Economic Empowerment Programs for

Church Groups
1. Introduction to Economic Empowerment
This paper discusses some possible programs that can be used as a guide for church
groups that are called to an economic empowerment ministry. Faith groups are
spiritual and cultural institutions engaged in empowering the poor (Kojo Duffu
Yankson, 2011). Participation in economic empowerment is part of their religious
and cultural mobilization roles in regulating anti-social and self-destructive
behavior, and helping their members manage their finances, households, and
incomes. Most often than not, church members in poor localities are financially
excluded from the economy. This has more debilitating implications for the poor
than a focus on empowerment without capital formation intervention. Such
penalties sustained at life circumscription may prevent people from adequately
representing their localities and voicing their concerns on issues or decisions that
affect their lives. Churches become experiential grounds to redress these penalties
through economic empowerment.

Based on ongoing projects, a major goal of ministry is economic empowerment as

capital formation intervention in poor localities. An economic empowerment
ministry draws on the collective wisdom of a community for problem definition. It
elicited several diverse initiatives under a common broad purpose of reducing
economic hardship. Faith and community requirements to become benefactors were
espoused as concerns for manners and conduct with beneficiaries and within the
group. Operationalization was envisaged as securing the necessary qualifications of
individuals to lead and stabilize groups, such as acquisition of specific skills or
resources.

Some ongoing projects are church owned commercial enterprises - a There is a God
store - providing goods and services at market rates within the church building;
business development support to work groups or associations of over fifty
trade/food production groups composed of church groups, CDCs, and other faiths,
with business plans for funding; and lending to self-selected groups secured by
savings with weekly payments. Most would be Bible-based villages of capacity
building, with trained mentors, peer support groups, and techniques developed
using the Word of God. When both the capital formation and personal development
aspects of a program are correctly and adequately implemented, hoped for increase
of well-being would be more than "do it yourself" projects.

2. The Role of Church Groups in Community Development

Given the unprecedented global economic upheaval resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic and the profound effects on local communities, churches are becoming
more influential and engaged in advocating for social justice. As public curiosity and
awareness about churches and their societal impacts grow, it can be helpful to
better comprehend their contributions in fields like education, public health,
violence prevention, job creation, and industry attraction. Despite churches often
being considered institutions of spiritual care, most congregations already actively
work toward their members’ broader wellbeing through economic empowerment
programs. Broadly understood, economic empowerment refers to efforts to increase
startup rates or growth of small businesses or non-profits, increase pay rates for
low-wage jobs, and expand access to public, private, and philanthropic resources.
Economic empowerment efforts acquire their religious and spiritual grounding
from caring for the community's wellbeing, which is the fundamental role of the
church.

Economic empowerment activity is occurring in all major faith traditions and in

churches, synagogues, mosques, and other congregational institutions and
covenants, but almost exclusively at the grass-roots, building level. Most of the
churches involved in economic empowerment programs were established white and
black churches predominately serving poor people of color. Broadly, churches that
viewed raising income, entrepreneurial capacity, and access to resources as an
integral part of their mission—hence, who chose to initiate or sustain an economic
empowerment program—grew more involved with the economy. Many
congregations offer a menu of programs that equip their members and communities
with resources they would not have otherwise.

3. Understanding Economic Empowerment

Economic empowerment is a means through which individuals and groups obtain
the requisite financial credentials to effect positive changes in their lives much
needed for a more gainful living (Kapoor, 2019). Economic empowerment generally
refers to more than just increased income, it encompasses as well, greater access to
productive assets, inputs and services including land, credit, markets, education,
training and information. The absence of such assets/staples would in turn limit
women’s ability to generate income and wealth thereby adversely affecting their
operational net worth. In the face of limited social safety networks and support
services, poor women were forced to increasingly depend on themselves. They
formed women’s groups to collectively fight against oppression, exploitation and
injustice in family, work and society. Within the groups they were motivated to save
money for the immediate needs of their households, invest savings in income
generating activities, build upwardly economic and social links with the town,
banks, training and resource institutions. Later on the challenges of access to timely
credit for micro investment capital were taken to leaders who graciously offered
their valuable time, provided credit for self-empowerment and pledged support for
creating an enabling environment for the poor to access self-employment
opportunities.

Economic empowerment programs refer to the specific services offered to church

groups. They encompass various aspects of these services, including training
programs, offerings of grants or loans, and marketplace assistance. The specific
question at hand is whether church groups generally have skills in investing
financial resources (Kyernum, 2022). With regard to agricultural investments which
involve financial services, participants sometimes co-loan or co-give grants to
groups apart from the church community. In addition to providing more immediate
financial support for groups in need, funds are sourced through the church to
procure larger vehicles to be co-managed. Participants believe the funds will be
attracted to dividend-yielding church groups, thus spurring economic investment.
Nevertheless, there are concerns about these groups managing larger resources
effectively and prudently in the face of a church infestation of individual hopes for
wealth through the church, i.e. financial prosperity gospel through greed. With
regard to the current situation of food insecurity, church groups’ financial resources
currently lack investment vehicles in the immediate environment.

3.1. Definition and Importance

Economic empowerment programs among church groups have become a priority
socio-economic goal among church leaders, especially in economically
disadvantaged groups. This paper evaluates the role of the church towards raising
the economic status of the populace through these programs. The study relied on
primary data, through the use of structured questionnaires, and secondary data
through documentary sources. Simple percentages and frequencies were used in
analyzing the data collected. The study findings indicated that economic
empowerment programs like the micro-credit scheme greatly assisted beneficiaries
in enhancing their economic stability, with an indirect benefit to the church. The
study also revealed that unemployment and poor economic status among
parishioners remained public concerns among church leaders. It recommended that
church and faith-based organizations should embrace economic empowerment
programs, as lack of access to financial credit is a problem for individuals seeking
economic independence (Kapoor, 2019).

On many occasions in church leaders’ meetings, reference is made to the rising

poverty among church congregants. This concern is more visible among church
groups constituted by unskilled and disadvantaged individuals, with the Catholic
Church’s Women Organization and Knights of St. John’s International serving as
examples. These groups might hold a vocational training program, and at the next
assembly event, the topic of preoccupations surrounding these juvenile girls’ future
livelihood might arise. Unfortunately, these girls have only attended basic schooling
from primary to junior secondary and presently engage in a menial job—trading in
ground nuts, banana selling, pepper selling, etc. They have applied for relocation to
another town or elsewhere, but possession of the financial means to support this
relocation is infeasible (Kyernum, 2022).

