AGENCE CISA

OPINION: Church Workers Happier When Charity Begins at Home
By Henry Makori

In his new book on ministerial formation in Africa today, Aloys Ojore of Tangaza College in Nairobi quotes a student who dismisses off hand the church’s commitment to the poor. “It is actually the poor who have made a preferential option for the church, since it is they who support the church with their little incomes!” Preferential option for the poor is a principle of Catholic Social Teaching which urges Christians to give the poor priority.

In a sense, the student’s comment is ignorant, cynical or even anti-church. Across Africa, there are many people living today who would be long dead had the church’s compassionate hand not reached out to them with food, water and medicine. Very many other people would be illiterate, unskilled and jobless. The church (including the many poor Christians who support various initiatives with their talents, time, prayers and little incomes) is present everywhere on the African development landscape.

That said, the student’s assessment is, however, illuminating. It offers food for thought when one looks at the church not only as a community of believers but also as an organization whose performance and management style can be critically evaluated. For the church is also one when it comes to management practice.

At a recent Eastern African workshop in Nairobi, Catholic scribes raised the issue of their working conditions. “Even as the church preaches justice and peace, paying just wages and respect for basic human rights, most of the professionals working in church organizations are dejected and unable to make ends meet,” a Malawian Catholic journalist said.

How true is this allegation? A Kenyan journalist with a church media house once told me that the church generally seemed to expect lay people to work for it without pay. Another worker wondered what sense it made for churches to engage in year-round charitable activities when their own workers were practically starving. Exaggerations perhaps, but it is undeniable that there is a high turnover of employees in church institutions.

A former church worker told me: “Your church boss thinks your salary is just for you alone. He never considers that you have many obligations to family and relatives and that you have ambitions.”

In the past week, I have separately heard from two dejected church employees (without going out to look for them for this article.) They described how they are fed up with their little salaries in addition to the suffocating management style at the workplace. They no longer enjoy their work and only turn up at the office every morning because they must stay alive. They are desperate to leave.

Well, it is doubtful there is a workplace under the sun where all employees are living their career dreams. But people expect the church to be a better employer than the government or private business. After all, churches are not motivated by profit or praise but by love of service. And they need no tutorials on how to value the human person.

Of course, there are practical limitations. Church organizations in Africa are mostly dependent on overseas donations and cannot pamper their workers. But this is no reason to pay people peanuts. Income generation to finance mission activities has not been adequately explored. Plus, one look at some bosses lends little credence to that beloved sob story about lack of funds.

But perhaps the most frustrating thing for lay professionals in church service is the awful management. Today, organizational leadership is a skilled task requiring high levels of training and attitude change. Only a competent, open-minded and fully engaged manager can lead a team of professionals to not just deliver targets but also find personal satisfaction in their work.

Yet one still finds that fossilized, stifling practice where ecclesiastical schooling is all one needs to be appointed head of an institution or department. Many highly competent and conscientious lay professionals are frustrated by this glass ceiling.

It would be hypocritical of the church to preach justice and peace, and proclaim a preferential option for the poor, while every evening its own workers return home to their families sullen and unsure of themselves. The church needs their skills and enthusiasm for effective evangelization. They should be compensated adequately.

[Mr. Makori is the CISA Editor. The views in this article are personal.]