Developing church leaders in Kenya for transformative leadership: Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic presented the world with a new, unanticipated challenge, more scandalous than we had experienced before. For the first time in history, the world encountered the collapse of socio-religious, political, and economic structures. The closure of learning institutions, the transport sector, public gatherings, economic hubs, worship centres, and so on proved to be more hazardous than what had previously been experienced. In Kenya, the church leaders remained helpless and powerless as people, including Christians, lost their lives, businesses closed down, institutions collapsed, the socio-religious and political web crumbled. Poverty encroached into every sector of the society. The question we need is, ‘Are church leaders in Kenya and Africa a whole well-equipped to meet unanticipated emerging challenges as Covid-19 was? This study investigated whether church leaders in Kenya receive holistic training to enable them handle every situation that may come among Christians at any time. Are church leaders trained to become transformative leaders who can help their followers amidst disconcerting challenges such as Covid-19? Investigations were made at some selected universities and theological colleges in Kenya where church leaders are trained to find out whether the leadership training they receive in helps them become transformative leaders. To achieve this, the curricular of some purposely selected universities including St. Paul's University, Catholic University in East Africa, KAG-EAST University, Africa International University, Kenya Methodist University and the Presbyterian University of East Africa. 100 respondents including 50 priests/ministers/ and 50 ordinary Christians drawn from various Churches in Kenya, provided information that was used in the compilation of this article. Although the Church has remained one the main agents of change in the world over the centuries, in Kenya she has failed to offer the urgently needed socio-economic, religious and political transformation. This can largely be attributed to the church leaders' lack of transformational leadership skills. The article suggests that the intuitions where church leaders in Kenya and the rest of Africa are prepared and the in-service training should prepare them to become transformational leaders.