THE CHURCH OF CENTRAL AFRICAN PRESBYTERIAN - BLANTYRE SYNOD

MISSION

The Mission of the Synod is the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of mankind; the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the promotion of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness and well-being of mankind. Different departments and institutions have been set with specific mandates to pursue programmes to achieve the objectives in order to fulfill the mission of the Synod.
In pursuance of its mission it is one of the Synod’s objectives to undertake any work promoting the physical, moral and spiritual welfare of the whole community. The concept of development the Synod believes should be the centre on addressing the physical, moral and spiritual needs of the individual and the community at large. To achieve this goal the Synod sets up different departments and institutions with the specific mandates to execute on its behalf programmes and projects that provide services to different communities in response to their needs.

DECISION MAKING LEVELS OF THE BLANTYRE SYNOD

As stipulated in its Constitution, the Blantyre Synod has provided fro the appropriate decision making levels in its structure in order of descending hierarchy, theses are:

• The Synod Conference
• The General Administration Committee (GAC)
• The Synod Management Board
• The Synod Executive Management

In terms of governance, the General Secretary is the Chief Executive Officer of the Synod. As such, he is the officer responsible for efficient functioning of the Synod and therefore accountable to the congregation of owners of the Synod through the GAC.

The Constitution has provided for two Deputy General Secretaries responsible for the following functions;
       i  Deputy General Secretary (Development), DGSD responsible for Education, Administration, Development,            Health and Communication and Advocacy.
      ii  Deputy General Secretary (Ministry Work), DGSM responsible for Mission, Evangelism and Interfaith, Women,           Music, Youth and Society, Finance and Stewardship.

This operational arrangement clearly separates the Ministry work of the Synod from the Development. This separation however does not divorce any of the two divisions from the Synod nor make one division more important than the other. This arrangement assigns one of the Deputy General Secretaries to be responsible for Development. This would under normal circumstances mean that all the departments and institutions dealing with development issues should report to DGS(D). It was observed however that in practice this is not the situation. What exists at the moment is that there is only one Deputy General Secretary and these institutions and departments would report to the GAC through the General Secretary of his Deputy. It is appreciated that both the General Secretary and his Deputy are kept very busy attending to very pressing day to day mission work. As a result the development functions which are normally not as pressing on day to day basis are somewhat compromised. This type of loose management arrangement creates problems of accountability at times as no specific person feels responsible, which defeats why the Constitution specifically assigns an officer for the task.