At its formative period of the C&S, the means through which monies were generated and kept in safe custody were not elaborate. Multiplying them was not the preoccupation of the church either. Rather, the church preoccupied itself with spiritual healing of the afflicted persons, prophetic power and sayings, and restoring physical and spiritual wellbeing of people. The church derived its financial strength from the tithes and offerings which members gave out to the church. Church funds were not substantial and were kept in the hands of trusted members among the elders in the church. They are trusted members of the church who practiced Ajo gbigba the local method of safe-keeping monies for traders. The dynamics of church finances and the growing demand, by members, for better finance practice propelled the church into modern ways of safe keeping monies, property and investment that keep the church financially self-sustaining.
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The challenges of funding and sustaining evangelism programmes, church planting, church workers’ welfare, charity donations, provision of social services, and other pecuniary issues have compelled C&S churches to diversify their sources of revenue. Every local church contributes an annual levy tagged “conference levy” and ordination levy to the international headquarters. At the international headquarters, funds are generated from investments of the church, namely bookshops, printing press, lodging houses, rent apartments; dividends from monies fixed in the banks, sale of publications and programs of events during national and international conventions. However, the bulk of the revenues accruing to the international headquarters of each strand of C&S come from the annual levy that every church branch contributes and the ordination fee which every member selected for ordination pays to the account officer of the local church for onward transfer to the international headquarters. The ESOCS mandates its churches in various districts and provinces to make their annual contributions to the international headquarters. Lagos contributes 25% of its total annual earnings to the annual budget of the international headquarters while the contributions of others categorized as special grade, super grade, grade one, grade two and grade three provinces are paid within their financial convenience.
In CSMC, ordination levy is paid according to rank. Local churches pay their annual levy to the international headquarters according to population size and location. The rank of special apostle attracts about fifty thousand naira, which the recipient of the rank pays as levy.
Inability to fulfill the financial obligation required of an individual selected for ordination does not stop him /her from being ordained. However, the affected member’s ordination is not certificated until he/she pays the levy before due recognition can be given to his/her new rank.
Each tier of the structure pays its ministerial and non-ministerial workers their monthly emoluments. There is no minimum wage designed and strictly followed for remunerating workers in local churches across the tiers of the organizational structure. Local churches design the salary structure for their workers according to their financial resources. Although the international headquarters anoints and appoints prophets who volunteer to work for the church, each local church remunerates “conference prophets” posted to serve there. Adequate provision for remunerating retired prophets is yet to be made. The local church where the retired prophet worships is expected to give financial support to the retiree, even though the Conference gives some token retirement benefits to the retired prophet. This may not be the case if the prophet is alleged of moral impropriety, found guilty and dismissed.
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Every local church generates its funds within approved possibilities. Aside tithes and offerings, the church generates funds from monetary donations that various bands make on their respective anniversary days, and annual church adult, children and family harvest thanks giving services. Collections during worship, namely weekly thanks giving, various church building projects and special collection for the needy help to build up church financial base.
The church also organizes fund raising for the purchase of transport vehicles, musical instruments, establishment of private school, building of pastorium, and other projects that are capital intensive.
3.8.2 TCLA
TCLAW has developed its finance structure from its simplest form of generating and keeping monies in the private coffers of trusted members of the church to an elaborate and modernized mechanism for generating, keeping and increasing monies in order to make the church organization financially self-sustaining. For the first time since its inception in 1930, TCLAW developed elaborate financial regulations that were documented in a forty paged book published in 2001 and revised in 2009. As an independent and financially self-sustaining church organization, TCLAW both in its constitution and financial regulations clearly spelled out its sources of income. The financial responsibilities of officers charged with accounting duties, the signatories to provincial, diocesan, zonal and local church accounts, the categorization of the sources of income of the church, financial sharing of the church according to percentage, the sources of income for ministers’ retirement/pension fund and other financial matters of the church are unambiguously stated in the financial regulations book. This is with the intention of the church to lay a structure for proper accounting of church funds, good accounting for accountability, proper custody of church assets, judicious appropriation of church funds and checkmating unforeseen circumstances and loopholes that may engender financial impropriety (TCLAW Financial Regulations 2002:7).
In accordance with the best practices of TCLAW on money matters, there are approved sources of generating funds which all church branches of TCLAW explore in order to raise funds for administrative, social and evangelical matters. The church legally generates income through tithes, general thanks-offering, New Year, Easter, month ending and special thanksgiving offering, common offertories during normal, special and anniversary services, harvest thanks-offerings, education fund, fund for the needy, proceeds from collections during all saints Day Services, and Tabieorar celebration thanks offering. Aside the aforementioned, the church collects offerings that it finds necessary. The church may raise special fund for building a Pastorium and other church projects. It accepts special personal and group
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donations in cash or kind. The church may be obliged to reject a personal or group donation if it finds the source to be morally questionable.
