Churches have bowed to pressure and loosened the regulations governing tithes and offerings, giving creatives in church a loophole to pay themselves.
A new directive that has been adopted by churches in Nairobi will see creatives in churches being exempted from tithes and offerings, a good compensation because they were demanding for payment and churches could not afford to pay them. This follows weeks of online conversations and go slow in some churches, where creatives had started to offer substandard services.
Creatives will now be expected to offer their services I church without giving any monies to the churches, like other regular members.
“We will let the praise and worship team minister during the offertory, then they can conveniently sit down when the session is over. The old habit of ushers chasing after the band members up to the parking just to get their offering must stop.”
Fair Approach
The genius move is similar to what the government does, where some special categories of people are exempted from paying taxes.
This is a fair approach because it is like creatives will be paid based on their worth. Since the amount of tithes they pay varies from one person to another, then they will be compensated based on their economic value. “He who pays little tithe will benefit less.”
With tithes and offerings accounting to at least 10% of the total income that they make, the new pay exceeds what many workers in Kenya have received.
The Wrath of Ushers
Creatives have welcomed the new ‘salary’ and churches will soon start reaping the benefits of well-compensated volunteers. Churches will have better music, posters, videos and floral arrangements. However, the move has elicited negative reactions from some other ministries.
Ushers are said to be putting their house in order before they can table their demands. They claim that they are forced to arrive earlier than everybody else, remain standing all through multiple services and have to keep smiling, even when the whether does not allow. Based on their contribution, they should expect more than creatives.
Intercessors have not responded to the directive, although they are known to have a more powerful union than creatives. Sunday school teachers are unaware of the new development because when the announcement was made, they were busy preaching to the young church.
