Praxis Note No.

47

Faith-Based Organisational
Development (OD) with
Churches in Malawi

by Rick James with CABUNGO staff

Cartoons by Bill Crooks

July 2009

Praxis Note 47: Faith-Based Organisational Development (OD) with Churches in Malawi © INTRAC 2009 1
 Faith-Based Organisational
Development (OD) with
Churches in Malawi
Rick James with CABUNGO staff
Church-based development work with church-based organisations
organisations are distinct from secular needs to take them into account to be
effective. They include:
NGOs. They have particular
• Formal governance
organisational features. These are the
• Informal relationship with religious
source of their potential value added, institution
but also their major challenges. Good • Beliefs and development strategy
organisation development (OD) • Leadership and culture
needs to be tailored to these specific • Staffing and recruitment
contextual characteristics. But faith- • Systems
based OD goes even further. It
integrates the faith of the client and
in some cases the consultant to
promote change.
This paper is based on practical OD
consultancy experiences of CABUNGO
and INTRAC with more than 20 church-
based organisations in Malawi between
2000 and 2006. It analyses the common and
particular organisational challenges that
church-based organisations face and
explores what should be different about
OD with such organisations.
Complementary research was carried out
with Islamic FBOs (faith-based
organisations) in Malawi, published as
Praxis Note 48 ‘Capacity building with
Islamic FBOs’.

Particular features of church-

based organisations

Our OD experience with Malawian church-

based agencies demonstrates that most How do these characteristics resonate
exhibit specific organisational features. with your own experiences of working
While these characteristics may not be with churches in different contexts?
wholly exclusive to church-based
organisations, they do imply that any OD

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 Formal relationship – Identity right answer as to the appropriate
and governance relationship. There are costs and benefits to
all models. It depends on factors such as
The relationship between a church the: theological understanding of
development agency1 and its religious development and the role of the church;
institution is critical. Being part of a wider age, size, phase of growth of FBO; the
faith structure gives church agencies vital structure of the church; denominational
comparative advantages in development tradition; personalities and behaviour of
work. These include an extensive leadership; type of work; and source of
community reach and influence on peoples’ funding.
behaviour through their legitimacy and
constituency. But it also brings Ultimately, however, whether the formal
disadvantages, as we shall see. relationship is effective depends largely on
the informal enactment of this relationship.
The formal aspect of this relationship is
articulated in the legal governance structure Informal relationship with the
but is also informally enacted through religious institution
interactions between the church leaders and
the development agency staff. The Christian faith (like others) teaches
explicitly about the importance service to
Three common models for relating are others, self-sacrifice, integrity, trust and
illustrated below: forgiveness. This Biblical teaching provides
strong guidelines a mutually supportive
relationship between the church
Religious FBO Religious development organisation and its religious
Instn. Institution mother body. In reality there are powerful,
FBO
inherent tensions that need to be
Religious
Institution
acknowledged and consciously worked
through if the relationship is to be
FBO
productive. Any organisation, however
faith-based, is still staffed by people with
human tendencies towards jealousy, greed,
fear and pride. Our experience revealed
Development work Development Development work
within the religious work partially outside of religious common tensions in the areas of:
institution. within religious institution . • resources
institution.
No separate legal Registered as an • power
registration operating Some level of independent legal • recognition.
as a development independence of entity, like an NGO. It
department. governance. May may be linked to a
have own legal number of religious Resources:
registration under institutions. In most of the church-based organisations
religious we have worked with there are tensions
institution.
between the church and the development
office over resources. This may be worse in
In reality there is a more nuanced spectrum resource-poor settings. At an individual
of relationships, with some church-based level there are significant salary differentials
organisations a hybrid of different models. between clergy and development workers.
Our experience suggests there is no one The development agency has greater access
to vehicles and other assets. It is not
1
Called ‘agency’ for purposes of simplification
uncommon for the Bishop, the leader of the
though it could be a department, programme, whole church, to have no transport to visit
project, office or organisation.

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a congregation, while vehicles stand ‘idle’ at Malawian church development agency with
the development office. legally constituted boards, there is a
tendency for them to be treated by the
church leadership at best as advisory and at
worst as rubber stamps.

