Utilization and effectiveness of pastoral counselling in the management of conflicts in mainstream and Pentecostal churches in Nakuru County, Kenya.

Abstract

The church is supposed to be a vehicle for crusading and enhancing peace, yet the occurrence of conflicts within the Kenyan church has become a regular occurrence. Efforts have been made to ensure that these conflicts are resolved and part of the strategies is the utilization of pastoral counselling as a way of managing conflicts in the church. However, the effectiveness of the pastoral counselling utilized has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to investigate how pastoral counselling was being utilized by pastors and how effective it has been in managing conflicts in mainstream and Pentecostal churches in Nakuru County of Kenya. The study used ex post facto’ approach and causal-comparative research designs. The target population was all pastors and their assistants in the selected Mainstream and Pentecostal churches totalling to 219, together with all the congregants in the selected mainstream and Pentecostal churches who totalled to; one million two hundred and thirty seven thousand and ninety one, (1,237,091). A total of 219 pastors and their assistants and a sample of 364 church members from mainstream and Pentecostal churches were selected for this study from the accessible population of (6900). Self-scoring questionnaires were used to collect data from all the respondents (pastors/priests and congregants), these were also complimented by use of focus group discussions. The reliability of the instruments using Cronbach’s Coefficient alpha was 0.81 for the congregants’ questionnaire and 0.85 for the pastors’/priests, questionnaire. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics (frequency counts, means and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (t-test and chi-square) with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 software. Results indicated major types of conflicts as: interpersonal, intrapersonal, financial, health, and ideological. The average number of conflicts affecting the church members varied between 1 and 5, with majority of the members experiencing at least three types of conflicts. The research also revealed that pastors utilized eight different counselling techniques: prayers, negotiation, diplomacy, conflict management workshops, concession, arbitration, and mitigation to manage conflicts in their respective churches. Within the Pentecostal churches, prayers were the most common technique utilized, while negotiation was commonly utilized within the mainstream churches. However, methods involving professional counselling techniques were rated the most effective in resolving conflicts by more than half of the members. The study therefore concluded that; professional pastoral counselling was utilized more effectively in managing conflicts by mainstream priests than the Pentecostal church pastors; while biblical was utilized mostly by Pentecostal pastors than their mainstream counterparts. The study recommended that there is an urgent need for pastors in Pentecostal churches in Nakuru County to undergo professional pastoral counselling training to improve on the quality of their professional counselling knowledge and skills.