3.2. Historical Context

Church groups and their members are among the worst that the world has to offer,
in terms of socio-economic development, hence the establishment of these
workshop programs. Such programs are expected to equip members with skills
training that would help them secure jobs (waged or self-employment). Four
programs were implemented for Ghanaian church members and their families. The
workshops were organized and implemented in terms of promotional/marketing
activities, pick-up, facilitation, training, fund disbursement, and performance
evaluation. The manner of implementation of the workshops was evaluated with
reference to the above-mentioned eight areas of implementation (Kojo Duffu
Yankson, 2011). The evaluation revealed the implementation of the programs by the
group as excellent, scope for improvement, adequate, and non-existent.
Recommendations were made regarding the cited scope for improvement and
inadequacies. The Ghanaian church is widely regarded as educated and influential in
social discourse. Church members are a cross-section of professional and academic
qualifications. Practices like tithing, fundraising, and leasing land for church projects
are, in practice, extensive. Nonetheless, church members, as well as their families,
are among the worst that the world has in terms of marriages, poverty, illiteracy,
crime, teenage pregnancy, and other anti-social behavior. In short, from mid-2009
to 2012, three church groups engaged in a consortium formed Economic
Empowerment Programs. Such programs are expected to enhance skill training with
a more holistic training and implementation approach. Participants are expected to
acquire practical skills training to secure jobs, and at least 50% of such people
should secure jobs after twelve months. The following church groups and
individuals came together as the consortium: Hope Adventist Church has about
three hundred worshippers. It is located at Kpeshie on the Tema motorway in the
Accra North conference and falls under the Seventh-day Adventist Church
denomination. Another is the Smart Professional Network, a group of professionals
working in various organizations and churches with the aim of developing personal
and collective skills to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency on the job. The
group reached the top of professionals in Ghana, with some members in the UK,
USA, Canada, and other parts of the world. They were thus able to find a reputable
consulting firm, employment and skills development organization, and workplace
psychologists to partner and facilitate the program. One consulting client another
university-based Orthodox Church praised a facilitator after a two-day workshop in
2009.

4. Types of Economic Empowerment Programs

Economic empowerment programs can be defined as inter-related sets of activities
designed to strengthen the economic capabilities of the individuals, groups or
organisations. They may consist of activities that improve the economic wellbeing of
vulnerable people either to empower them to take charge of their lives or to
integrate them into society more structure. Church economic empowerment
programs are an opportunity to use the church’s considerable asset base of human
capital, investing in the development of social assets in the community. The church
should therefore consider how it can better target its size, resource capabilities,
networks and people, to reducing poverty and thus legitimate access to new
markets (Kyernum, 2022).

Economic empowerment programs differ from agency action-oriented program in

coverage. The latter usually have as their context the specific activities which an
agency either encourages alone or with others: this context delineates direct
operational responsibilities. Economic empowerment program emphasizes
capacity-building of the institution to enable it to perform its long term tasks
effectively and refer to agency action to promote adoption of EEP, but it does not
compute with respect to agency tasks. Types of empowerment programs include
small and microenterprises development, savings and credit program, employment
development, training programs particularly skills training, linking to employment
and self-employment and skill transfers schemes. Church micro and small
enterprise programs include provision of support and training to various groups to
establish or develop small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) usually as a
cooperative. A gradual process where the ministry or the church starts with a small
business such as learning a little about hog-raising, some economic empowerment
programs undertake the rehabilitation and integrate them into local and national
economy.
Income-generating programs are initiatives that lead to economic self-sufficiency
through a church run business or cottage industry. From a church sustainable
development perspective, to expect a church to generate a lot of money is
unreasonable. It is therefore more reasonable to expect a church to use its
resources, transform them into income mothers and then support new social
development projects by qiounding out the seed capital, training or technical
assistance for the new proect.

4.1. Microfinance Initiatives

By July 2018, the number of listed companies in the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)
stood at 44, while some 9003 cooperatives had been registered by the Department
of Co-operatives. A number of public sector organizations such as government
ministries, institutions, agencies, department, state owned and commercial
corporations, banks and financial institutions, parastatal and quasi-public
institutions, universities, training institutions and local authority organizations had
initiated or been grossly involved in savings and credits cooperative societies to
provide financial services and to ensure economic empowerment of their immediate
members.

Some of such initiatives included Investment and Savings Society, Agricultural

Development Bank, Tema Oil Refinery, Ghana Prisons Service Staff Mutual Savings
and Loan Limited, Ghana Trade Fair Authority, Ghana News Agency, Ghana Water
Company, National Water and Sewerage Corporation Employees’ Union, Ghana
Investment Fund for Telecommunications, Social Security and National Insurance
Trust among many others. Though some church groups also participated in savings
and credit cooperative as observed in the Catholic Church of Obuasi, there had not
been any church group on the Ghana Cooperative Network registered under Act
171. In order to ensure economic empowerment of church groups, it was imperative
to explore reasons why church groups had not registered as a cooperative and the
ways by which they could set up their own cooperatives.

There was and currently exist microfinance initiatives which served rural
communities with the aim of promoting income-generating activities through the
provision of small loans to improve economic empowerment (Moinul Hasnat & of
Lethbridge. Dhillon School of Business, 2019). These microfinance institutions had
grown, but as they expand to new regions, their development was constrained by
the inability to successfully transition from group lending to individual lending.

4.2. Skill Development Workshops

Church groups can promote economic empowerment by offering skill development
workshops. These workshops enable participants to learn valuable skills that can
help them earn a sustainable income. The workshops can be tailored to the
community’s needs, ensuring maximum relevance and engagement.

I. Types of Workshop Ideas There are a huge variety of workshops that could be
offered on numerous themes. Consider the following skill categories and topic ideas:

- Agriculture - Organic gardening - Backyard herb and vegetable gardening -

Chicken-keeping - Meat-farming - Home-based businesses - Kitchen and food-
handling - Arts and Crafts - Sewing and embroidery - Screen-printing - Painting and
drawing - Making jewellery, Christmas ornaments, buttons, cards, decorations -
Scrap-booking - Building and Maintenance Skills - Small mechanic repairs -
Electrical repairs - Plumbing and general maintenance - Handyman skills - Business
and Education/Training - Time management - Record-keeping - Marketing and
promotions - Child education, tutoring, mentoring - Computer skill development -
Knowledge about available formal training programs - General Skills/Training -
Story-telling - Christian education and discipline - Local family, community,
marriage, culture history - Counselling opportunities, prayers, advocacy - First aid
and CPR - Cooking and baking - Hygiene and sanitation - Sewing

In consultation with the community, church groups can also create a public database
of skilled individuals who are willing to offer classes and demonstration workshops
on their area of expertise on a volunteer basis. This could lead to the development of
an extensive library of published trainers, facilitators, and teachers among
congregation churches.