Recognition with communities

Who gets the credit for the development
work is also sometimes an issue. Some
churches want to be seen to be active in
relief and development. This makes them
appear relevant and dynamic and therefore
more attractive to new members. For
example, one lengthy OD process stalled
when the clergy decided that they would
lose their identity as ‘a church meeting the
needs of the poor’ if they let the
development office become more
independent. On the other hand, tensions
can also arise the other way, when the
behaviour of the development agency’s staff
does not live up to the standards set by the
religious institution.

Beliefs and development

strategy
These common scenarios raise real tensions One factor that sets church development
over the direction that resources should agencies apart from other NGOs is their
flow – should the development agency pay faith and the links between their beliefs and
an overhead to the mother church body? the development work. Historically, faith
Or should the church give to the poor by has been the motivation behind much relief
supporting the development agency? Many and development work amongst the poor.
donors want to see the church institution Faith can also influence the methods used
contributing financially, but easily overlook to implement the development work, such
the significant contributions they make in as the use of prayer.
kind: through use of buildings; land; time
and tax-free status for example. While the As well as affecting the ‘means’, faith also
clergy argue for greater flexibility in the use affects the ‘end’ of development. Many
of its development office assets, such as church-based agencies may include spiritual
‘borrowing’ funds and vehicles, the development as a key element of holistic
development departments strongly states development – raising the thorny question
the need for accountability to donors and to of where spiritual development stops and
the beneficiaries. proselytising begins. Many church agencies
do not have conscious, coherent and shared
Power and control answers to such questions.
There are also often related tensions over
power to make strategic decisions, such as Church-based agencies face particular
appointing the director of the development challenges in strategy. Although this
office, developing a new programme or challenge is not unique to churches, it is
even controlling the finances. Even in often exaggerated by the faith base. Many

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religions encourage helping the poor, but observed that by using church structures
without detailing how. In consequence, they were missing out some of the non-
many church-based agencies have not Catholics. By simply making
rigorously thought through how change announcements in church services, church
occurs. By default they have taken a members were benefiting more.

Leadership and culture

Leadership in church-based organisations
can have an even greater influence due to
the extra dimension of spiritual authority
that is often vested in religious leaders. This
gives leaders greater opportunity to effect
or block change, both positively and
negatively. There is common perception
that: ‘religious leaders are closer to God
than we are. If we question this person we
are questioning God.’ There are cases where
disagreements with leaders are harder to
resolve because of deeply held religious
views on leadership authority from God.

The particular personality of the religious

leader is therefore vital, as this extra power
can easily be abused. This is even more of a
challenge in a country like Malawi where
paternalistic and welfarist approach to
culturally, power is highly concentrated.
development.
Leaders are put on a pedestal by followers
and expected to behave like a ‘big man’.
Furthermore, church-based organisations
The hierarchical structures and cultures of
face particular challenges of strategic choice.
some religious institutions can further
Their compassion makes it very difficult for
exacerbate these tensions.
them to say ‘no’ when presented with an
obvious need. This can easily result in the
The resulting culture of the organisation is
development office becoming acutely over-
inextricably linked with leadership. In some
stretched and ineffective.
cases, OD practitioners in Malawi found
that it was more difficult to surface the
Church-based organisations also need to
underlying issues in church-based agencies
answer the thorny strategic question of
because such issues were private, in some
whether they work through the local
cases deemed ‘sacrosanct’. Church-based
church or implement on behalf of the
organisations in Malawi tend not to be very
religious institution?
open as they do not want to wash their dirty
linen in public. Airing organisational issues
By mobilising and working through local
to outsiders may be interpreted as gossip
faith structures there is greater potential for
and criticism, which are not deemed
impact, but such an approach also has
‘Christian’ behaviour. This was particularly
drawbacks. There are often problems with
true for smaller church-based organisations
capacity at local level to implement
where the church leader was also the leader
professionally and accountably. Local
of the development office.
structures may deliberately or inadvertently
discriminate. For example in one Catholic
diocese the development agency’s staff

