A Discipleship Programme for the Pastors of the Northern Conference of South Africa

Abstract

The researcher noticed in his life as a district pastor, as well as in his years as Ministerial Secretary for 65 pastors, that an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is the only thing that can safeguard a pastor from failure. This is also shown in the Bible with the giants of faith – Abraham, Daniel, David, etc. Too many pastors lose their way or resign because they are not true disciples of God. In doing the research, the goal was to develop a program that pastors can follow to ensure a long pastoral life. From the researcher’s perspective, a sign of a true disciple of the Lord is someone who regularly takes part in spiritual disciplines, such as Bible study, prayer, stewardship, etc. In conducting the research, the researcher decided to use pastors in the conference where he served as the participants in the research project. The group of pastors (N=65) filled out a questionnaire at the beginning of the study, the different interventions followed in the next eighteen-month period, after which the pastors again completed the questionnaire. The results were then analyzed and collated to form the intervention for a discipleship plan. After doing the research, the data was collected, and the results were compared. The researcher hypothesized that the improvement in the time pastors spent in the different spiritual disciplines as outlined in the paper would then give rise to the fundamental premise of a spiritual discipleship program. This research was not considered futile, as it could have been that the time for the intervention implement was too short due to constraints on the researcher and participants. This research study and results could form a foundation for use in further study into the topic of improving and enhancing the spiritual well-being of pastors in their districts. It is generally realized that determining spirituality is not an easy task. In conclusion, to fully realize the potential benefit of the intervention more time should have been given for interventions to continue. As pastors are typically assumed to be at a high level of spirituality, it will, therefore, take time for them to hear, assimilate and implement the different aspects of spiritual maturity into their own lives. A control group of members should have been used to get the comparison between pastor and member spirituality.