II. Logistics of Running Workshops Several logistics decisions must happen in order
to prioritize and choose workshop ideas and implement a workshop schedule for
the following months or even years. Consider:

- Venue - How the church will advertise the workshops publicly to recruit students -
How the church will recruit teachers - Which church members will coordinate which
day’s sessions

As discussed, offering skills-development workshops can aid a community in

focusing on learning skills critical to livelihood, development, and self-sufficiency.
There are numerous ideas to consider, along with logistical decisions regarding
running the workshops.

4.3. Entrepreneurship Training

In response to the need for business training, several church groups recently
launched business classes. These classes are designed to inspire entrepreneurship
by providing teaching on how to start small businesses and act as a source of
information linking potential entrepreneurs with Business Development Service
providers. Workshops on how to write proposals for obtaining microcredit are
included. The church believes that it is critical that those unable to start businesses
because of lack of resources or the knowledge to write proposals to obtain loans
should not be forgotten. Instead, the church intends to assist these people to acquire
the necessary skills to apply for loans and start small businesses. Accordingly,
intensive entrepreneurship training should accompany the establishment of
microfinance initiatives (Nyeberah. Munhuweyi, 2007). Training, in general, is a
development process aimed at changing human behaviour and attitudes by
imparting information and/or skills. Economic improvement involves providing
opportunities for individuals and enterprises to obtain the requisite skills and/or
education to make use of the business environment. In this way, some knowledge-
building strategies may be considered which involve workshops, dissemination of
information and regular circulating of material and issues on business operations.
Furthermore, training may also consist of development of individuals to be able to
make optimal use of development strategies and tools available to them and hence
bridging social gaps. Perceptions of training may differ according to culture, political
attitudes and human resources availability. Some individuals may view training
merely in terms of formal qualifications and/or short seminars, whilst for others,
training may mean hands-on exposure and mentoring over a longer period. In
general terms, however, training is considered a means of developing human
resources. For the most effective functioning of development organizations, both
formal education and appropriate forms of training are necessary.

5. Case Studies of Successful Programs

The Church of Uganda Development Coordination Office has developed a three-tier
microfinance approach targeting church leaders, lay members, and rural
communities. The impetus for this approach was the closure of the Uganda
Cooperative Savings and Credit Union Limited due to fraud, and subsequent calls
from dioceses to reestablish a Church-wide microfinance program. To meet this
need, the DCO adapted a two-tier model developed during a successful pilot in the
West Nile Region to a new three-tier structure that would seek to establish micro-
enterprises within dioceses and parishes. The approach is currently being piloted in
a single diocese.

The three-tier church-led microfinance model comprises a diocesan and parish-level

religious organization microfinance strategy to provide credit to entrepreneurs.
Para-professionals at the church wider level are trained to assist in formation,
savings mobilization, and lending. Capacity building is important to bridging the
policy gap at the diocesan and parish levels, and assisting various church group
segments in microfinance fund mobilization and management. Village-level trust
groups are formed with voluntary membership, typically more than half women.
Group formation includes five days of business management and record keeping
training, and introduction to social capital, productivity, and savings principles.

In Tanzania, many church organizations are engaged in fighting poverty. The

Lutheran Church in Tanzania has partnered with local NGO networks to conduct
agricultural training, health education through home-based care programs, low-cost
housing and sanitation projects, community development programs, women’s
groups in rural churches, and work with HIV/AIDS activities and Orphans and
Vulnerable Children programs. The church believes they can find a place of
partnership with government, private sector, and donor agencies to prevent social
dislocation and collapse of the community while creating demand for increased
participation. The church believes that they should advocate for the poor to
recognize their dignity, facilitate a new world view centered on hope, and support
processes that empower people.

5.1. Case Study 1: Community Kitchen Initiative

The Community Kitchen Initiative is a pilot project aimed at establishing community
kitchens in rural areas with a high percent of Catholic Church members and low
economic support for families. The initiative started in 2021 with the installation of
the first community kitchen in Utekahiti and continued into 2022 with installations
in Igbokiti, Ibajay, Nobunata, and Ballay. The initiative turned out to be productive
and beneficial for low-income families. It created job opportunities and ongoing
activities, as the first with multiple outputs was thoroughly used for cooking, baking,
and food processing. The success of the initiative prompted the Catholic Church's
Office of Social Action to continuously conduct research on various approaches and
fund proposals to implement community kitchen initiatives along with input
incentives to sustain its operation, which also provides consumer protection and
guaranteed supply for beneficiaries in the first place. There are also parallel
initiatives by other organizations that share similar concepts but differ from the
Community Kitchen Initiative, especially in the focus on providing food accessibility
rather than food sovereignty. The Catholic Church's Office of Social Action decided
to adopt a Community Kitchen Initiative approach as a model to report on other
organizations' initiatives. It developed scope reports over a series of discussions as
the basic points of view and directions for documenting. The reports will be used to
explain the process and results of the Community Kitchen Initiative to other
organizations and civil society organizations so that successful experiences can be
shared and duplicated for wider impacts. The scope reports from the activities will
serve as a reference base and points of concern for further developing and
documenting the project. This report is one part of the documentation that focuses
on the community kitchen as a space for community engagement activities,
including community empowerment meetings. The reports on the other activities
will follow in the upcoming months (DOCKS at Appalachian State University &
Schroeder, 2006).

5.2. Case Study 2: Women’s Cooperative

In Tigray, Degua Tembien, Doyogena, a town and sub-district of the Doyogena
district, resides the women’s cooperative Abano Ludi. Six leaders govern the
cooperative, and ten members are all married. These women have a shared vision
called Doyogena, with the ultimate purpose of assisting one another by providing a
unique service for the rest. This is due to divisions in which members of the
cooperative would contribute to a pooling service and take turns receiving this
service. Each service with different amounts would take place at an agreed-upon
time and date. They had other shared goals, such as educating their children,
controlling their children’s education, and working together in applicable
circumstances. Additionally, they have started focusing on the empowerment
programs’ sustainability, governance, and entrepreneurship with the help and
direction of (Tesfamariam Sebhatu, 2015).

Doyogena/Menahil’s needs were analyzed by reviewing intervention documents

and cooperatives’ objectives, and the needs were grouped into three segments,
namely; policy implementation issues, cooperative improvement issues, and
awareness and capacity-building issues. The cooperative improvement issues
curved into creating a distinctive identity, mobilizing ongoing savings, creating an
additional incentive fund, and providing ongoing price-checking and negotiation.

After reviewing the resulting needs, 9 interventions were designed, 3 for each issue.
This aided a staff brainstorm to group the interventions into 3 categories.

1. Workshop: Doyogena was given two workshops. One aimed at visiting a

successful cooperative, and the other at its governance role.

2. Mentoring: This segment had a consistent check-in between the established

mentor and the cooperative’s leaders to review development and improve
governance and savings.

