FROM CHINAMWALI TO CHILANGIZO:

Autonomy is a term which expresses the right of each individual church to own its own
property; call its own pastor; make its own decisions; develop its own programmes;
baptize believers into its membership, and be accountable only to God for its decisions
and actions (Sullivan 1983:25). This will be evidenced in the way each congregation
carries out its programmes for the instruction of the girls. However, the meaning of
'autonomy' is misunderstood by Christians at the grassroots level for BMIM has a
highly centralised structure which is reflected in the local situation.
Autonomy and interdependence. Following the same New Testament pattern in their
denominational life, the denomination has a system that enables churches to work
together voluntarily for 'eliciting, combining, and directing the energies and resources
ofthe churches in the spread ofthe Gospel to the ends ofthe earth' (Chapman 1997:4).
The need for such cooperation, whereby the churches work together without sacrificing
congregational autonomy, resulted in the formation of District Associations, as well as
of a national body called the Baptist Convention or Union (Sullivan 1979:2). Following
the same pattern when Malawian Christians expressed the need to form their own body
at a national level, it came to be known as the Baptist Convention of Malawi
(BACOMA). At District level an association is a cooperation of churches in a given
area. 23 Hence we have, in Malawi, Lilongwe association, or Mzuzu association, and so
on. Association meetings are made up of elected messengers sent directly from the
member churches. Since not all the messengers can meet every time an issue arises or
some action is to be taken, leaders and committees are elected. The executive committee
represents the larger group, and the churches give their association or convention certain
responsibilities. The association or convention executive committees are not to be pol­
icy-making bodies, but rather play the role of facilitators, providing avenues for fellow­
ship and leadership training sessions from time to time for its member churches. We
shall see in chapter six the complaints from many instructresses about lack of adequate
training in 'our association'. Problems arise when these committees regard themselves
as 'bosses' rather than 'servants', and also when these committees become inactive, as
Lilongwe association has experienced at times.
37