Abstract
Churches in the twenty-first century experiences a crisis. According to Barna (1998:2) churches are:
Holding fast to programs and goals established by their charter members years ago. Many of these ministries have mastered the art of denying the cataclysmic cultural changes around them, responding with cosmetic changes that make little difference.
Subsequently the church is losing its influence in the world. One of the reasons is that the church is structured in such a way that it is unable to respond to its changing environment. Therefore, structural change in churches is continually debated and it remains a great challenge for churches to structure themselves in order to become relevant in the twenty-first century.
As a result, the proposed study focuses on the re-engineering of the leadership structures of the local Apostolic Faith Mission(AFM) church. In the AFM church, this debate was going on for over two decades. Whereas historically, the larger denomination developed structures and introduced it in the local assembly, they reviewed this position.
The purpose of this research is thus to investigate and describe how pastors experience their local church structures as well as to offer guidelines for effective structures to the Church.
The researcher conducted semi-structured, phenomenological interviews with eight pastors. The research question was: “How do you personally experience your local church structures?”
Dr. L.P. Mare