3. Direct Support: This segment consisted of providing the cooperative with price-
checking tools and negotiation skills to help them cope and disseminate
benchmarking elsewhere. The sessions brought the results of ongoing coveted
bargaining in respect of labor time, consumers of egg, a chicken, and informing
board the printing of member’s shares/publication.
Doyogena began to mobilize ongoing savings and built a prize fund for internal
lending from this fund. Using these pioneer interventions, members’ motivation to
mobilize both indirect and direct savings create a distinctive identity, and there was
continued price-checking and convincing cooperation outside Doyogena.

6. Funding and Resources for Programs

The funding and resources necessary for economic empowerment programs can
come from diverse sources local and beyond. Some approaches for funding are
discussed in more detail below.

Some local grant opportunities include local organizations that accept grant
applications from diverse organizations focused on economic development and
empowerment. Similar opportunities exist across the nation for organizations
working in a variety of fields to create positive change. Many church organizations
are already registered with local boards, which opens doorways to funding that can
aid programs focused on economic empowerment. Local NGOs can also be resources
and opportunity channels for the potential programs, as often organizations serving
similar demographics may already have relationships with donors interested in
supporting rural communities’ empowerment.

6.1. Grant Opportunities

Economic capacity-building programs can be funded by grants from secular and
faith-based foundations, non-profit organizations, and government agencies that
have either an explicit interest in empowering communities or a larger agenda for
broad-based economic revitalization, cultural preservation, and leadership training.
To assist your church in finding funding sources, the following annotated list of
funding resources was compiled. In addition to these grants, since good data
supporting a program proposal helps to convince funders of a program’s
importance, church members may wish to investigate the availability of social and
economic conditions data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Given its enormous scope,
the Census Bureau is likely to amass a great deal of interesting information that may
be used in grant applications. Church members are encouraged to think through
how they can use Census data as part of the initial proposal process. However, a
significant number of churches in Philadelphia were not counted in the previous
Census, and, therefore, making use of these data may require special
outreach/education efforts into low-income and immigrant congregations.
Nonetheless, the data should be available for all congregations once new
churches/members are accounted for. Understandably, the majority of potential
private and public funding sources listed here have a general focus on poverty
reduction and the needs of the urban poor rather than a faith-based focus. The
funding sources chosen for this list generally limit their giving to one specific region
—often the metropolitan Philadelphia area (and, in some cases, even more
restricted) and generally have a much larger deadline to proposal submission.
Church members are encouraged to seek out similar local, national, and
international grant sources. These informal and less structured avenues may yield
as many substantive proposals, possibly with fewer applicants than more prominent
sources. Furthermore, the allocation of small amounts of seed money can be
particularly fertile areas for initiating water-testing programs elsewhere. In
addition, some of the funding sources listed here have a somewhat general focus on
the economic issues of the poor, with an emphasis on thereby-assisted grassroots
development. However, the majority of grants won from these sources have been
used to finance current programs that are not in direct economical relocation to the
church-imposed goals. It is hoped that these grant sources may nonetheless prove
useful in persuading church insiders to examine issues of poverty and to formalize
proposals to address them.

6.2. Partnerships with NGOs

Research shows that church groups often work with special non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) that help them obtain funds. Many groups who receive
assistance from these organizations call them their partners. Special organizations
have started providing church groups with fund-raising opportunities they can use
to help the poor in recovering from loss or to improve their livelihood (Kyernum,
2022). Such partnerships should help groups learn more about dealing with formal
organizations that provide funds in a complex system of applications, accountability,
financial reporting, and monitoring of projects. Hopefully, groups will learn
something about management from these opportunities, at least if the organization
provides real follow-up visits and interactive training.

On the other hand, there is concern that NGOs may want too much control, requiring
high levels of organizational skills and keeping too much profit without providing
training or motivation for groups to do fund-raising themselves. Large outside
organizations also may work differently. More equipment may be provided
sometimes but without appropriate training. The local organizations may care more
about making money through funded projects, resulting in group leaders being paid
professionally while volunteers no longer work for the group for free. Churches that
are being sidelined by such groups are also concerned. What is the best way for
church groups to cooperate with NGOs?

It is not an easy question, and church groups are still seeking answers. Hopefully,
this study will help groups to choose wisely between different opportunities and to
negotiate potential partnerships more knowledgeably. The greater the potential
funding for projects is, the more transparency is needed on how aid is dealt with.
Most church groups feel that only few dioceses have sufficient time for these kinds
of arrangements. Many perceive a lack of interest or at least some inattentiveness
towards ongoing projects that former non-funded groups with partnerships would
require to be monitored. Whatever issues are considered important for such
strategies among church groups, this study wishes to steer the discourse further in
that direction. One such need is adequate data on the presence and working of
special organizations in the area to help groups make well informed choices about
partnerships.

7. Challenges in Implementing Economic Empowerment

Programs
Faith-based institutions have taken the initiative to become involved in community
development activities as a response to poverty. Focus streets, homeless shelters
and food banks that assist the impoverished and high-risk youth, from head start
programs to after-school tutoring have been founded in communities across the
country. Faith-based institutions are seen as partners in this extensive effort to
build a stronger social safety net. (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011) Several challenges to
establishing Church Economic Empowerment programs can be delineated along the
lines of the clergy, the laity and social conditions.

From the perspective of the clergy, one of the challenges faced by faith–based
institutions is collaboration. By their nature, faith–based institutions have a built–in
“collaboration” component. Faith institutions are often the only “room” where the
diverse groups of a community congregate. As natural domain experts, or agents of
primary socialization, they have mechanisms for information sharing and
dissemination and know the social conditions that confront congregants. They
mobilize constituents through social faith and are able to engage in joint ventures.
Despite this disparity in prescriptive/actual doctrinal roles in the community, there
are many more aspects to collaboration (or barriers to successful collaboration) in
setting up economic empowerment programs than can be discussed here. An
understanding of the economic conditions of the target congregants is also
instrumental in designing and implementing successful programs. Of course, the
“target” congregants may be at risk youth or their parents, which raises the whole
question of acceptable outreach parameters, methods and practices.

From the perspective of the laity, there is considerable dissonance between faith–
based programs that are offered as service to the community and the actual
implementation of these initiatives. Economic Empowerment programs are few and
far between. Indeed, they are sparse in youth service agencies, in maternal support
and in family monthly rental space. It is in part the failure of faith–based institutions
to deliver services that has resulted in a prescriptive role regarding social efficacy of
faith–based institutions. This failure is paradoxical considering the built–in
advantages that faith–based institutions have in establishing and sustaining
economic empowerment programs. From the problem of corruption in clero-
parishioner transactions and the misuse of funds to biases in a top–down approach
to design and implementation, many of these environmental elements exacerbated
by adverse social conditions exist outside the purview of these faith–based
institutions. (Kyernum, 2022)

7.1. Funding Limitations

Church groups face significant financial challenges when planning and
implementing economic empowerment programs, which is one of the major issues
they must address before starting and continuing the programs. Although church
groups often have the ability to raise funds for community empowerment programs,
early-stage funding to launch these programs is consistently a struggle. This initial
funding is a key determinant of program success in the early stages. Programs
founded on inadequate funding cannot launch, fund the necessary staff, or pay
employee salaries as required. Even if community programs manage to be
implemented with limited funding, efforts would still fail within a year or two, as
there would be no funding to pay employee salaries, program costs, or any other
necessary expenses.

