Abstract: The title of the study is ‘Spiritual
Leadership Capital: A Theology of Poverty in
Congregational
Development’. It is a study which tried to understand how Ghanaian
Pentecostal spirituality informs their leadership paradigms towards
addressing poverty in their
contexts.
The basic assumption of
this study is, Pentecostal congregations can be a force to help
Ghana
address poverty if they are missionally built-up and have
cultivated spiritual leadership capital
(SLC).
The research
problem is, do leadership in Ghanaian Pentecostal congregations
have spiritual
leadership capital (SLC)? (Chapter three outlines
SLC). What has been the Pentecostal
understanding of poverty, have
they a sustainable missional (practical) theology of poverty?
(Chapter 4 outlined this). To what extent could their having or the
lack of SLC, help or prevent
them from developing missional
congregations which are able to theologically address the
problem
of poverty? (Chapter two addressed missional theology). In what
ways might the
adoption of SLC in congregational development by
Pentecostals contribute to the addressing of
poverty in Ghana?
The study is in the broad disciplinary area of practical theology,
and specifically under the subdiscipline
of congregational
development (ecclesiology). The Researcher advances ‘spiritual
leadership capital’ (SLC) theory, which he argues provides inner
virtues which spirituality
affords people, shaping them with
resilient leadership paradigms that contribute to the formation
of
social capital for the sustainable addressing of social problems
such as poverty. It comes to
enrich earlier theories on social
capital.
With the main concern of this project being missional
theology as regards leadership in
congregational development
within the context of Ghanaian Pentecostalism, researcher contests
that, SLC can be used to address questions posed to the church and
the world by the problem of
poverty. The word ‘missional’ has been
understood within the missional conversation to have a
bigger
scope than missionary activity. Leadership’s understanding of
mission must determine the
structures and systems of a missional
congregation. Using Osmer’s (2008) four task practical theology
approach to research, SLC comes as a
practical theology of poverty
in congregational development. Using SLC in view of the backdrop
of Nel’s (2015:273-278) congregational analysis, contextual
analysis and diagnosis; the
empirically the study looked at the
Church of Pentecost, Assemblies of God Church, Ghana, and
Global
Evangelical Church. Its aim was to understand their concept of
being missional and how
they see poverty within the scope of their
ecclesiology and how SLC can improve their praxis in
this
direction. The researcher draws on historical lessons from the
spiritualities of historic
pneumatic Christian movements, such as
Quakers, Moravians, Huguenots, and Puritans in
overcoming poverty.
And as part of SLC, argues transformational diaconia, as a
missional
response to poverty beyond existing social…