Determination of Spiritual Ownership, Management Integrityand Internal Control Systems Towards The Church Institutional Accountability

This study analyses the influence of spiritual ownership, managerial integrity, and internal control systems on the accountability of church ‎institutions in Indonesia. The growing concern over weak transparency and misuse of church funds highlights the need for an accounting ‎approach grounded in Christian faith and ethics. From a theological perspective, the church functions as a service institution based on the ‎principle of stewardship, where humans act not as owners but as managers of resources entrusted by God. Thus, church accountability ‎encompasses both administrative and spiritual dimensions. Using a quantitative explanatory design, this research employs the Structural ‎Equation Modelling–Partial Least Squares (SEM–PLS) method. The sample consists of 150 church financial and managerial administrators ‎in South Sulawesi, selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected via a Likert-scale questionnaire measuring four constructs: ‎spiritual ownership, managerial integrity, internal control systems, and accountability. The findings reveal that both spiritual ownership and ‎managerial integrity significantly and positively affect the internal control system, which in turn partially mediates their impact on church ‎accountability. The R² values of 0.611 for internal control and 0.684 for accountability demonstrate strong model explanatory power. This ‎study concludes that strengthening church accountability cannot rely solely on administrative systems but must be founded on spiritual ‎commitment and managerial integrity. The results reinforce stewardship theory within religious organisations and provide practical insights ‎for developing faith-based governance, encouraging churches to integrate spiritual formation and ethical training into internal control practices-‎es‎.