Page 35 - Pastoral Ministries -Student Textbook

Families are created through marriage arrangements. When one is married that means two clans have
joined together by uniting the family from the husband side and that of the wife's side and from that unity
comes children, grandchildren, then grandparents, uncles and aunts --- all interrelated into a family core.

From the African point of view family extends to uncles and aunts and impose great responsibilities. In the
West, most parents are just responsible for raising their only biological children. But in Africa, duties extend
beyond one’s children to the rest of the “family.”

The African way of understanding what constitutes a family is centered much on the act of helping each
other. This varies from people to people, where some are willing to do so willingly while others helping is
done reluctantly and out of obligation. This cultural understand of family can certainly affects the pastor’s
family.

Most pastors have a family of their own, but their responsibilities may extend to extended family. Some
pastors even feel responsible to care for church members or their children, even to the extent of neglecting
their family in the name of ministry. Pastors need to remember that their primary responsibility is to their
immediate family.

The most challenging thing that many pastors today are facing is how they ought to render help to their own
families in different aspects of life, and also how they should help the extended families which may include
the orphans in the family or widows, and even the elderly who may have been left vulnerable by their own
children. As a pastor, can you imagine if you were in this position how you be of great help to all people
whom are looking up to you? Here are some considerations to think about:

How much money can they help the extended family?
It is important to understand that in a typical African setting that all the income you are blessed to earn is
also available to the extended family. As Africans, we don’t live and work for ourselves only, but for the
entire extended family as well.

Most African pastors don't receive any salary from their church. Most pastors relay on the church offering
which may vary each week and in various locations. If it's in rural area, life may be more difficult, but still
more God has his own ways of blessing them.

As a family, the first and foremost task is for the husband and the wife to discuss and make some decisions
on how best they can help their relatives with the little that they have.

The help needs to cover both the husband’s side of the family and the wife’s side of the family. The help
should be evenly distributed to avoid conflicts among families. I would suggest that when it comes to
presenting the help that has been agreed upon, the wife should be responsible of presenting to the
husband’s side and the husband should be responsible to the wife’s side, but this should be done honestly.
The couple ought to understand that it is coming from one source whether both work or not. I believe that
there is no problem with the pastor and the wife helping their extended family and relatives because they
are part of the extended families and they too could have been helped in the process.

As believers we should be aware that it is a Christian duty to help people that are in need. Of importance
the pastor should remember that the Bible encourages us to meet the needs of family first before extending
to others. The major problem that pastors are facing in Africa is that they don't get paid enough to help
others, let alone meet their own needs.

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