Although a comprehensive study on the need for funding mechanisms and

structures was not an objective of the overall study, gaps in funding and
partnerships were still highlighted as significant issues in community
empowerment programming. Funding for church programmatic efforts is
exceedingly limited compared to the need for partnerships, programs, and funding
requests. Whereas funding requests to secure income-generating programs were
made as early as 2007, only five programs were funded, and the rest were left to be
funded outside of the church budget, through ministry partnerships. Outside of the
planned worshiping of the church and other outreach and initial community
programming, most programs wait on requests and interested organizations.

Opportunities for funding mechanisms for both income-generating employment and

community projects where the community comes together and partners to address
items would meet two critical needs. First, there is an immediate need for
partnerships to help fund community needs and programming. Second, significant
advancement in church funding is still needed for a source of funding for economic
development programs, including grants and new partnerships. Formal funding
partnerships and sources such as full-time grant specialists, mentoring connections
to outside ministries and other organizations, grant writing classes, and new
connections into the community and new perspectives on community needs would
be an asset for all of these programs.

7.2. Community Resistance

Churches tend to resist a scope that is too comprehensive in the community
development process (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). They may say they are too
distracted by their ministry obligations. This resistance takes the form of objections
rooted in a sense of identity. For example, the church is the spiritual point of
reference for persons in their lives, and the notion of agency contradicts this. Or the
knowledge that brings about development should come from the educated and
those with experience. Finally, the church questions the results and outcomes of
change. The community transformation process is perceived as farfetched.
Alternatively, a church may simply see that when the poor become rich, the rich will
not be evangelized. This group capital will seek to develop outside the church.
However, since God is universal, this is very wrong because he may or may not give
the church capital, depending on its use of that capital towards God as opposed to
against God. The church must see itself as not just the recipient of these
developments but also the agent and steward.

When establishing an empowering program, churches frequently overlook the

importance of community organizing. If community groups are to be empowered, it
is important that they unite and become involved in the decision-making process,
through joint actions, education, and integrating responses to their community
concerns. In such instances, this resistance takes forms such as, “To call our
community to action; Would it not be better to call the mayor to do something about
everything?” Another form of resistance is, “Our community is satisfied with what it
has, and they are not ready for change.” Alternatively, “Even the fire department
does not respond until there is a call made; who are we to tell people the name of
their problem?” This line of argument would quickly remind the church group of its
failure to sensationalize the community and that the church would not be a cash
cow. The church must also consider the process of empowerment a stepwise
process that will come to fruition in stages, with results developing further on down
the road.

8. Best Practices for Church Groups

Improvement of Community Mathematics Improvement Initiative. The food security
project run by members of the church provided food and sold food to the church
members. This saw our church shave off the total debts it was owing, funded the
church roof, funded the bride to be paid to a church member, took care of funerals,
and funded donations to mission stations. Individual members of the congregation
invested funds into economic empowerment programs that yielded employment. A
member by the name of Suh Nelly was able to start a ‘Dr. Suh’ pharmacy in the Main
Street area of Kumasi. This pharmacy aided the community’s access to drugs nearby.
This pharmacy went on to employ two group members in the same parish and four
other drug specialists and pharmacy production personnel. Within a short time, the
initial investment of Ghs300,000 for the pharmacy began to yield returns of
Ghs200,000. With this success, this same woman went on to invest into agriculture
with the expansion of her revenue to purchase a plot of cocoa land at Ekwamkrom,
near Sekyere, Kumasi.

Some of the church group members pooled Ghs500 each to find oxyguard. This sale
of drug for farming over a period of three months netted Ghs14,100, which was
subsequently kept as a church savings. The impact of this church group’s is being
felt elsewhere. Larger corporations who sell road construction material in Kumasi
offered a cadre of church members lucrative deals. Over a period the church
members received profit yields of Ghs34,080 for second-hand roads quantified by
(Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). In another delivery of corrosive chemicals for
electricity generation, a church member received a total of Ghs80,000 in profit.
Building contractors received deals for projects costing GC Berko.

Applications at the Perkins School for the Blind involve the introduction of a handful
of low-tech utensils to serve at every meal. The utility of these utensils saves time
and physical energy while utilizing sensory motor functions. A multiple plan ensures
the contact of several senses at once; a very low-tech computerized method allows
cumulative talents amongst children with varying degrees of functional vision. This
is in use in many state-run and public pre-school programs in the Boston area and is
thoroughly adaptable to young blindness.

8.1. Engaging the Community

Much of what is being proposed for the local churches seemed unattainable. To start
with, they (the local churches) were very skeptical about their financial and human
resources and were not convinced of their capacity to implement impact initiatives
on their own. But there is a saying that goes, “What you cannot afford to buy, you
must engage the community to help you do so.” The local churches were taught and
trained in community mobilization/arranging/networking/initiate efforts (this may
involve mobilizing other local churches in the area who might have similar
concerns). They were trained that they ought to educate their communities about
the issues they would want to address and ask for the community’s input on how
the issues ought to be addressed. Community meetings/town hall meetings, brain
storming groups, focus group discussions were undertaken using reinforcement
strategies such as having the local churches’ leadership teams providing the vision
and legitimacy for the undertaking, etc., tailored to fit the particular situation. This
would build trust and ownership and provide opportunities for community
members to contribute. The proposed strategies were to build on already existing
community assets and capacities, such as well-intentioned youth leadership in
search of a meaning of life. Parenting support groups were formed, and networks of
mothers with the capacity and resources were invited to help other disadvantaged
mothers struggling with financial, psychological and material needs of caring for
their children. Various community initiatives, ranging from those addressing
individual families, youth, and community groups were spearheaded by local
churches, following up on the efforts made during community mobilization phases.
New initiatives around socio-economic empowerment of individuals and groups
were also proposed and groups formed to take on the initiatives propelled by
economically viable business plans (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). There was an
outpouring of suggestions about community initiatives that would run for about
three to five years and could significantly reduce community opposition to drinking
alcohol.

