The Influnce of The Church Leadership on Members' Commitment tot Christian Discipline: A Study Sub County Pentencostal Churches

Abstract

This study aimed at finding out how Church leadership influenced members towards commitment to Christian disciplines. The specific objectives were to find out the influence of Church leadership on the Christian disciplines of; intake of the word of God, prayer and fasting, fellowship with the brethren, and giving. The study location was Thika Sub-County in Kiambu, and was carried out in Pentecostal Churches. The study targeted senior pastors and church members. The study employed the cross-sectional descriptive survey design and data collection tools were questionnaires and interviews schedules. 'Purposive sampling was adopted for selecting Pentecostal Churches and senior pastors, while stratified convenience sampling was used to select the members. During stratification, only members who had been in such churches for at least one year were considered. The sample size consisted of churches, senior pastors, and members. Qualitative data analysis was used with qualitative data while quantitative data was analyzed quantitatively by use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that Church leadership had influence on members' commitment to the Christian disciplines of intake of God's Word, prayer and fasting, fellowship with brethren, and giving. All of the variables included in the Pearson correlations such as: commitment to the discipline of the intake of the Word of God, prayer and fasting, fellowship with brethren, and the discipline of giving indicated significant relationship. The study recommends that due to the significant role Church leadership has on members' commitment to Christian disciplines, churches should come up with strategies and planned schedules in order to train and help leaders and members to embrace such disciplines. Further, the study recommends that a similar study be conducted on the influence of Church leadership and commitment to variables of Christian disciplines not explored by this study such as the discipline of witnessing. Similarly, a replication of such a study in other counties and also in other churches that are not Pentecostal is recommended.