Zimbabwe Christian Alliance Empowers Church Leaders With Stress- Coping Skills

07th October 2021

By Sydney Barson

Participants at the two - day conflict resolution and psycho - social support workshop which ended Friday in Lupane have hailed the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance for empowering them with critical skills to analyze conflict and how to cope with stress,  the Church News reports.

Pastor Munyaradzi Marufu of Abundant Life  Church said the workshop was a powerful retooling exercise for pastors and church leaders especially in a time of covid. 

"This was an eye - opening training, I learnt that conflict is the energy generated when two or more people are competing for the same interests and it is unavoidable, I now know how to analyze conflict and how it can be managed." Said Pastor Marufu.

A youth leader from Zion Christian Church one Thubaelihle Nkiwane said the Christian Alliance training has upped her skills in handling depressed youth.

Said Nkiwane: "The meeting was so wonderful such that I as a youth leader in church, do experience situations where by conflicts arise amongst the youth and in the end, fail to deal with such scenarios but from the teachings that I got from the meeting, I now know how to manage conflict, I also know how to handle people suffering from trauma, stress, depression and anxiety as well as practicing Psycho Social Support on those people."

A Lupane State University student who attended the workshop said church leaders ought to understand how people behave  psychologically when they have stress or when they get into depression.

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"Psychology is important, one should have room to express how they feel, one should be emotional if need be and one should get seek help including those with psychological disorders and I think it helps the society a lot and and it also teaches other people about these disorders hence I think that is workshop is a  good thing because people will have the ability to educate others about those disorders." Roseline Williams said.

Brightness Moyo another student said the training has helped church leaders from jumping into conclusions but to raise issues not tissues, and to raise concerns not complains.

"The process was good in that it teaches church leaders to be more listening because individuals from religious institutions are too judgmental for example if one is a prostitute or a drunkard they tend to point fingers on her without asking a person reasons of doing that but they just jump into conclusion so this process from Christian Alliance wants to eradicate that judgmental attitude within religious sectors."y Said Brightness Moyo.

Zimbabwe Christian Alliance is a Faith - Based organisation for like minded Christian leaders called to be instrumental in promoting the rights of  the weak, needy, and vulnerable communities.

It works with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe,  Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference and the United Development of Apostolic Churches in Zimbabwe.