From “Nsinsani” to Entrepreneurship: Incubation in Kimbanguist Church Model ()
1. Introduction
Economic studies around the globe consistently link entrepreneurship with growth and development. Indeed, a country’s economic growth and economic success are now determined by the strength of its entrepreneurship ecosystem. Besides, there is a compatible relationship that exists between entrepreneurship and the Christian faith. Weber (1930) clearly observed that the Christian faith encourages creativity and the risk of identifying business opportunities and harness them for legitimate wealth creation. This relationship has attracted recent attention. A positive association may indicate that religion shapes entrepreneurship and business activity, by inculcating incentives to accumulate wealth and acquire personal responsibility. Religion is also perceived to influence the ways in which economic activities are pursued (Naka, 2008).
However, different religious institutions have a significantly different impact on the tendency to become an entrepreneur.
Although there is already a wide body of research with respect to religion and entrepreneurship, the question of how religion coaches/incubates the believers in entrepreneurship or income generating activities has not been the subject of notable academic investigations. Besides, if some scholars have written about Pentecostal churches and African Independent Churches little attention has been given to kimbanguist church, a large, independent African-initiated church (Gampiot, 2010). Its theology unites three concepts (love, Ten Commandments and works), which are combined to kindle entrepreneurship intention and effect rapid growth of members’ entrepreneurial activities. Kimbanguist works concept means biblical entrepreneurship. This involves moral obligations, economic creativity, and productive aspects as well. Doug Phillips (2006) states that, the principle of entrepreneurship is rooted on the dominion mandate and the biblical doctrines of work. It’s said in James 2:14-26 “what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘go in peace, be warmed and filled’, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead”. “The cravings of sluggards will be the death of them, because their hands refuse to work” (Prov. 21: 25). The Bible tells us that wealth is obtained through hard work, diligence, sacrifice and that failure to do those things will result in poverty.
In kimbanguist church, one of the leader major roles is to support and grow a community of believers that is not only spiritually healthy, but also economically viable. Naude (2009) indicated, from an economic development view, entrepreneurial development and job creation are pertinent issues that were identified as key for economic growth. It is therefore essential to find out through research how kimbanguist church throughout works concept incubates believers in entrepreneurship and determine if the coaching provided during incubation has an impact on the development of entrepreneurs.
Another reason for conducting this research is that except for academic researchers, there seems to be limited literature on incubation in the church context. There is thus a theoretical need for more research in this area to be published.
In order to fulfill the purpose of this study, the following research question was designed: What kind of strategy kimbanguist church use to incubate believers in entrepreneurship? Does coaching provided during incubation have an impact on the development of entrepreneurs?
1.1. Study Objectives
The objective is to explore the way in which kimbanguist church incubates his believers in entrepreneurship.
1.2. Organization of the Paper
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides the review of the literature related to entrepreneurship as well as business incubation, Section 3 describes research methodology. The next section states about findings and discussion, then Section 5 takes on the conclusion.
2. Related Literature
For better understanding how the kimbanguist church through his works concept keeping believers under a controlled condition, provide practical and concrete support to them in creating enterprises, this chapter provides in the first point the contextualization of terms; the second point highlights theoretical framework and the last point states about empirical review on religion or church and entrepreneurial behavior.
2.1. Contextualization of Terms
Church
The church is a community of believers in the Lord, Jesus Christ (Okwueze & Ononogbu, 2013). Church is also used in reference to formal organizations that are created to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ sustainably under the tutelage of a leader/founder often called Senior Pastor, Bishop, and Apostle, Reverend or Prophet and advancing the Christian doctrine. Protestants, Evangelical, Orthodox communities are also included in the church dimension.
Kimbanguism
Kimbanguism is the largest independent church in Africa. It takes its name from Simon Kimbangu. He was reputed to heal the sick and raise the dead, he drew thousands of pilgrims to his hometown of Nkamba to hear his preaching. Although Kimbangu’s preaching had no overtly political content, Belgian authorities, alarmed by the disturbances that he provoked, arrested him and his immediate followers in September 1921. Kimbangu was arrested less than six months after his first miracle. He was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted; he spent the rest of his life in prison in Élisabethville. This Congolese religious leader died on October 10, 1951 and after his death, his work was continued by his son Diangienda and actually by Simon Kimbangu Kiangani (a grandson of Simon Kimbangu). This largest independent church in Africa, is a member of the World Council of Christian Churches since 1969, with an estimated membership of 17 millions (Gampiot, 2010). Kimbanguist church bases her values and believes on the bible which is summarized on trilogy: love, Ten Commandments and works.
