Glossary

The words used to run a church in Ghana

56 terms, each defined in one sentence and then explained: what it means, which denominations use it, and where it turns up on a return.

A

Adherent: An adherent is a person who attends a church regularly and is counted as part of it, without having been received into membership.
Attendance: Attendance is the count of people present at a service, taken by the ushers or by class, and recorded by date and service so the return can give an average.

B

Baptism: Baptism is the sacrament of entry into the church, recorded in the baptismal register with the person's name, date of birth, parents, sponsors, date and minister.
Bible class: A Bible class is the small group every Methodist member belongs to, usually eight to twenty people, led by a class leader who is responsible for their pastoral care.

C

Catechist: A catechist is a trained lay minister who leads worship, teaches the faith and runs a congregation or outstation where there is no resident priest or minister.
Catechumen: A catechumen is a person under instruction for baptism or confirmation who is not yet a full member of the church.
Church clerk: A church clerk is the officer of a Baptist or Adventist church who keeps the membership register, records baptisms and transfers, takes minutes and prepares the reports the church sends to its association or conference.
Church management software: Church management software is a system for keeping a congregation's register, attendance, giving and reports in one place, usually online, so that several leaders can work from the same records.
Church register: The church register is the official list of a congregation's members with their details, membership status, class or group, and the dates of their baptism, confirmation, marriage and death.
Church secretary: The church secretary is the person who keeps the congregation's register, minutes and correspondence, and compiles its returns, usually as a volunteer alongside a full time job.
Church treasurer: The church treasurer keeps the congregation's accounts: recording tithes, offerings and other income, paying what is owed, and reporting the figures to the leadership and to the level above.
Churchwarden: A churchwarden is one of two lay officers of an Anglican parish, elected annually, responsible for the church's property, finances and order in worship.
Circuit: A circuit is a group of Methodist societies under one superintendent minister, and the level that receives each society's quarterly return.
Class leader: A class leader is the lay member responsible for a Bible class in a Methodist society: taking attendance, visiting members, collecting class dues and reporting to the leaders' meeting.
Communicant: A communicant is a confirmed member entitled to receive Holy Communion, and the category most Presbyterian and Anglican returns count as full membership.
Conference: A conference is the highest governing body of a Methodist church, and in the Seventh-day Adventist Church the regional body that local churches belong to.
Confirmation: Confirmation is the rite by which a baptised person, usually in their teens, publicly affirms their faith and is admitted to full membership and to communion.
Congregation: A congregation is the local church, the people who worship together in one place, and in Presbyterian usage the formal unit that reports to a district.

D

Data controller: A data controller is the organisation that decides why and how personal data is processed, which under Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) includes a church keeping a membership register.
Data processor: A data processor is a company that handles personal data on a controller's behalf and on its instructions, which is what church management software is to the church that uses it.
Deacon: A deacon, or deaconess, is a member appointed to practical service in a congregation: ushering, welfare, preparing for communion, and in many churches counting and banking the offering.
Deanery: A deanery is a group of neighbouring parishes within a diocese, coordinated by a dean, so that priests in one area can plan pastoral work together.
Diocese: A diocese is a regional division of a church under a bishop, made up of circuits or deaneries, which are in turn made up of societies or parishes.
District: A district is a group of congregations under one minister or pastor, used by Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Adventist and Assemblies of God churches as the level directly above the local church.

E

E-Levy: The E-Levy was Ghana's tax on electronic transfers including mobile money, introduced in May 2022 at 1.5 percent, reduced to 1 percent in January 2023 and repealed with effect from 2 April 2025.
Elder: An elder is a mature member appointed or elected to share in the spiritual leadership of a congregation, whether as a Pentecostal assembly elder, an Adventist church elder or a Presbyterian presbyter.

F

First-time visitor: A first-time visitor is somebody attending a church for the first time, recorded with a phone number so they can be welcomed during the week and invited back.
Fund: A fund is a named purpose that giving is recorded against, such as the building fund, the welfare fund or the harvest, so a church can report how much came in for each and what it was spent on.