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Staffing and recruitment Systems
Church-based organisations have the There is a considerable religious teaching on
potential advantage of people’s faith giving themes such as planning, accountability
them a sense of calling and vocation to the honesty, and stewardship. These emphasise
work. This can generate extraordinary the value of church-based organisations
commitment and acceptance of below- developing good systems. But the reality in
market salaries by staff. But having a faith- Malawi is that many churches have
base also raises specific and distinct undeveloped financial and human resource
challenges in recruitment. Church-based systems, adversely influencing church-based
organisations constantly grapple with organisations. While many NGOs in Malawi
difficult questions such as: If we are faith- also face such issues, church organisations
based does this mean that we need to hire can be worse because:
people belonging to our faith? Would this • Systems often require professional input
be discrimination? But if we hire people to set up and maintain, which many
with no faith or a different faith will this religious institutions cannot afford.
inherently undermine our faith-base? There • Powerful religious leaders often resist
are often no clear cut answers to these the development of systems which may
questions. curtail their power with unwanted
checks and balances on leaders.
Ensuring that the senior leadership of the • Accountability is seen primarily as being
development agency are practicing to God, not man.
members of the faith helps preserve the
• Management systems are sometimes
identity of the agency and maintain good
seen as ‘secularising’ and things that
relations with the religious ‘mother’ body.
quench the power of the divine.
Conversely, examples abound, particularly
in smaller church-based organisations in • Teaching about stewardship and
Malawi, of people with limited competence accountability is not common in
being hired, as the recruitment process paid Malawian churches.
undue attention to the need for the person • Donor-imposed systems that church-
to be a loyal member of the church. based organisations use are often
cumbersome and not fully understood.
Remuneration in church-based
organisations tends to be lower than in OD with churches in Malawi
NGOs, undermining professionalism.
Church-based organisations can find their OD with churches builds on good OD
salary structures limited by a board, who practice. It is fully professional in applying
want to preserve the sense of work as a the considerable mainstream learning about
vocational calling from God as well as what works and what does not in facilitating
maintain parity with clergy income. organisational change. But there are also
some important differences both in terms
Staff behaviour outside of work is another of OD content and process that make faith-
challenge specific to church-based agencies. based OD distinct. Failure to apply these
As representatives of a religious institution, distinctive features to our OD work in the
development agency staff are expected to past may have severely constrained the
set an example to the communities they effectiveness of OD interventions. The
work in. The private life of an employee is experiences of working with OD and
therefore often not deemed private by the churches in Malawi indicate that taking a
church agency. Contracts may address faith-based approach to OD involves:
drinking and sexual behaviour.

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1. Understanding the church development integration and holism as possible. The
agency as being an integral part of a necessary ownership of the development
wider religious institution and the work by the church leadership needs to be
particular implications that has for its differentiated from control by the religious
identity, governance and relationships. institution.
2. Including the wider religious institution
within the development agency change The less formal relationship issues can also
process. have a profound impact on the
3. Addressing common church agency effectiveness of the agency in achieving its
issues of strategy, leadership, culture mission. The opportunities and inherent
and management systems. tensions mean that the relationship has to
4. Exploring the meaning of what its faith- be actively managed to ensure these
base means to the church development tensions are mitigated (particularly in a
agency and the implications this has for context of declining foreign support for
its approach and its staffing. churches). Issues will continually arise.
5. Integrating the OD process with the What is important is to deal with them in an
faith of the client. open and forgiving way.
6. Applying the OD practitioner’s own
faith into the change process. In a faith-based OD process it is therefore
often (though not always) necessary to
1. Understanding the FBO in specifically address the relationship between
the context of the religious the church development agency and the
religious institution. Whether this is possible
institution depends on if the religious institution and
the development agency are committed to
One of the distinctive features of many addressing the issues. In one church
church-based organisations is that they are development agency we worked with, some
an integral part of a wider religious leaders felt it was easier to live with the
institution. It is important to analyse the ‘uneasy truce’ – the pain they knew – rather
nature of the relationship between the than ‘lifting their heads over the parapet’. If
agency and the religious institution(s) in any there is commitment, then it may be
initial organisational assessment process. valuable to jointly clarify and communicate
The complexity and sensitivity of this the different roles and responsibilities of the
relationship must make us wary of jumping religious leadership, pastors, trustees,
to quick conclusions about how it should boards, and development agency managers.
be. Many assessments highlight the obvious This process can produce a ‘Terms of
inherent tensions and immediately conclude Reference’ or ‘Social Action Policy’ that
that there should be greater separation serves as a reference document when key
between the agency and the religious people in the organisations change.
institution. In the long run, however, such a
course of action may lead to the church
agency losing its faith identity (in all but 2. Including the wider religious
name) and may mean that the impact, scale institution within FBO OD
and sustainability of working through process
grassroots faith structures are not realised.
Although many international NGOs prefer
A faith-based approach to OD therefore only to deal with the development offices
deals with the church agency as part of this and avoid relating to the wider church, to
greater whole. It is often valuable for faith- be effective change processes also need to
based OD to help institutions establish actively engage the wider religious
appropriate boundaries and clarify roles and institution. Even though this makes the
responsibilities, while maintaining as much change process slower and often messier,