Entrepreneurship
Notwithstanding the fact that entrepreneurship is in itself a complicated, ambiguous and changeable phenomenon (Landstrom, 2007), my working definition for entrepreneurship is any deliberate action by groups of people, church, communities or individuals in starting or engaging in economics activities either formally or informally to make a profit. Entrepreneurial stimulation refers to those deliberate attempts to steer or increase entrepreneurship activities.
Incubation
The definition of incubation is the “process of keeping something at the right temperature and under the right conditions so it can develop” (Your Dictionary, 2021). It is a metaphor taken from the agricultural industry where eggs are incubated for hatching.
2.2. Theoretical Framework
The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (Weber, 1930)
The initial evidence on the interaction between entrepreneurship and religion is present in the work of Max Weber, where it is reported that God’s favor was indicated through personal economic success. The common characteristics referred to discipline, valorization of saving money, and appreciation for work (Weber, 1930). Weber goes deeper into the analysis and focuses on each religion, thus identifying that they followed Protestantism.
His work thus provided some initial insights into the mechanisms of how religion, an arguably personal attribute, can become prevalent in society and affect societal members. A key notion in Weber’s work is that individual behavior is guided by religious context. He concluded that the values of Protestantism were essential to the development of capitalism.
A Real Driven-Options Theory of Business Incubation (David, 2004).
This theory seeks to predict and explain how business incubators and the process of business incubation increase the likelihood that new ventures will survive the early stages of development. It conceptualizes the incubator as an entrepreneurial firm that sources and macro-manages the innovation process within emerging organizations, infusing these organizations with resources at various developmental stage-gates while containing the cost of their potential failure. The incubator is the unit of analysis while incubation outcomes-measured in terms of incubatee growth and financial performance at the time of incubator exit-provide indicators of success.
2.3. Empirical Review
Religious entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship development has been a topical issue having been initiated by past great thinkers like Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter. Two decades ago, Iannaccone, L. R. (1998) began integrating economic and religious perspectives to generate knowledge about neglected nonmarket behavior and to understand how religion affected economic attitudes and behaviors of individuals, groups, and societies. An emerging stream of literature analyzes how belonging to a religion and entrepreneurship are related, with a bifurcation between studies focusing on the choice of entrepreneurship over wage-work and studies analyzing the influence of religion on entrepreneurial decision-making (Balog et al., 2014; Kojana & Mamabolo, 2020). Grine, Fares, and Meguellati (2015) state about the key positions and roles of spirituality in the success of Muslim women’s entrepreneurship. According to Kumar and Muruganantham (2015) spirituality is the key roles of for the success of entrepreneurs. This is in line with the findings of Henley (2014) stating that religiosity significantly impacts entrepreneurship. The connection between entrepreneurship and religion is addressed in the context of all religious traditions (Deutschmann, 2001; Fathallah, Sidani, & Khalil, 2020). According to Pearce, Fritz, and Davis (2010), religions might promote acts of entrepreneurship. Based on theory of planned behavior, Wibowo (2017) researched if religious individuality affected the development of entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, the Buddhist doctrine of right livelihood plays a significant role in evaluating and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities (Valliere, 2008) as being a religious activity and striving to succeed in entrepreneurship is to give success in the afterlife (Lucky, 2011). Besides, Campbell, Heidi A; Osteen, Sophia (2022) identified and discussed five key traits pastors found essential to running a successful online ministry, and reflect on how the pandemic required many pastors to step into a unique role as entrepreneurs.
Incubation role
Incubators play a fundamental role in developing creativity and innovation, which in turn helps to sustain the success of businesses while keeping pace with the growing competition in a dynamic environment, in terms of unprecedented achievements. Additionally, business incubators and entrepreneurial centers provide a practical environment that stimulates the engagement of entrepreneurs and their ideas and transforms these ideas into entrepreneurial projects.
