how it relates to the growth and survival of the church. A review of recent dissertations covering church leadership and growth will conclude the literature review.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A number of dissertations have looked at church leadership. This section will review several that are the most similar. Bae (2001) looked at the relationship between transformational leadership and church growth in the Unity Church. The multifactor leadership questionnaire was used as the research instrument. Bae used both pastor and church members to assess the pastor’s transformational leadership style and the satisfaction of church members, church conflict, and the trustworthiness of the church leadership. Bae had a sample size of seventy-five pastors and two hundred twenty five church members. Bae’s research did not show a correlation between transformational leadership and church growth, though it did show a relationship between transformational leadership and church member satisfaction, which raised more questions than were answered. In Stovall’s 2001 study of church growth, or the lack of it in Texas, hard data from the Southern Baptist annual church profile was used to identify churches that were growing, not growing, growing erratically, or declining. Stovall was looking for contextual or institutional variables that could be identified showing a correlation between the variable and the growth of the church. A survey designed by Dr. Thom Rainer in 1996 was sent to all of the churches identified for the study. The survey focused on how the church viewed evangelism and their worship style. Stovall concluded that church growth is a multivariate issue and she could not identify any one variable that could be singled out as a main contributor to church growth, though she did note that the worship style of the church might be a barrier to church growth. King (2007) had a sample size of ninety pastors in Virginia and North Carolina, all part of the Willow Creek Association, an association that exists to help churches maximize their effectiveness. King sought to discover if the leadership practices from Kouzes and Posner’s LPI had a positive bearing on church growth. King used the LPI as his instrument for a quantitative study. King concluded that three of the five leadership practices from Kouzes and Posner’s LPI – model the way, encourage the heart, and inspire a shared vision – have a positive effect on church growth in the churches he studied. King said, “This is the first known study to find a relationship between leadership and church growth. It is hoped that this study will encourage future targeted research regarding leadership and church growth” (p. 87). Although this researcher located other older studies, King’s statement suggests there is a lack of research concerning this topic. Steen (2008) studied the attitudes and leadership practices of senior pastors in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference Churches in the United States and Canada. Steen had a sample size of 188 pastors. Steen also used the LPI as his survey instrument. Steen found that the pastor’s age actually has a correlation with the growth of the church, with the younger pastors leading growing churches, while older pastors were more likely leading churches that are in decline. Steen concluded that the education level of the pastor did not have a bearing on the growth of the church. According to Steen’s research, there was no connection with any of the five leadership practices in the LPI and church growth. Burton (2010) studied the relationship between leadership practices and church growth in two denominations: the United Brethren in Christ, and the Missionary Church denomination. He had a small sample size of only 76 pastors. Burton used the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) created by Kouzes and Pozner. Burton’s research did not show any significant correlation between any of the five leadership practices categories in the LPI and the church growth. He did recommend that a similar study using a larger sample size should be accomplished. Hagiya, in a (2011) dissertation for Pepperdine University, had a different result than either Steen or Burton. Hagiya studied high and low effective United Methodist Church clergy. Hagiya used a mixed-methods approach, using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) for the quantitative portion of his study. When reviewing the quantitative study results, it must be noted that Hagiya found a significant correlation between two of the five leadership traits: challenge the process and enable others to act; those pastors were also found to be highly effective. Hagiya also found, from his qualitative research, that highly effective pastors tend to be transformational in their leadership styles. Highly effective pastors in this study were defined as having a ten percent or higher growth rate for three out of five years (or more) of ministry. Four of the six dissertations reviewed had the Leadership Practices Inventory at their core, which is the instrument used in the current study as well. Those four research projects, having sample sizes ranging from 37 to 188, all came up with significantly different results. Two of the projects showed no significant correlation between the five leadership practices and church growth, while the other two showed some relationship between pastoral leadership practices and the growth of their churches.
Due to the fact that all of the researchers concluded their studies with significantly different results, more research focusing on pastoral leadership and how that leadership affects church growth is needed. Church growth is the main quantifiable data leaders can use to measure effectiveness; therefore it should be the dependent variable in research going forward.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
The research design adopted for this work is cross –sectional survey and descriptive analysis on a randomly selected sample of the different categories of church leaders (Bishops, Pastors and Priests).
STUDY AREA
The study area for this research is Imo state in eastern Nigeria.The choice of Imo state as the study area is because since the creation of the state in 1967 and in spite of the movement of Abia state in the state creation exercise of 1991, it naturally enjoys the benefits of being the fulcrum of the eastern part of the country. Imo state is built with many roads, estates , government establishments, all kinds of private developments, schools, hospitals, theatres, shopping malls, hotels to mention a few. All these infrastructures are the handiwork of construction. As such there cannot be a better place to obtain data for this study.
SAMPLING DESIGN AND PROCEDURES
Having identified Bishops, Pastors and Priests as the target groups for the effective conduct of this research, one hundred and twenty respondents comprising of forty five Bishops, thirty five from Pastors and forty from Priests were randomly selected using stratified random sampling technique as a type of probability sampling in order to give everyone that falls into any of these identified target groups equal and independent chance of being included in the sample.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with the presentation and analysis of the result obtained from questionnaires. The data gathered were presented according to the order in which they were arranged in the research questions, sample percentage and pie charts were used to analyze the demographic information of the respondents while the chi square test was adopted to test the research hypothesis.
CHAPTER FIVE
FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Findings
The objective of the study was to know the role of the church leaders in growth and survival of the church. Findings from the study reveals that majority of the respondents are of the opinion that church leaders plays a vital role in ensuring growth and survival of the church. See table 7 above.
Another finding from the study reveals that a church will grow if church leaders are actively involved in the affairs of the church (See table 10).
Recommendation
The following recommendation is made from this study
Churches leaders should focus more in preaching the message of peace and harmony rather than church growth that is the order of the day in most churches today. Churches should also discourage diabolic means of church growth.
REFERENCES
- Abogunrin, S.O (1986). “St Paul’s Conception of Disciplined Leadership in the Nigerian Context” in S Ade
- Oluwasegun B.A. (2011) (ed.) Religion and Discipline A Publication of the Nigerian Association for the Study of Religions (NASR).
- Bible Org: “Qualifications for Evaluation of Elders and Deacons”
- Bae, K. (2001). Transformational leadership and its application in church organization.Ph.D. dissertation, Walden University, United States — Minnesota. Retrieved November 7, 2010, from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text. (Publication No.AAT 3005838).
- Bass, B.M. (1960). Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior. New York: Harper and Brothers.
- Carter, J. (2009). Transformational Leadership and Pastoral Leader Effectiveness. Pastoral Psychology, 58(3), 261-271. doi:10.1007/s11089-008-0182-6.
- Cohall, K.G., & Cooper, B.S. (2010).Educating American Baptist Pastors: A National Survey of Church Leaders. Journal of Research on Christian Education