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this wider involvement is critical for - Are they networking closely with existing
implementation. The religious leadership community organisations to avoid
are often imbued with considerable power inadvertent discrimination?
from their spiritual authority, often far - If they have chosen to work on behalf of
beyond their formal mandate. Private congregations, how are they ensuring that
the comparative advantages of grassroots
discussions with these religious leaders can reach and sustainability are not lost?
be pivotal in gaining their support for the
development agency’s change process and Leadership
channelling their leadership power in a – Who are religious leaders and FBO leaders
positive direction. Church development accountable to? What structures do they
agency change processes appear to work report to?
better when the change is directly linked to – What is their view on and vision for
the vision of the religious institution and development work?
– To whom do they delegate power?
ensuring that the development work fits the
– How are they developing future leaders? Do
overall vision. It is also necessary to link they see a future for themselves beyond
with the plans and strategies of the religious leading that organisation?
institution. For example, CABUNGO
found with one agency they worked with, Structures and systems
the strategic shift towards mainstreaming – How do these function?
gender was later overturned because it was – Do they fit with the strategy, phase of
growth and size of the FBO?
not in the published regional plans of the
– Are there established human resource
international church. management systems with job descriptions
and appraisal processes?
Engaging the wider church with OD – Are adequate financial systems in place to
• discussing the initial terms of reference provide management with information for
with the church leadership decision-making and donors with
• interviewing most Synod leadership accountability?
during the data-gathering
• having church representatives present at Staffing
the FBO Board/Senior management – What is the policy on recruitment?
Vision, Values and Strategy workshop – What is staff turnover like?
• discussing the Strategy Concept Note – What do terms and conditions say about
first with the Synod management board, expected behaviour?
even before the FBO’s staff – What motivates staff to stay?
• supporting the development of a Terms – What induction and training processes are
of Reference between the Synod and in place?
FBO as part of the change process.
4. Exploring the meaning and
3. Addressing common church implications of its faith
OD Issues identity
A faith-based approach to OD entails
Faith-based OD will analyse the common actively exploring what its faith identity
organisational issues of church-based means to the church development agency.
organisations. It will ask questions about: Faith is a vital source of motivation for
change (as well as resistance sometimes).
Strategy:
- How are they making strategic choices in
OD practitioners therefore need to actively
the face of extreme needs? seek to understand the faith of the client,
- Are they working through local especially if it is a different faith-base or
congregations or on their behalf? even denominational flavour from their
- How are they addressing issues of own. Without this understanding, it is
professionalism and accountability? difficult to discern the real needs of the