H

Harvest: Harvest is the annual thanksgiving service at which members and groups make a special gift, often the largest single day of giving in a church's year.
Home cell: A home cell is a small group of members who meet in a home during the week for Bible study, prayer and fellowship, used by Pentecostal and charismatic churches as the unit of pastoral care.

L

Local assembly: A local assembly is the congregation of a Pentecostal church such as the Church of Pentecost, Assemblies of God or ICGC, led day to day by a presiding elder or pastor.
Local preacher: A local preacher is a trained lay member accredited to lead worship and preach across the societies of a circuit, without being ordained.

M

Member type: A member type is the category a church places each person in, such as full member, catechumen, junior member or adherent, which decides what they may do and how they are counted on the return.
Mobile money giving: Mobile money giving is a member paying their tithe or offering from their MTN, Telecel or AirtelTigo wallet to the church, either to a merchant number or through a payment processor.
Multi-tenant: Multi-tenant software serves many separate customers, such as many churches, from one system while keeping each one's data invisible to the others.

O

Offering: An offering is money given during a service, collected by the ushers and counted afterwards, usually recorded as a total for the service rather than against individual members.
Outstation: An outstation is a smaller congregation attached to a parish or mother church, usually in a nearby village, served by a catechist and visited by the priest on a rota.

P

Parish: A parish is the local congregation of the Anglican or Catholic church, with a defined area, a parish priest, and its own registers of baptism, confirmation, marriage and burial.
Payment processor: A payment processor is a licensed company such as Paystack or Hubtel that sits between a payer and a church, accepts mobile money or card payments, takes a fee, and settles the balance to the church's account.
Presbyter: A presbyter is an elected lay elder of a Presbyterian congregation, ordained to serve on the Session and share in its pastoral and governing work.
Presbytery: A presbytery is a regional court of a Presbyterian church, made up of ministers and elders from the congregations and districts within its area.
Presiding elder: A presiding elder is the lay leader in charge of a local assembly of the Church of Pentecost, responsible for it between the district pastor's visits.

R

Row-level security: Row-level security is a database feature that attaches an access rule to every row, so that a query from one church can only ever return that church's rows however the query is written.

S

Session: The Session is the governing body of a Presbyterian congregation, made up of the minister, the catechist and the elected presbyters.
Settlement: Settlement is the transfer of money a processor has collected on a church's behalf into the church's own mobile money or bank account, less the fee, usually the next working day.
Society: A society is the local congregation of the Methodist Church, the church you attend on Sunday, and the unit that keeps its own register and files its own return.
Society steward: A society steward is a lay officer of a Methodist society responsible for its finances, property and the smooth running of worship, working alongside the minister.
Statistical return: A statistical return is the report a congregation sends to the level above it, usually quarterly or annually, giving its membership by category, attendance, baptisms, marriages, deaths and income by type.
Subaccount: A subaccount is a settlement destination registered with a payment processor under a platform's account, so that money collected for one church settles to that church's own wallet or bank account and to nobody else.
Superintendent minister: A superintendent minister is the Methodist minister in charge of a circuit and its societies, chairing the circuit quarterly meeting and supervising the other ministers stationed there.

T

Tithe: A tithe is a tenth of a member's income given to their church, recorded against the member's name so the church can issue a receipt or a statement.
Transfer of membership: A transfer is the formal movement of a member from one congregation to another, with a letter from the sending church so the receiving church can enter them on its register.

U

Usher: An usher is a member who welcomes people at the door, seats them, takes the headcount and collects the offering during a service.

V

Vestry: The vestry is the elected council of an Anglican parish, chaired by the parish priest, that manages its finances, property and affairs.
Vital records: Vital records are a church's registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials, each an official record of the event with its date and the minister who conducted it.

W

Welfare: Welfare is a church's fund and scheme for supporting members in bereavement, illness or hardship, usually financed by regular dues and paid out on set terms.

Built around these words, not translated into them

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