Abstract

Missionaries from Norway and Sweden were the founders of the Free Pentecostal Fellowship of Kenya, FPFK. Their main focus was to plant churches mainly in rural areas of Kenya. Local pastors now run these churches after the missionaries left. I take particular interest in doing an evaluative study of how these Western missionaries’ leadership style affected the local people’s leadership. My interest in this study is informed by the fact that, whereas these missionaries left the local pastors to offer leadership, they still have a bearing in the decision-making of some vital issues in the FPFK. Based on this premise, a number of questions linger in my mind. First, how did these missionaries perceive their call to Africa? Second, what was their interaction with the local people like? Third, what were the effects of their interaction with the local people? Fourth, what kind of leadership style did they adopt in running the church and how did it affect the local people? Finally, how should the local leadership run the affairs of the church? While seeking the answers to these questions from my informants, I discovered that these missionaries came to Africa in response to the Great Commission. They believed that being a missionary meant going to a distant country to preach the gospel. Their interaction with the local people was in some cases friendly but other times, judgemental. As a result of this, the local people were led to believe that only white-skinned people had the resources and were therefore rich by all standards. As far as the Church leadership is concerned, most of the local pastors took a back seat as they watch and listen to the missionaries giving orders and instructions. This kind of leadership style has had far-reaching implications on the way the local pastors administer leadership in their various contexts. The research is a combination of interviews of the local pastors, both young and old, and library resources.