Abstract: Many churches in Kenya have been plagued with a history of fighting, sometimes leading to horrible church splits. Therefore this project sought to put to rest the speculations into the conflict resolution in Churches in Uthiru Ward, Kiambu County in Kenya. Specifically, the objectives are to establish how power and control struggle conflict affect the Conflict resolution, identify how material issues/greed conflict affect the Conflict resolution and determine how ideological/theological differences conflict affect the Conflict resolution. The project applied a descriptive design. The population of the study was constituted by pastoral ministers from Pentecostal churches in Uthiru ward, Kiambu County in Kenya. The total number of these staff from the respective churches databases were 30 and due to the small size of the population, a census was done. Primary data was collected using questionnaire that was developed by the researcher. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis while quantitative data was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics of percentages and frequencies. On power struggle conflicts, the study indicated that it was evident that struggle of power in church was due to a number of reasons. Majority of the pastors indicated that control of finance as a cause of power struggle. On greed, the respondents indicated that finance was the major cause of church greed since every party wanted its share. Most of the Pentecostals churches lack guidelines and procedures on how finance should be budgeted for, thus its misuse by the pastors. On ideological differences, majority indicated that different interpretation of the scripts was a factor that caused ideological differences in churches while a few stated that lack of unrealistic expectations from the scripts was a factor that caused ideological differences. Many churches have been plagued with a history of fighting, due to greed, power struggle and ideological differences; sometimes leading to horrible church splits. Church conflicts are creating a battleground for power struggles of various factions thus victimizing the congregation, sabotaging the pastor’s leadership and church progress. Thus the study recommends that the adverse training and guidelines for severance benefits on the clergy is needed to enable them handle conflicts in church in case any future conflict is pastor –centered.
Keywords: Power and control struggle; Material issues/greed; Theological differences.
Title: CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN CHURCHES IN UTHIRU WARD, KABETE CONSTITUENCY, KIAMBU COUNTY
Author: Thandi, David Ndiba, Ombui, Kepha
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3164 (online), ISSN 2348-3156 (Print)
Research Publish Journals