Mansouri & Bou Asida (2019) aimed at identifying the role of business incubators as a mechanism to support innovation in small and medium enterprises, as it is one of the important pillars of the sustainability of the success and of these institutions in light of a highly competitive pace and an environment of continuous development and renewal, trying to answer the following questions: what is the role of Business incubators in support of innovation at the level of Algerian SMEs?
According to Van Weele, M., van Rijnsoever, F. J., Nauta, F. (2017), an entrepreneurial development program is a program to develop entrepreneurial abilities. It refers to incubation, development and polishing of entrepreneurial skills of a person to enable him or her to start, and successfully run his or her enterprise. Amara and Park (2019) had a study that sought to identify business incubators as a prerequisite to supporting creativity and innovation in small and medium enterprises and adopted a descriptive analytical approach. The results of the study established that business incubators are an integrated system to support small enterprises and it is appropriate to give those institutions support and these business incubators are one of the modern methods to support innovation and creativity for entrepreneurial projects and small and medium enterprises. Business incubators have a major role in developing the economy.
Despite some emerging interest (Balog et al., 2014; Block et al., 2021; Dana, 2009), the subject of religion has received limited attention from entrepreneurship researchers, particularly in premiere entrepreneurship journals (Smith et al., 2019) , besides, incubation in church context is still an under-exploited and perhaps under-explored opportunity. This study is address the research gaps emphasized as deficiencies in the literature and to generate results which provide a clearer picture of the incubation ecosystem especially for sub-Saharan African countries.
3. Methodology
The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive through observation and interviews which is then analyzed and interpreted to obtain conclusions on the way that the church incubates believers. The goal of these interviews was to understand how kimbanguist church incubates believers, and whether the coaching provided during incubation have an impact on the development of entrepreneurs.
The research was carried out at Nkamba New Jerusalem, in democratic republic of Congo by Laboratory of analysis and research in economic and social research (LARES). LARES researchers were conducted at Nkamba by the author who is member of the Kimbanguist church.
There were two main reasons for the selection of Nkamba: firstly, because this is the birthplace of Simon Kimbangu. Secondly, because during church historical dates, kimbanguist believers worldwide arrive there to celebrate these events.
And that time give us an opportunity to communicate with the kimbanguist worldwide. Then data collection was performed from April 6th, 2021 to October 12, 2021, when the church celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The life story or biographical approach was adopted; it has been found to be useful in eliciting new and deeply contextual insights into the entrepreneurial process (e.g. Mitchell, 1997; Gibb Dyer, 1994; Steyaert & Bouwen, 1997).
3.1. Population
The sample included 500 entrepreneurs from 16 countries of which 390 were in Africa, 94 were in Europe and 16 were America. Of 500 entrepreneurs, 210 were men and 290 were women. They were allowed to express their views in the language with which they were most comfortable (English, French, Lingala or kikongo).
3.2. Sampling Unit
A kimbanguist entrepreneur whose age varies between 20 and 70 years and who undergone incubation through church different project in every countries, all over the world where kimbanguist church exists, were regarded as the sampling unit. Besides, his or her enterprise must satisfy the following characteristic: having a live business establishment which existing for a minimum period of two years.
3.3. Data Collection Design
During an in-depth interview, each person was asked to “tell his story” of how he or she benefitting from the church incubation, learn new skills built a successful business. The questionnaires addressed mainly issues related to the pre-incubation, incubation, and post-incubation periods. The goal of the questionnaire concerning the pre-incubation period was to analyze how works concept lead to fundraising through which believers integrate projects. Questions about the incubation period sought to evaluate the incubation process, with emphasis on the knowledge acquired by the believers and the incubators’ support and other general contributions provided to them during this period. Finally, regarding the post-incubation period, the goal was to assess the performance, capacity, believers’ potential and to see how coaching provided during incubation has an impact on the development of entrepreneurs.
