The-Accountant-Sep-Oct-2017-Final

Information technology
THE ROLE OF ICT IN
clerical WORK
By CPA David A. Sande
Inroduction:
This paper addresses the role of ICT in
pastoral ministry. It was observed that
ICT is making headways in almost every
aspect of human life. However, there is
uncertainty as to what is the role of ICT
in the pastoral ministry of Churches in
Kenya, considering a biblical support and
the universal use of ICT.
Considering the usefulness of ICTs in
the day today activities of men, and the
functions of pastors, the following were
established:
a. Pastoral ministry is made up of the
following activities: preaching, teaching,
evangelizing, performing church rites,
leadership and healing. The use of ICT
can help in these pastoral ministry tasks.
a. ICT can and should be used in Pastoral
Ministry. The fact ICT is helping in every
field of life, the pastoral ministry should
not be an exception.
b. ICT tools like Television, Radio, and
Cell phones can be used by pastors to
reach out to the unreachable. Additionally
ICT tools such as PowerPoint, projectors
and public address (PA) systems can
facilitate the preaching, teaching, and
sharing of the gospel.
The use of ICT in Pastoral ministry,
like other fields also comes with challenges
such as lack of skills, vulnerability to
technical faults like system error or
system failure, vulnerability to computer
crimes e.g. virus attack, hacking and
computer fraud, which need to be
overcome for successful usage.
There is no doubt that the use of
ICT continues to improve every field
of human endeavor, including the
Pastoral Ministry. This calls for Pastors
to leverage on this opportunity and
improve their pastoral functions which
include preaching, tithe and offering
promotions, teaching, and reaching
out to members’ needs among others.
The author therefore recommends that
church Pastors should be encouraged to
use ICT in their pastoral ministry, those
who are lacking the requisite ICT skill,
should seek to learn them, pastors should
use ICT wisely in their ministries and
avoid unnecessary usage.
Christ calls all His followers to
ministry, and every Christian has the
privilege and duty to serve in ministry
as part of a Christian lifestyle. But some
have been called to full-time ministry
as a vocation, both to serve the needs of
the church specifically and to lead the
church in service to the broader needs
of the world in general, giving witness,
loving care, and saving grace to a dying
world (SDA Ministers Hand Book,
2009). Pastoral ministry is engaged in
by those baptized Christians who feel
called to participate in its realization,
and accepted for such ministry within
the Christian community. The pastoral
minister is, therefore, one who responds
positively to a call or vocation from God,
and who is authorized or commissioned
by and ecclesial community to engage in
a pastoral assignment or pastoral service.
The call to pastoral ministry could come
16 september - october 2017