8.2. Measuring Impact

A random sample was drawn in June 2015 from a list of respondents who
participated in several earlier surveys administered in Kumasi, Ghana. Contact was
made either in person or over the phone, and interviews were conducted with those
who could be reached. Aside from the studies’ sampling requirements, no other
specifications on who could participate were made. Ninety-one churches in the
initial recruitment round were visited as part of 129 church groups in Kumasi. Two
churches on the recruitment list were no longer operational, two were not willing to
participate, and one’s personnel were unreachable. Because some church groups
encompassed congregations which were training as part of a faith-oriented business
program run by a non-profit organization, these groups were excluded as well.
Ultimately, sixty-one churches were randomly chosen for participation.

Forty of the church groups in the treatment group received access to an

Empowerment Program and were loaned laptops preloaded with the video
curriculum for delivery to the congregation. Treatment group church leaders were
also invited to attend a half-day seminar led by the principal investigator during
which they were given advice on delivering the curriculum and setting up loan
groups. A separate church leader from each of the treatment group church groups
received access to the video curriculum. Using a pre-tested survey instrument in late
June/early July 2015, trained enumerators collected survey data with church group
members on a separate schedule than treatment group church groups underwent
the distribution of the intervention. The leadership training and distribution of
video materials began in early July 2015 and was completed by the end of
September 2015. All treatment group church groups operated the video curriculum
for six months after receiving the intervention. A large number of participants were
consistently involved in delivery at too-late-to-count churches, and implementation
followed a wide variety of formats.

Endline data collection was undertaken in March 2016 in conformity with baseline
data collection to fully replicate the experimental setup from the baseline. In
addition, enumerators who were observed to be easily mistaken for students were
mindful to wear a shirt and tie. Income and spending data were collected from
church group members to compare before and after data in two crucial areas:
business activity income and non-durable spending.

9. The Role of Faith in Economic Empowerment

Faith-based organizations are unique among societal institutions in their reliance on
motives of a spiritual nature. This was aptly captured as "Faith and hope lie at the
roots of both institutions and ethical action." Church groups, as part of faith-based
organizations, have been confronted with various challenges in the West African
sub-region as well as globally, challenges that have equally transcended the
boundary of countries in the region and the western world: church and public office
conflicts and corruption of church members, abuse of church power, non-
accessibility to church services especially among members of lower socio-economic
status, and dwindling revenues (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). It is believed that the
church’s role in development requires addressing the above issues first, and faith-
based organizations are seen as key actors in addressing social needs at local,
regional, national, and international levels.

Yet, the faith of church members and life variables also affect the successful
implementation of any program/initiative of the church. In the West African sub-
region, challenges stemming from the non-peaceful cohabitation of Islam and
Christianity, and practices detrimental to social empowerment exist. These include
the proliferation of churches; the neglect of holistic empowerment (spiritual,
economic, social, health, political, and governance); abuse of church power; and
divorce, all factors that are common with Christian churches in West Africa.
Nonetheless, considering faith as a motivator and (consciously) effecting a turn-
around in the values or motivation of church members can positively empower and
uplift the quality of life of church members.

The processes of community engagement, community need/project identification,

capacity assessments, asset mapping, fund raising strategies, project proposals
writing, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and community/group ordinances
developed/promulgated can comfortably align with biblical values when
contextualized and cascaded down to sub-groups and individuals in the church.
These processes, which have been widely used in the Western world to
economically empower groups/communities and result in group/member
upliftment, when imbued with aspects of faith, can significantly enhance the quality
of life of church members.

9.1. Spiritual Motivation

The rationale for this research study stems from the need to address poverty in the
African-American population in New Orleans. Many faith-based organizations
provide religious certifications for eligibility, along with food pantries and domestic
violence shelters. They also provide funerary and outreach services. On all of these,
women exercise between 60-70% of participation. These measures, while meeting
basic and spiritual needs, may not help people get beyond survival mode. Programs
addressing job skills, finances, and developmental intelligence can help them gain a
better quality of life.

The general leadership community in the New Orleans area has come to realize that
educational/statistical data about the local economic situation and contributions
have proved useful to evaluate healing programs. Offers to facilitate training
sessions on various financial issues are made as a group, so that residents do not
perceive any bias or uninvited scrutiny.

The historical, socio-economic, and geographical contexts of the intended area of

ministry form the basis for the project’s implementation and direction. The
congregations that will be best suited to fulfill this plan are those with some
established “strategic ministry” expertise. A keen interest and zeal for offering this
employee empowerment opportunity to families in crisis is needed. It is anticipated
that experience in planning an anticipated six-week series of classes will be
beneficial.

The target community consists of the West Bank and Suwanee Parishes. Together
with Myers Street, St. John, and LaPlace churches, the New Dimensions Church was
established to meet on Wednesday evenings at the church building in Belle Chasse.
The goal is for financial empowerment workshops to be held bi-monthly, with the
Providence Church and possibly the Trinity Church participating.

No faith-based organizations addressing financial empowerment opportunities have

been identified. While various organizations in New Orleans provide financial
counseling, outreach, and support, they are primarily secular. From conversations
with representatives from the local churches, it is understood that they are not
aware of any faith-based organizations offering such programs. Survey data
collected from these churches on the topic are promising. Given the rural nature of
the community, not many organizations have been accessed for input on the topic.

9.2. Ethical Considerations

Most development programs, including church-based enterprise and economic
empowerment initiatives, create multiple dilemmas for decision-makers. As will be
illustrated in this section, churches do not enter into these initiatives with blank
slates; instead they are influenced by a history of politically, socially, and
economically motivated decision-making. Churches face a number of choices,
including those related to the company’s nature and purpose, the church’s goals and
mission, the church’s investment in the enterprise, and the target groups for
economic empowerment.

Churches and leaders involved in enterprise development must develop a clear

mission statement regarding the church’s desire, ability, and responsibility to
engage in enterprise development. There is the potential for deception,
mismanagement, sowing discord, and exploitation in church-based entrepreneurial
initiatives (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). Church leaders should strive to minimize
exploitation and deception on the part of all concerned. Open accountability to the
church as a whole for prayer, advice, and financial decision-making is essential, and
business plans should be evaluated as carefully as plans for spiritual initiatives. In
addition, care should be given to the choice of advisers and whether they can truly
be trusted and whether they have the church’s interests at heart.

No doubt the creativity of some business plans will demand a more flexible
understanding and application of ethical considerations than some others will, and
implementation may need to occur more quickly as changes occur. If church
enterprises grow too fast or too dramatically, they may become corrupt or lose
touch with the church’s priorities. Accountability can easily slip into a rigid,
mechanistic approach that stifles creativity and quirks. Many elements of enterprise
development may be ethically more problematic than others; for example, the
church should be careful to avoid engaging in enterprises that attempt to take
advantage of members’ low education and skills, or of their attraction to pyramid
schemes.

