Communication in a Church and its Implication for Church Growth: A Study of the Methodist Church Ghana, Tema Diocese.

Abstract

Communication in the workplace is a vital management component to any organization. This applies in no small way to the Church as an organisation, although few academic studies have focused on communication and its relationship to church activities and development. The aim of this study was to examine the internal communication activities of the Tema Diocese of the Methodist Church Ghana and their implications for the growth of the Church within the Diocese. The study is guided by the media richness theory and the organizational information theory with a qualitative research design that used interview data from 8 officers of the Methodist Church Ghana in the Tema Diocese. The respondents included a bishop, lay chairman, pastors, stewards, and lay members to generate knowledge through their opinions on the communication structure, internal communication activities and their impact on the Methodist Church Ghana of the Tema Diocese. The study discovered that the Methodist Church Ghana’s communication structure connects lay members in the church’s societies to the presiding bishop at the national level. This communication structure is modelled after the church’s organogram and reporting structure, which prescribe the path for administrative correspondence and planning at the society, circuit, diocese and connexional levels. It was also found that the church’s communication activities are designed to flow through two main paths from the society level to the connexional or national level. With the church membership divided into classes and organizations in each society, communication can flow from each class or organization through leaders to the circuit, diocese and connexional levels. The informal approach has to do with members informally routinely approaching any church staff such as steward or minister in charge with a grievance or issue. Lastly, it was seen that effective communication has contributed to church growth on an individual society level. In spite of the positive observations made, it was also found that some pastors at the society level occasionally breach the laid down communication process when dealing with some matters. Also, the it was noted that even though the church has a structured communication process, it is unable to control how information flowing from one party will affect the receiving party. It is recommended that pastors in each society make efforts to deliberately teach lay members the church’s communication structure and process so members will know who to approach on any matter. In addition, this study provides a Pioneering perspective on the subject and can be referenced in future studies.