The objective of the interviews was to have conversations with the interviewees without influencing and directing their answers. The researcher personally conducted the interviews in private to limit the possibilities of misunderstandings, and each interview was in excess of two hours long. Each interview took place at a public location which was convenient for the participant. The interviews were digitally recorded (with the participant’s consent), accompanied by written notes based on any extra observations or non-verbal cues that were noticed during the interview.
Main sources of secondary data are websites, newspaper articles and published books.
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1. Findings
The following section describe the main steps of incubation process in kimbanguist way.
Incubation is understood as a process containing three steps from fundraising (nsinsani) to post incubation.
The first main step illustrates how nsinsani through works concept lead to realization of church economics activities in different sectors. The next main step is the explanation of how from church economics activities resulting from nsinsani, believers integrated incubation process. The last main step describes how incubation process out pops the entrepreneurs at the end of the project. The development of their activities is a demonstration of what they have learned. They all indicated growth in the number of people they had employed after incubation.
4.1.1. From Nsinsani to Realization of Church Activities (Preincubation)
When one colon asked Simon Kimbangu: “you want to build the church, do you have funds?” He answered that my funds are people. He knows people by working can earn money, generate income, develop the church and the entire nation. (Kamitewoko, 2021). Not receiving funds from elsewhere, Simon KIMBANGU implements the nsinsani (Kikongo name for fundraising), to enable the church to cope with problems related to building, equipment, development and the like.
Basically, there is nsinsani at every Sunday or week-day service; but also whenever problems arise. The aim and amount or nature of the nsinsani will also be specified. If a church building or reception centre, school or welfare centre is to be built, then masons will be needed, as will joiners or carpenters and money; or perhaps plantations are to be developed, and then women and young people, agronomist and money will be needed; each Kimbanguist brings his or her share towards achieving the programme intimated. The contribution may be in cash, goods or services. What is possessed is given, little or much, and often as part of the group.
Kimbanguist church is an African church supported by its own members, not receiving funds from elsewhere. And these simple words make people give with all their hearts until they meet the target. Church members in diaspora and the Congo challenge the idea that it is money that brings them together, rather emphasizing the collective works (misala) to build their church and which enacts a spirit of solidarity.
Yon Tim from USA stated: “I love entrepreneurship. It speaks to what it means to be human. We are free. We can create, dream, build, plant, and grow and when we do these things, we reflect our Creator. Entrepreneurship is the solution to poverty. I believe that. As our spiritual leader Simon KIMBANGU used to say: entrepreneurship creates wealth, provides jobs, feeds families, inspires others, and turns the world into servants of one another.
Jesus said whoever wants to be great among you, must be a servant. Ultimately, the best entrepreneurs understand this. When we serve each other well, we bring a bit more of the kingdom here on earth. In our church we obey to this instruction through works concept. We are so glad to contribute for our church development, giving chance to the others to be immerse in entrepreneurship through church project (incubation). I think it’s a closed circuit or a virtuous circle: as the number of entrepreneurs increases, so do the contributions, this model will propel the church economically, the nation and why not the whole world.”
The aim of the nsinsani, the ritual in which the faithful compete in their offerings, is to collect funds for the church’s ministries, specially to finance a flagship project of the church.
One entrepreneur’s comment illustrates the explanation: “I thought the nsinsani was a hassle, but when I joined the museum construction project, I immediately realized that it wasn’t what I thought it was, everyone in the project ate for free and learned for free until the end of the project, we benefited from everything, without the nsinsani money, we weren’t going to eat or learn. Nsinsani support the project participants.”
This economics practice of fundraising helps not only in church infrastructure construction (the money so realized was spent on building dispensaries, hospitals and schools) but also believers by implementing economics projects in agriculture domain; financing socio-economic activities and organizing entrepreneurship seminars empowering them to be independent. Thus, one of the major roles of kimbanguist pastors is to support and grow a community of believers that is not only spiritually healthy, but also economically viable (Kamitewoko, 2021). Kimbanguist church engages in nsinsani so that it can raise money to support its work and to empower members to play a role in adding value to the community. It is a key and fundamental step that should not be skipped.
As demonstrated by believers, the dialogue around nsinsani when interviewing entrepreneurs was almost always put in terms of “my works” signifying the key concept that it held. Interviewees explained how they understood works concept in terms of church values. For these entrepreneurs, kimbanguist leader equips believers around the world to succeed at their God-given entrepreneurial calling by teaching them the Word of God from an entrepreneurial perspective (works). The leader influences, inspires and creates an impact on their lives.