10. Future Trends in Economic Empowerment

As more faith-based organizations (FBO’s) establish programs with the goal of
economically empowering those that are underserved it is vital that congregational
leaders at all levels understand the overarching principles that will allow programs
to thrive and best serve congregants, the local and global communities. Many church
groups are faced with challenges when implementing economic empowerment
programs due to a lack of knowledge that allows for a comprehensive approach in
the concept of economic empowerment. There is a lack of recognition on the part of
religious leaders of the importance of understanding the community and economic
context when convincing congregants of the need for social or economic
empowerment. In addition, certain faith-based organizations are more or less
predisposed to develop economic empowerment programs. Some are firmly rooted
in ministering to the spirit and some are more recent arrivals to the economic
empowerment landscape. Addressing these aspects of economic empowerment
programs will help add a nuance that will enable local church groups to have a
greater impact as they seek to enhance the lives of those that participate.

There is a need for congregations to undertake a larger view of the context that is
limiting the opportunities for their congregants and communities, whether local or
global. More than poverty alleviation is required in planning economic
empowerment programs. Programs need to seek convergence between the
community’s strengths and weaknesses and the goals of organizations
implementing the circuit of program and service. This will lead to deeper
understanding of the community context because the interim leads to a better
understanding of the overall environment (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011).
Furthermore, the goal of any religious organization should be seen not just as the
provision of one-time services that alleviate the surface problems, but a
commitment to undertaking an array of programs that will in combination enhance
the opportunities for the underserved.

Some religious organizations may harbor a certain degree of anger towards the
government and other community organizations that can provide characteristic
input but do not understand the level of information required. There is a need for
religious leaders to be nurtured in the understanding that institution building,
resource mobilization, and program development takes time and that government
agencies, businesses, and funding organizations may not be receptive to the same
programs after repeated failures to deliver inputs. This often creates a vicious cycle
that makes it impossible to better the opportunities for the underserved. Funders
are unwilling to fund again, religious organizations become angry, and
congregations continue to suffer.

10.1. Technology Integration

The achievement of church-based goals such as the alleviation of poverty, the
fostering of moral values, and the nurturing of spiritual growth, can be enhanced
through the implementation of economic empowerment programs. There are two
key reasons for the implementation of church group economic empowerment
programs. First, there is a biblical imperative to implement economic empowerment
programs targeted at church groups. This biblical imperative can be captured in the
commandment for the church to show kindness to “the poor among the children of
Israel.” There was also a duty assigned to all Christians to financially assist
churches; Christians have a duty to ensure that the underprivileged are not left
behind in the socioeconomic growth of the evangelical Christian church. Second,
economic empowerment programs have had a positive impact on other church
groups (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011) and can be expected to impact benevolent
works and the growth of the evangelical Christian church for the better.

The church should be committed to seeing that its members are economically
empowered as a means of facilitating the activities of the church that glorify God,
enhance lives, and practically demonstrate the love of Christ. The desire and
commitment should be reflected in the formation/affiliation and/or implementation
of economic empowerment programs targeting church groups. Target group
evaluation forms for these economic empowerment programs have been provided
(D Wellington, 2017). These evaluation forms should be administered to ascertain
the context and needs of specific church groups who are to be targeted or because of
whom these programs are to be established. There will be a need to design
economic empowerment programs, both generic and those targeting specific church
groups, to meet the real needs and context of specific church groups. The economic
empowerment programs should train members on how to start and run businesses;
this training will lead to people learning how to fish instead of simply being given
fish. There will also be a need to regularly evaluate the implementation of these
church-based economic empowerment programs and to make any necessary
adjustments.

10.2. Sustainability Practices

The Economic Empowerment Program has, over the years, gained a good level of
popularity among churches in Ghana. However, to keep the church groups in the
program, key interventions to improve its performance and address issues of
sustainability and leadership have to be pinpointed for action. It was observed in
the analyses that though the fund remained with the churches, and ministerial
functions were carried out without supervision, there was minimal default in
repayment of loans. With regard to sustainability measures adopted, church
leadership was primarily tasked with mobilizing resources and reporting to the
guides. There was little refined advice, supervision, and accountability exercised
over the operation, leading to the slow development of these programs into socially
conscious corporations. This reinforced the need for an intervention (Kojo Duffu
Yankson, 2011).

The emphasis of the proposed framework for interventions is to build the capacities
of the church leadership to be able to engage with the fund and the non-church
members for accountability and supervision of the church eco-business agents.
Some of the goals of the interventions are for participants to be able to put church
economic empowerment in the right perspective, understand the good and pros and
cons of socially conscious corporations, and be able to mobilize their sustenance
creatively by the end of the capacity-building seminar. They should also be able to
put social accountability mechanisms in place and enforce them in their ecclesiatic
realities by the end of these engagements.

Economic Empowerment Programs are dealing with a new breed of church

institutions that will convert funds given into socially responsible microbirthing
programs in rentoir communities within the church groups. This, in turn, creates
sources of income and jobs that will empower the people spiritually and materially.
The church group will be mobilized to access the funds from the mother church
level to undertake the programs and be made socially conscious with a socially
accountable governance framework.

11. Policy Implications and Recommendations

In recent decades, church groups have sought to expand their programming to
better serve their constituency and communities. This movement has led to the
exploration of a variety of new programming concepts and their study in those
ranges of church effectiveness (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). It has become
increasingly clear that unmet human needs in the form of both "spiritual hunger"
and "physical hunger" are pervasive. Church groups are feeling impelled to do more
to address unmet human needs. Efforts to provide engaging programs must also
explore the spirituality side of people’s programming needs and provide activities
that encourage people’s spiritual growth and pilgrimage toward an intimate
relationship with Jesus Christ. Churches are ever anxious about exploring
programming which do not undermine their central mission to reach people with
the gospel of Christ. Staff members of churches remain ever hope to point out that
both community service programs and spiritual programs are capable of winning
souls for Christ and being supportive in helping church members to grow spiritually.
While program options in the spirituality side are growing better known, it is
believed church groups have a good deal to learn from researchers and colleagues
about successful community service programs.
The realization is growing that trust can be placed in the personnel of leading
community service programs to not go down the secularization path of the modern
community service movement: namely, to quickly lose contacts with the spirituality
side of need fulfillment programs. Leading community service programs have
historically sought to balance the spirituality side with the physical side of need
satisfaction programs. The community service side of programming fits with and
can be supportive of church group members’ spirituality growth and pilgrimage
toward a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. By any measurement and in
any way it can be quantified, community service is a growth field for church groups:
it is more complicated and expensive, and it is new territory which has not yet
yielded rules of thumb for effective programming.

Community service programming fills this essential and growing unmet need in
church-life programming. In the coming decade, world religions face the reality of a
demographic and perspective revolution. With the passing of the baby-boomer
generation will come a vast need for church affiliation, church programming, and
the community service programming which can fit that need. Church groups will
also contribute to meeting these needs and will have successful leaders with many
invited to become mentors in this new field of programming.

