wfn.org | Closer budget control plans for Tanzanian church

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org]

Reply-to: FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org

Next millennium poses many challenges 
 
ARUSHA, Tanzania/GENEVA, 20 December 1999 (lwi) - The Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Tanzania (ELCT) aims to take closer budget control and supervision
of its plans in order to counter the myriad challenges faced by the church as
it enters the 21st century. 
 
One of the church's significant activities is to usher in the New Year 2000 by
organizing a week-long joint planning meeting in February 2000. 
 
This was announced early December by the church's Secretary General Mr. Amani
Mwenegoha, at the end of a three-day training seminar on budgeting and
planning attended by secretary generals and treasurers from the ELCT's 20
dioceses and some of the related institutions. 
 
The seminar brought together for the first time in the history of the church
the secretary generals and treasurers of the ELCT dioceses. The aim was to
ensure that the secretary generals as accounting officers take responsibility
for the coordination and operation of the planning and budgeting process in
the LWF member church with 2.5 million people. 
 
Challenges for the church include the rapid developments in the information
technology, communication, political and economic changes in the world today,
which are not unique to the local church but concern churches globally. More
and more people, Mwenegoha added, have become aware of their civil rights in
the society and at large. 
 
The ELCT Secretary General emphasized that the church has inherited structures
that have now proved to be an economic burden on its members, and pointed out
that such systems are no longer useful in the next century. During the
seminar, participants were taught among other things how to prepare realistic
plans and budgets to reflect the actual income that can be generated locally.
On the overall, Mwenegoha described the meeting as a success, saying that the
future of the Tanzanian Lutheran church looked bright. 
 
(By Elizabeth Lobulu, Communications Desk, ELCT) 
 
(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing 58 million of the world's 61.5 million Lutherans. Its highest
decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven years. Between
Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which meets annually,
and its Executive Committee.) 
 
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