Participants took the opportunity to become involved in church works nsinsani as they seeing the younger integrate church projects.
Dimin stated that “don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them. I joined incubation through agricultural church project. Today, I practice all a learned. I returned in my village where my father gave me 30 hectares and I employ 11 workers. I thank God. It became an moral debt for me. I have to contribute through nsinsani in order to help the others: I am indebted to nsinsani.”
4.1.2. From Church Activities to Incubation
Within the Kimbanguist Church, every member must be involved in all kinds of activities (breeding, planting and infrastructure construction activities…) that are considered as working for God. In other words, no member can stand on the fence or remain on the periphery.
Kimbanguist church activities through his works concept can be clearly seen in the Bible, in Genesis 1.
In each project, volunteer specialist church members have the obligation to explain to the others what to do. He offering believers better guidance, he is a bearer of knowledge. His role is to inspire believers by incubons’ activities, to demonstrate that they can make an impact within their means.
Believers gain entrepreneurial skills and techniques that will improve theirs venture’s chances of success. They absorb considerably more knowledge during their time in the incubator (project). Subsequently, they are able to translate that knowledge into higher growth in their new activities after incubation.
The incubation period generally varies according to the type of project and the state of progress of the project and depends on its maturity.
One of the best ways for church member to learn about agriculture, construction and other kind of activities is to ignite their interest through hands-on experiments. Besides giving church member the chance to work in different church activities recognise that the experience helps develop other useful skills including problem-solving, research and perseverance. The church and its ecosystem offer church members the optimal conditions to make their projects emerge and then transform them into viable solutions.
Participants talked about enjoying their days during incubation contact with younger people. For example, Marlen Otts said that she mixed mainly with younger women in agricultural church project, and the atmosphere was unique. Every morning after praying, we went to the plantations. “Before practice, the expert engineer explained to us what we have to do. Besides, he taught us different models and tools that allow participants to understand the current or future business needs.” Instructors give the tools to understand how to become a successful entrepreneur. If I’m tired, the younger encourage me (laughed). It was so wonderful. Today I have six plantations in six regions with fifty five (55) workers.
The church incubator is free of charge and is part of the services offered by church in all kind of project. It adapts to the maturity of the projects and allows believers to be immersed in a favorable ecosystem. Incubation ends upon church project is completed.
All of the entrepreneurs in this sample grew up in religious homes, going to church every Sunday and having coaching about entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurs describe the main messages from their faith while growing up as valuing family, demonstrating character, and helping others. They describe their religion as following a specific understanding of the priority of family, good character, and service.
“Religion is not about going to church, or following what someone tells you to do. It is about following the values which is summarized on trilogy: love, Ten Commandments and works, the values that you grew up with as a kid in church, and about really applying these to your life” (interview data).
4.1.3. From Incubation to the Development of Entrepreneurs
As a modern farmer incubates eggs, with top-of-the-line incubators, he puts in an egg, close the door and out pops the chick three weeks later. Church also incubates believers in entrepreneurship in similar way: church puts in each project his members; these later learn for free from church expert during months and out pops the entrepreneurs at the end of the project. Incubator can be also seen from the angle of premature birth, when a premature baby would be put in an incubator for a period of time in order for the baby to develop.
During incubation, the provision of coaching is an important way in which church assist the development of incubatees. Coaching can be referred to as the provision of training or instructing, seminars or programs to individual towards enhancing their skill and knowledge. In this context, coaching is closely related to the concept of counseling; counseling is the dissemination of knowledge and advice to entrepreneurs in the domain of business startups. Several authors such as Stephens and Onofrei (2012), Krueger (2009), and Peterman and Kennedy (2003) said that the beliefs and attitudes that an individual acquires through training and gained entrepreneurial experience are greatly influenced-by the individual.
“We believe it is God who gives us power to create wealth, hence Christ is the foundation upon which our businesses built. Your social standing does not matter as long as you have the desire and passion to get into incubation. It does not matter where you begin. The Bible says do not despise the days of humble beginnings. It is our belief that the Holy Spirit gives us the divine enablement to grow our businesses from humble beginnings to great empires” (Interview data).
