Perception of poverty in the church: Aholistic reflection from the catholic and evangelical communities in yaounde-Cameroon

The manifestation of poverty in the society directly affects the church and is seen often through delay in human resource development, poor planning and exclusion of stakeholders in planning process, low productivity because of poor health, high family dependency ratio and laziness. The world, as much as Africa and Cameroon experiment the manifestation of poverty at different levels. In Cameroon extreme poverty is still visible at a higher level. The objectives: This study of the Catholic and Protestant Church assort to investigate the perception of poverty in the church in Yaounde. The methods: A total of 631 Catholic (175) and Protestant (456) Christians of the city of Yaounde completed the questionnaire from the congregational studies. The data obtained were processed in the Epi Info software which generated information that was used to assess the poverty level of the Christian church.69.7% of the study population contributes with their families in the church less than 100 000 FCFA per years.64.20% of respondents are either or not totally agree, or do not know anything about the fact that their Church encourages the faithful to develop their special gifts. The church which has the capacity to transform the character of the faithful holistically through the virtues of the Word of God is supposed to become more effective in the fight against poverty by building responsible Christians in their relationship with God, in their relationship with themselves, in their relationship with others, in their relationship with social structures (eg church, family, society, etc.) and in their relationship with the environment.