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client and decide when and how to OD processes with church-based
challenge the client. For example, a organisations we have used the Exodus
Christian, female OD practitioner found story to illustrate elements in any
herself unable to challenge an FBO client organisational change process. Using such
on their leadership and gender issues, imagery can energise the process. Using
whereas with secular NGOs, she had less such stories can go further to seek Biblical
compunction. support and theological justification for
changes being proposed. Yet there is a real
Asking about the faith-base is more than an danger of manipulation in this, that spiritual
initial cursory question, it is a theme to authority will be claimed for human
explore from different angles with different opinion.
stakeholders trying to find out what makes
the organisation unique. It involves asking Respecting the faith of the church
questions such as: development agency means that the OD
What makes you faith-based? What practitioner’s behaviour must be
does faith-based mean to you? What appropriate to the norms of that faith. This
have you faith in and to do what in behaviour may relate to a number of issues
development? How does this affect such as drinking, eating, dressing, or
decision-making? How does this male/female interactions. For example one
faith affect your development work Synod specifically wanted facilitators who
in practice? How should it? would not go ‘drinking in seedy bars at
night’ as previous consultants had done.
5. Integrating the OD process
with the faith of the client 6. Using your own faith in OD
Having better understood the faith of the Arguably authentically faith-based OD goes
client, a faith-based approach to OD then one important, but contentious and risky,
intentionally integrates the client’s religious step further. Faith-based OD may involve
practices, language and stories into the OD the OD practitioner articulating and
process to release more energy for the applying their own faith to the OD process
change process. It involves: in an extremely sensitive and respectful way.
• using the faith practices of client It must only be done in ways that maintain
• speaking in a language and with professional boundaries with organisations
images understood by that faith of different faiths.
• respecting the behaviour expected by OD practitioners are not there to argue
the faith. matters of faith with FBOs, but to help
them integrate their faith in their
Using the faith practices of client often
development work.
means including time for prayers. It is
appropriate and expected in many FBOs, Our beliefs influence how we behave, think
whether Christian or Muslim, to start each and practice OD. An atheist’s strong faith
meeting with prayers and in some cases in no God may affect how they work with
pray at the beginning and end of every FBOs from a completely different
session. It is important to find out what the worldview and spiritual frame of reference.
client expectations are in this regard and We all need to explore and question our
factor this into the programme design. own faith to see how it influences our OD
practice.
Faith-based OD is helped by using images,
stories, verses and language that the client If we are not highly self-aware in this area,
will readily understand and relate to from there is a possibility of inflicting our beliefs
their faith tradition. For example, in many on others, especially when working with

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 groups of other faiths or of mixed faiths. • staffing dilemmas –recruitment, outside
We need to ask ourselves: How does my hours behaviour, remuneration
faith enhance my values that I can be of packages
better use to the client? How might it • tendency to have weak financial and
adversely affect my work with the client? human resource management systems.
The authors have found many church
Our experience indicates that specific
development agencies are keen for us to
organisational challenges also require
integrate our Christian faith in our OD
distinct approaches to OD to be effective.
work with them. Some ways in which we
A faith-based approach to OD remains
have done this include:
professionally excellent, but situates the
change process within the context of the
Applying our faith in OD
wider religious institution; addresses the
• Believing that God can change the common FBO issues; explores how faith
organisation and create order out of the influences the FBO; integrates the change
chaos – trusting in a power greater than processes with the languages, stories and
ourselves to effect change. faith practices of the client; and involves the
• Praying and listening to God to try and
OD practitioner consciously, sensitively and
discern God’s will and way forward in the respectfully applying their own faith to the
organisation’s situation. OD process.

• Creating time and space in the OD What does your experience tell you?
processes for FBO staff to try and listen Are these findings unique to churches in
to God individually. During workshops we
Malawi?
have given participants time to pray and
listen to God before discussing questions
of direction. People have been reluctant to explore the
capacity building dimension of being faith-
• Following faith-based principles in the based. This may be because faith is a very
process of change, such as emphasising personal, sensitive and often contentious
the importance of vision and values, issue. There is a fear that faith-based
surfacing fears and giving time for capacity building will somehow slip into
repentance and forgiveness.
supporting the promulgation of those
faiths. Many stakeholders would like to
Concluding thoughts draw a neat line between the ‘faith’ and the
‘faith-based’ development work.
Our experiences have demonstrated that
there are important differences between This is clearly an area that needs further
OD with church development agencies and work and understanding in order to avoid
NGOs. Church-based organisations exhibit knee-jerk and divisive reactions. We need to
specific features including the: deepen these reflections with more rigorous
• formal and informal relationship research and broaden the reflective practice
between the FBO and the religious to include other faiths and continents. Faith
institution is certainly very personal, but it is far too
• advantage of being motivated by their important to human change and
faith, though this often means church development to remain private. In any
development agencies have more discussion of faith and organisation, a
difficulties in saying ‘no’ difference of opinion and interpretation is
• extra dimension of spiritual authority guaranteed, but these very differences may
ascribed to religious leaders means they uncover new understanding about our
have greater power to drive or block capacity building work and can be seen as
change opportunities for new learning.

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