Organisational leadership, women and development in the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe: A practical theology perspective

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Organisational leadership, women and development in the Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe: A practical theology perspective
 
Creator Kwaramba, Joachim Dreyer, Yolanda
 
Subject Practical Theology Women; Gender; Church leadership; Practical theology; Pentecostal
Description This article focusses on women and the organisational leadership structures of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in Zimbabwe. The aim is to identify the roles, practices and contributions of women to the developmental agenda in the church. The AFM in Zimbabwe identifies leadership positions in their various assemblies as pastor (mufundisi), elder (muvhangeri), deacon (muparidzi) and lay worker (mubati). From these ranks, the provincial and national leadership is chosen. The access to and participation of women in these offices and leadership positions will be investigated to ascertain their input to the development of the church and perception of women in the society. The article discusses the mechanisms for the election of leadership in the AFM in Zimbabwe. It analyses leadership succession and leadership roles within the AFM in Zimbabwe from the perspective of gender equity and the involvement (or lack thereof) of women in policy-making, decision-making and the management of the church. Four aspects of the Exploratory Descriptive Normative Action research (EDNA) model were utilised from a practical theology perspective. The article shows that women do not have access to top leadership positions in the AFM in Zimbabwe even though there are no explicit policies that regulate their exclusion. It highlights their contribution to the development of the church despite this exclusion and engages critically with the unspoken assumption that women are not fit to take up the presidium offices and develop the AFM. The article finds that unquestioned patriarchal discourse contributes to women’s invisibility, which results in their not being taken into consideration when choices are made to elect people for higher leadership positions in the church.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor None
Date 2019-11-29
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Literary Analysis
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v75i1.5436
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 75, No 1 (2019); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5436/14173 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5436/14172 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5436/14174 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5436/14171
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Joachim Kwaramba, Yolanda Dreyer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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