BIODATA COLLECTION OF LUTHERAN CHURCH PASTORS CONTINUES INTO VALIDATION STAGE

CAPTION: Abong Ngadom from the Biodata project office speaking to a pastor at Bunsil Station.

BY BRADLEY MARIORI, in Lae

The collection of biodata for pastors of the Lutheran church is now into the validation stage with a little over 1000 pastors processed.

Zebedee Bahude, An Information, Communication Technology officer with the church that is heading the project confirmed that the collection of the biodata began in 2023.

From the data collected so far, 580 of the data that have been collected is valid and consistent meaning all the information that is being provided by the 580 of the 1000 plus pastors is correct and have been verified and processed.

He confirmed that all information from the consistent data that has been validated have been moved to a database for the church.

“The remaining from the 1000 plus will have to be corrected and that is basically why we are here at the 35th synod in Bunsil station, siassi,”Mr Bahude said.

He said correcting those data and also collecting new data from pastors is another task but is part of the project and needed to be completed.

Mr Bahude explained that the biodata project was initiated under the offices of the Head Bishop and the General Church secretary.

“This project arose to address a need of the church at the national level to have an up to date database for all the pastors and evangelists that are currently serving the church around the country,”Mr Bahude said.

He said currently the church does not have any information regarding the number of pastors and evangelists that are serving, where they are serving and when they commenced serving and other basic information.

“This makes it very difficult for the national office of the church to address the financial and other needs of these pastors and evangelists so our task now is to build a new data base that can enable to national office of the church to closely monitor which pastors and evangelists are working and where,” he said.

He explained that his team is tasked with collecting very detailed and personal information from all the pastors and evangelists that are currently serving around the country.

“We will be needing all the basic information like where they are from, where they are serving, how many children they have, their height, weight, the color of the eye and the lot.

He said they started data collection at the National Pastors Conference on Karkar Island in Madang, then moved to continue collection at the Jabem Lutheran District conference in Morobe, then to the Kainantu Lutheran District conference in the Eastern Highlands, then at the 34th Synod at Ialibu, Southern Highlands and now they are validating at the 35th Synod at Bunsil Station, Morobe.