Purpose of CASON
It is a body that came into being about four years ago and we have our annual conference every year. This is when we come together as a Body of Christ to talk about common issues and share information to advance God’s kingdom.
CASON was formed to bridge the knowledge gap between church managers and their counterparts in the corporate world.
It does this by providing resource and training materials for effective administration of churches and other faith-based organisations.
This year’s conference
Every year, the board sits to prayerfully chooses the theme for the conference which addresses contemporary issues.
This year’s theme was informed by our discovery that the mission field of today is no longer a geographical location somewhere. Due to the advent of the internet, the whole world has become a global village.
So the mission field of today does not have to be reached physically by going from place to place; you can stay in one corner and influence the whole world, that’s the power of the media.
This is why we chose the theme for this year to address that.
Influence on the church
Actually, we did not start as an association. We started as a training platform to train church administrators because most people that found themselves in the role of church administrators were not trained for it.
There is no school that trains someone for church administration, so most people that find themselves performing that role just found that providence thrusts that responsibility on them.
Also, there is no material in our environment that addresses that issue, so noticing that gap we developed a curriculum to train church administrators from 2008.
Every year, we have batches of people that come around and we train them.
After sometime, some of the graduates of the school made us understand that the information they received from the training was so powerful and wonderful and giving them result. They asked if they could have a refresher course.
But we just felt that doing a refresher course yearly would just be loading them with more information; why don’t we come together and share knowledge that addresses the current problems affecting the church as a body.
That was what metamorphosed into this association. This is the third conference since we started.
We address succession planning. These are the things people do not like to talk about in in the church.
But it does happen that you will just discover that the founder of a church will die and crisis will ensue because they would not have planned that one day they will die.
No human being will live forever, whether we like it or not. Our prayer is that everybody will live long, according to the Word of the covenant.
But it is good to plan while you are alive and decide this is how the baton should be passed over to the next generation to perpetuate the Gospel.
That was the issue the conference addressed last year. We addressed the issue of attracting and retaining quality hands in ministry.
As a church administrator for many years, I discovered that one of the problems in is getting capable hands. Some of the people who work in the church are not even disciples, they are motivated by money and if you do not pay them, they jump to another place.
The Bible says, where there is no vision, the people perish. In my understanding of the Scripture the reverse of that Scripture is also true; where there are no people, the vision may not see the light of day, and the vision may suffer.
You need quality hands and my argument and my conviction is that if banks or companies can get people to do their job because they pay them money, the church should get better workers because Jesus Christ has paid all of us upfront.
All of us are debtors of grace and people must see that it is a calling to serve in the church with their gifts or talents because it is God that gave them to us.
Duration of course
We have basic and advance courses.
A course runs for one week as an intensive programme from 9am to 4pm every day. That is the way we’ve been running it.
We do the basic course twice a year and advance course once a year.
Is CASON inter-denominational?
Of course, it is an interdenominational organisation.
Feedback
Since it is an interdenominational organisation, we cannot measure the impact now as we have juststarted.
However, the only feedback we have are the people we have trained. We believe that within a space of time, like an additional five years, we can reach the Body of Christ adequately.
Ending religious crisis
If all adherents of each religion practise what they profess, there will be no violence.
As a Christian the Bible says, love your neighbour as yourself. It doesn’t say, love Christians as yourself.