District to give tithe to churches

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, February 1, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

THE district of Yangoru-Suassia in East Sepik province, has committed one-tenth of its DSIP funds to churches in the district.

Member for the district Richard Maru said that the commitment was one that the district had made with God, and was something they would give while he is the member.

“We are paying K1m to the churches after the signing of the covenant between the church and district government we are now paying our tithe for this year,” Mr Maru said.

“While I am the member we will continue this every year, because we have already signed a contract with God.”

“We are the first district in PNG to do that which will come from our DSIP, and we know that God will bless us and we will still do better.”

HE said that they are going to meet with all pastors from the district to discuss the ways in which the funds will be channeled to each church selected.

“What we intend to have is for each church to have 10 projects, with the main focus on building churches,” Maru said.

“Providing materials like roofing iron, wall materials, so that we want every village in Yangoru-Suassia to have a church regardless of what the denomination is.”

“For the next three years we want to concentrate on building churches and not actually funding spiritual programs.”

He said it was because the church is where the spirit of God resides in, so the support to them in building churches was to ensure the spirits dwells in each village in the district.

The member roughly estimated K10,000 per project, and all churches will be given the same amount of funding every year.

He, however, he pointed out that the main denominations would be given funds due to the sizes of congregation members and reach in the district.

“The issue we will have is who is a church and who is a one man ministry to call themselves churches.”

“The trend taking place now is that people are just starting up and calling themselves pastors and have small groups behind them, so they will not be entitled as we will be dealing with the bigger established churches.”

“Those churches with the membership of a 1000 plus will qualify for funding, that is going to be the debate that we will have,” he pointed out.

“We are waiting to next week to make proper decisions through the JDPPC before we finally launch the scheme.”