Within the first six decades of the history and activities of TCLAW pension scheme for ministers was not given the seriousness it deserved. In 1993, the then primate of TCLAW, late Gabriel Ositelu introduced the contributory pension scheme which the church organization expects to take adequate care of ministerial staff after disengaging from active service in the Vineyard. The rules and regulations that guide TCLAW pension scheme were documented and published in the year 2000. However, in 2002 primate Rufus Ositelu introduced the contributory pension scheme for non-ministerial staff.
Significantly, the pension scheme for ministerial staff is entrenched in the 2009 second edition of TCLAW financial regulations. However, the pension scheme for non-ministerial staff of TCLAW is yet to be included in the financial regulations. The retirement pension fund of ministerial staff is sourced from five percent of ministers’ monthly salary contribution and other sources, namely contribution from local churches, the subvention of the church organization, interests on church deposits in the bank, and contributions from councils (TCLAW Financial Regulations 2009:18; 2013:15).
In the office of the primate, the newly created department of retirement, pension and welfare takes care of health insurance matters. The primate in 2008, for the first time in the history of TCLAW introduced Health Insurance Scheme (HIS) for ministers of God. The health insurance scheme is put in place to ensure healthy living of serving ministers of God in order that they may have healthy body and spirit to meet both spiritual and temporal needs of their respective congregations. The health insurance scheme guidelines are to help ministers of God know their entitlements and obligations in the scheme.
Aside the approved sources of revenue generation, TCLAW has invested in physical property.
This is an effort geared towards diversifying the revenue base of TCLAW in order to achieve more efficiency and productivity in administrative and evangelical tasks of the church. The church has embarked on capital investments in physical property, acquiring stock shares and divesting part of its money in fixed deposits in Banks (Ositelu 2009). The church has established block industry which molds and sells cement blocks. TCLAW Garment factory was established in order to generate more funds for the church organization and to create employment opportunity for members and non-members.
151 3.8.3 CCC
The church as an organization requires human and material resources to function effectively and extend its frontiers. In this regard, the growth and expansion of CCC over the years have shaped its innovative financial approach to resource generation. The emerging challenges posed by increasing membership, parishes and administrative costs have encouraged the church to diversify its revenue sources. The CCC as a self-sustaining organization generates the bulk of its revenue from weekly tithes and offerings (idamewa ati ore os’ose) that members pay during Sunday worship. The tithe is in fulfillment of God’s command as demonstrated by the biblical Israelites who gave out annually, one-tenth of what their farms yielded216. Offerings are basic expressions of thanks, request and show of participation in the drive towards addressing some existential needs of the church.
Every Parish collects tithes and offerings from its members. Weekly offerings include offertory (owo’gba), alms giving (itore anu), offering for itinerary (owo irin ajo, owo iko’le) building offering, and thanks offering (owo ope). Annual harvests of adults and children to a large extent provide some financial leverage to the church. However, parishes are privileged to explore possible means of generating more funds in as much as they do not, in any way, lead to exploitation of givers or negative implications on CCC worldwide. The share of the revenue among the three major beneficiaries is based on percentage. The international headquarters, local church (parish), and the resident shepherd of a parish each receive one-third of all funds accruing from each parish. This is non-compliant with the biblical injunction that stresses that all the tithes, though other revenues can be shared, is for the anointed shepherd in the Lord’s vineyard217.
The church does not currently have structured remunerations for its workers. The revenue derivable in a parish determines what each worker in that parish gets, but this does not foreclose the plan of CCC worldwide to design an all-encompassing structure that include basic salary, allowances, insurance and retirement, taking into consideration disparate economic and social advantages of its parishes across the globe. Parishes are at variance in their harvest thanks giving services. Some parishes fix some amount of money that calibers of members should contribute to mark the annual harvest; some do not on ground that individual
216 This is a paraphrase of the biblical injunction on tithing in Deuteronomy 14:22-29 (NIV): “Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year”.
217 Interview with Segun Mepolone 28 May, 2012, Lagos. He alludes to the biblical Numbers 18 Verses 20-32:
“The LORD said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land…I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites”. “I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do”.
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member knows how much divine blessings he/she has recorded throughout the season218. Asked whether CCC worldwide divests part of its finances for financial sustainability, most members interviewed claimed that the church does not fix monies in the bank; it has no shares in industries, and does not acquire property; adding that CCC is the last ship of salvation without recourse to drive for mundane prosperity. However, there are insinuations that the church has diversified its sources of revenue in order to strengthen its capital base for adequate response to needs and aspirations of the church, members and non-members.
3.9 Women in the Church