11.1. Advocacy for Supportive Policies

Many faith-based organizations have advocated for active collaboration among
government regulations and policies, foundations, and the private sector for the
development of church-based empowerment programs. Through an empowerment
education approach, many congregations can collaboratively empower their
members with decision-making knowledge and skills, workshop experiences,
options for economic livelihoods and development concerning development issues,
wide collaborative networks with and among the affected community through
effective service, and advocacy for active collaboration among governmental
regulations and policies. Faith-based organizations have eschewed divisive
sectarian proclamations in favor of calls to action that are inclusive, constructive,
and mobilizing concerning issues of community development, economic
empowerment, and adequate housing. Collaboration is insisted on as an essential
principle in a new economy advocacy, as many solutions can and must be crafted
from the bottom up with a commitment to receiving input and counsel from
community members on an ongoing basis. Elected officials and public servants need
to be treated as partners in co-leading a collaborative process for the well-being of
the community. Canceled subsidies and tax exemptions will be tenaciously sniffed
out, and public servants will be pressured while on the job and thereafter, until just
before the Lord’s return. Fearful of unintended consequences of this super charge to
the empowerment strategies, organizers insist on fostering mutually supportive
collaboration among clergy-translators, clergy-academic partnerships, and public
policy advocacy pathways for the interested community membership. To empower
church members as economic engine sustainable resource groups concerning
income-generating activities and resources, many denominations have been
established with a supporting group of churches made necessary for the
sustainability of their income-generating activities. Decision making members have
been empowered with “a healthy economic literacy”. Issues of recycled, repaired,
and refurbished clothes and shoes from church congregations for sale, are a core
need into which all previous church development and income-generating activities
have been set in churches across Africa facing a slew of economic, social, and
environmental issues. Providing opportunities for social safety nets for livelihood
improvement in their community is desired. These urban churches are aware and
concerned about the dire effects of economic globalization in their societies and
worried for the youth and the church congregation members of the fateful path
being drawn for them and the poor counties’ futures.

11.2. Collaboration with Local Governments

Church groups are often established in rural areas and have the potential to engage
in economic services geared towards promoting the socio-economic life of their
members. The communities also have the physical, human, financial, social,
agricultural, institutional, and time resources required for the sustainability of
income-generating projects. The collaborative sets of roles of church groups,
individuals and community members will assist in developing economic
empowerment programs for church groups in rural areas. These Programs are
modelled through the following collaborative strategies: orientation workshop,
inculturation, collaborative partnership and marketing strategies. It was discovered
that church groups will adopt these collaborative strategies to promote the socio-
economic empowerment of their members. The church groups, along with the local
and district councils and other partner organizations, should give collaborative
support to church groups in order to establish economic empowerment programs.
This is key to alleviating poverty and livelihood insecurity. There is sustainability of
the church groups, by enhancing the members’ socio-economic life, increasing and
diversification of income sources, and improved self-reliance (Kyernum, 2022).
Churches are composed enlisted members, necessarily organized in local churches,
and categorize into districts and dioceses. Economic activities of the church refer to
the financial generation of the church’s income, mostly conducted at the local
churches. These activities may be classified into formal and informal. The informal
economic activities include farming, bakery, or retailing of food and household
consumables, while the formal activities include leasing of church land or premises
for events presenting a potential source of income generation for the church.
Through these diverse economic activities, a church organization collects offerings
and tithes, rents, and revenue for the organization’s activities, managing to redeem
spiritual and social mission projects. In rural areas where many churches are
concentrated, investment capacity, thought of church leaders to generate income,
financial expertise and values, and vested land and assets where many socio-
economic engagements exist, the church is expected to engage in income-generating
activities and duly benefit from such engagement. Effectively running any church
economic ventures is of great importance to properly benefit from any economic
activity undertaken, since negative results from any economically viable venture
diminish the church’s credibility, esteem, and reputation in the eyes of congregation
members and the general community.

12. Conclusion
It is a known fact that most churches and church-related organizations always have
women involved in one church or another. Women in general are also among the
chief participants in church events (Kojo Duffu Yankson, 2011). Women usually
shoulder the church and community burdens. It is usually a woman’s heart to serve
others in times of needs. What started as a posting in a social page quickly got out of
hand; contact information kept flying in from family and friends of family with
requests asking how to make donations, how to help? Surely one of the major
churches in the city was going to help them out. On the other hand, the EMS failed
almost as quickly as it started. Follow-up phone calls with the church secretary
proved fruitless as, month after month, the church either stated how donations were
coming in or moved the event to a later date. In the end, the inception of this nursing
home ministry brought about confusion, disappointment and hopelessness.

However, this project was not all for naught. As a first step, a committee was
established. Invitations were sent to close friends, family, and people who had
expressed previous interest in helping the needy in the community. Free cheese,
crackers and soft drinks were offered to embolden attendees. The goal of the first
meeting was to establish a steering committee. After the introductions and
explanation on how the first meeting would proceed, everyone present was asked
what was bothering them personally or in the general community. From the many
responses, one was eventually chosen for the project: helping the single mothers of
the city. This meeting was followed by further emails to find out more about these
mothers. On what level were they being economically empowered? Would the
program be worthy of their attention? What could a church offer to help them?
Would they even be interested in participating if something was offered to them?
Would they even want their identity as single mothers—their ‘weakness’—to be
publicized?

References:

Kojo Duffu Yankson, S. (2011). Industry-based Ministry: A Pilot Project at the New
Dimension S.D.A. Church. [PDF]

Kapoor, S. (2019). Entrepreneurship for Economic and Social Empowerment of

Women: A Case Study of a Self Help Credit Program in Nithari Village, Noida, India.
[PDF]

Kyernum, N. (2022). An Appraisal of Church Economic Activities towards Rural

Development in Benue North -West Senatorial District. [PDF]

Moinul Hasnat, M. & of Lethbridge. Dhillon School of Business, U. (2019).

Empowering women through microfinance: an evaluation of MFIs influence in
Bangladesh. [PDF]

Nyeberah. Munhuweyi, P. (2007). Entrepreneurship and freedom : a social

theological reflection on the church and small business in Zimbabwe.. [PDF]

DOCKS at Appalachian State University, N. C. & Schroeder, K. (2006). A Feminist

Examination of Community Kitchens in Peru and Bolivia. [PDF]

Tesfamariam Sebhatu, K. (2015). Determinants of Women Empowerment in

Cooperative Societies A Survey in South Eastern Zone Tigray Region of Ethiopia.
[PDF]

D Wellington, R. (2017). Technology Training For Administrators And Pastors In

The Greater New York Conference Of Seventh-day Adventists. [PDF]