Coaching provided by business incubators to incubatees suggests a way in which incubatees acquire technical and business knowledge. Church incubation, provide mixed support for the entrepreneurs. Post incubation, relates to the end of project, believers reached the maturity phase then they will leave the incubator and standing free in the local market. In extension phase, believers’ companies expand in the market with positive impact on the economic development because the outcomes from the incubator included the three factors; entrepreneurship, expertise and job created. Overall factors lead to economic development and will diversify the economic growth. This incubation model can summarize in Figure 1 as follow.
Felicia entrepreneur who runs a salted fish business has attributed his success to church incubation and the teachings of his spiritual father. Jacques 34-year-old commodity broker who is a fervent member of the church owes his wealth and entrepreneurial spirit to church incubation and demands that his workers pray and sprinkle holy water before conducting business each morning. Audrey 38-year-old, who runs a successful fish sales and dealership business in Angola is a Deacon with Word of Life Church and said that he gains his inspiration from the word of God through works concept. The belief in the power of divine intervention is evident even as you drive and walk Congo Brazzaville; Ondzion (25-year-old) a serial entrepreneur and an Elder at a kimbanguist church in participates in church activities and is ebullient about his faith. He is believing his entrepreneurial exploits have been aided by church project during incubation.
Studies have shown that the period following incubation has a high risk of failure (Salinger & Strametz, 2021). According to this concept of risk of failure, the question arises in our minds: can the business succeed and grow after the incubation period? Believers answered to this question, most of the interviewee stated that there is no failure if you associate GOD in your business because He has the control of all.
4.2. Discussion
This study finds that there are three steps for incubating believers. This incubation exists thanks to kimbanguist trilogy (love, Ten Commandments and works). Works concept gave birth to fundraising. This concept is based on philanthropy. Spending money on others, can improve people’s happiness (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2014). The happiness benefits of helping others are magnified when donors are shown the impact of their donations have for the recipient (Aknin et al., 2013). Indeed, the scientific litterature related to charitable giving has validated the significance of this concept. There are two primary form of motivation to consider: whether people are donating for self focused or self motivated reasons knowing donors motives is important for unlocking the efficacity of charitable compaigns. However, in kimbanguist church context, Spending money on others symbolize love, the unity in GOD.
Today, thanks in large part to the efforts of prominent economist such John List at the university of Chicago San Diego and Anya Samek at the university of Wisconsin-Madison, the scientific study of philanthropy continues to thrive.
For practitioners, learning about the science of philanthropy can help guide best practice around crafting charitable appeals, recontacting donors and creating annual compaigns that produce the best return on investment. There are numerous examples in the scientific literature where low-cost and no-cost interventions have yielded significant positive returns.
The processes of incubation can be divided into the beginning, development and maturity of traditional, technological or innovative entrepreneurships. This centers on the processes of entrepreneurship accompaniment, technical assistance and the offer of services to entrepreneurs (Hackett & Dilts, 2004; Mian, 1996; Peters, Rice, & Sundararajan, 2004). This process is in line with kimbanguist church incubation, but all the process (the beginning, development and maturity) is in one.
5. Conclusion
While considerable concern has emerged about the impact of religion on decision-making that promotes economic growth, i.e. the decision to become an entrepreneur, little is actually known about how religion incubates believers in entrepreneurship. This study contributes to the discourse by investigating and explaining how Kimbanguist church through its concept of work proceeds to incubate believers in entrepreneurship. Using a qualitative methodology, we explored how the kimbanguist church keeps believers under a controlled condition, provide practical and concrete support to them in creating enterprises. Qualitative research by means of interviews with 500 kimbanguist entrepreneurs was conducted in the city of Nkamba, new Jerusalem. The results showed that through works concept, kimbanguist church uses three main steps to incubate believers. This incubation model is an effective and innovative tool to develop and grow businesses as a way of fostering economic growth and job creation. Believers benefitting from the incubator, learn new skills and jobs were created in the process. Coaching provided during incubation has a positive impact on the development of entrepreneurs.