The Sunday Mail
Desire Ncube and Wilson Kakurira
THE Apostolic Faith Mission in Zimbabwe has proposed far-reaching constitutional amendments which will see pastors who challenge the dictates of the church being excommunicated. The AFM council met in Masvingo recently and agreed to reform their constitution.This is being seen as an attempt to fire 27 pastors who attempted to demonstrate against AFM Zimbabwe president Dr Aspher Madziyire and his executive at the AFM International conference in April this year in Masvingo.
Police barred the demonstration.
Dr Madziyire said those who violated the church constitution would be fired. He said while it was not a sin to approach secular courts, church members should first exhaust internal remedies.
“The problems that have been rocking the church for over a decade now have emanated from the slackness of our constitution hence the need to urgently reform it,” Dr Madziyire said.
He said over the years they thought that the church was a spiritual institution which did not need a fastened constitution but the recent discord proved otherwise.
Infighting escalated to the extent that pastors Kefias Mujokeri and Paymore Murefu sued Dr Madziyire for failing to carry out an audit in the last 12 years.
Congregants have protested against decisions taken by their leaders, particularly at assemblies such as Southlea Park Central and Budiriro North in Harare, and El Shaddai in Chitungwiza.
AFM Zimbabwe secretary-general Reverend Amon Madawo said some people were taking advantage of loopholes in the constitution to cause chaos.
AFM constitutional reform leader Mr Tawanda Nyambirai said issues such as governance, finance and administration should be clearly articulated in the constitution if the church was to remain relevant.
“I think it is this litigation that informs issues of constitutional reforms. The church rules are old-fashioned, they do not embrace changes especially like information is now readily available via social media which anybody can access; so if the church has to remain relevant it has to reform itself,” said Mr Nyambirai.
“What (the current constitution) merely does is it comes up with a list of aims and objectives. You are leaders today because you were voted in by the majority but we should bear in mind that the majority that voted you into office are transient.
“And if we do not have a constitution that does not clearly articulate the vision of the church, its mission and values, the danger is that every transient majority will formulate its own vision at the end of the day and the church will lose its true meaning,” he said.
“If we look at our constitution as it stands although it refers to the word of God it doesn’t emphasise its supremacy over the constitution itself, or norms that can be practiced at an assembly. It is important that the constitution reform agenda must look squarely at the fact that the word of God both written and spoken must be supreme above and that the constitution itself and must derive its legality in the word of God.
“While the constitution makes reference to the AFM International it doesn’t indicate what relation it have with it, it merely say it is part of it.
“Is it an associate, affiliate or independent, is the church subject to Apostolic International; the relationship has to be set out in a constitutional form in a legally guiding form so that the church knows the authorities if any that the Apostolic International has over AFM Zimbabwe. This will clarify the direction of the church.
“Is the council similar to a parliament? If that is the case should it play a role in disciplinary matters or should it focus in setting out the principles supervising how the church is run that should be clear.”
He said another important aspect that could reduce conflict was to clearly identify asserts of the church separately from the assets of individuals.
Mr Nyambirai said they had set six thematic committees to deal with issues such as: membership, delimitation of assemblies, provinces and evangelism; governance and administrative structures; doctrine, tithe and use of names; pastors, elders, deacons conditions of service, dispute resolution and the code of conduct ethics; revenue collection, financial management system and budgeting; and departments, ministries and relationships with external bodies.
