SOUTH AFRICA
CROSS CENTRAL CHURCH - CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
CROSS CENTRAL CHURCH
Contact: Quentin Van Rooyen
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At A Glance: We are a Christ centered, vibrant, multi-cultural church, that reaches its community and disciples it’s members, through proclaiming the gospel and teaching God’s word, overflowing in practical expressions of God’s grace.
We value the gospel, community and mission. All ministry happens in missional small groups, DNA groups and one on one discipleship. At the heart of our ministry process at CCC is the discipleship process: Contact, Connection, gospel, Community, Maturing, Mission. |
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OUR MISSIONAL STORY:
1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized? |
Our church began in 2018 in a high density, impoverished urban community. The owner of a large building made it available for a church plant. We started by developing a contextual profile of the area and spent 6 months, walking, talking, listening visiting and exploring. We then began with community outreach programs while the church building was being renovated. These initial programs were, a sewing program, teaching English to refugees and a homework centre for the children in our community. We officially launched in April 2019.
We did not parachute people into our new community, but started with a core missional small group of 7 believers. The community we are reaching into, is made up of refugees from all over our continent and over 100 00 university students from all over South Africa. Over the last three years and especially during COVID we have seen our gospel community grow to over 80 adults and around 50 children. COVID provided a wonderful platform to assist families physically with food and care. It also enabled us to start many "job clubs" which are missional small groups made up of unemployed families in our community. We are not able to meet in people's homes as many families live in a single room or flat. So our church building has become a hub that facilitates small groups and regular DNA groups during the week. It has been remarkable to see the gospel advancing and our church growing. |
2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from? |
The context for Cross Central church in Parow can be described in one word - "Missional". In a 5 kilometre radius of the church we have at least 18 different nationalities represented for all over Africa. Families and refugees all converging in Cape Town to find a better life, work and safety. Parow is crime ridden, impoverished and in great need, with an unemployment rate of around 60 percent. The gospel opportunities are therefore endless. On any given Sunday we are around 12 different nationalities represented and around 20 different languages spoken. Every tribe and nation is a reality of our gospel community. Having an eye on the nations lies at the very heart of our DNA. Our hope is to be able to disciple, grow and shape families to return home one day - taking the sole with them.
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3. What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church? |
The gospel, and sharing it in the context of community lies at the very heart of our DNA. Our church is highly relational and reflects the African sense of "Ubuntu" (togetherness) and community. This shapes the way that any ministry takes place.
The discipleship process in our church always has as it's end goal - believers being equipped to reach out in creative ways in their everyday life. Contact, connection, sharing the gospel, maturing believers and sending them out into the world. Our gospel community is also intentionally active in meeting the needs in our community with sustainable, contextual solutions. We have a number of missional programs aimed at loving and serving our community in very practical ways. |
4. How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision? |
Our gospel community is not program driven but rather values driven. Who we are shapes what we do, our identity shapes our activity. We have our large Sunday celebration service, we then have a network of missional small groups meeting during the week. Some of them formed around a common cause, others by geographical proximity and others built around age and interest.
We further have smaller DNA groups - spontaneous weekly discipleship and 3 - 5 people meeting together. We do not have many church activities or organised events - due partly to safety issues in our community, transport issues (90% of our congregation walk or use public transport) and space limitations. This has forced us to "decentralize" much of the ministry at CCC and see it happening in the context of smaller groups. |
5. How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality? |
One of the advantages of living in a community with such diversity and such close proximity to others - and also with an inherent community dynamic, is that doing life together is part of everyday life. In any 3 bedroom flat in Parow - you will have 3 different families, each living in one of the rooms, sharing a bathroom and kitchen and living space. This makes for constant conversation and interaction. We are simply encouraging families to be sharing and carrying each others burdens.
We are equipping believers to understand their role in their families and community. There is a spontaneous, yet intentional, senes of purpose flowing out of our togetherness as a gospel community. It is wonderful to see and experience growth that comes not from a program but families with a desire for those around to share in our community. |
6. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church? |
I have had to learn to not try to "control" everything. There is a messiness that comes with relational ministry and doing life together. Learning to let go and trust the leaders and co-workers has been an enriching, liberating, yet tough journey. The traditional idea of what church should be, is a very difficult hurdle to cross. The African understanding of the Pastor as the "man of God" has been a very difficult worldview to break. The expectation is that the Pastor does everything and His prayers, visits and personal care are seen as the far more important that of a fellow brother or sister in Christ. To get people to understand the priesthood of all believers has been one of the most difficult bridges to cross.
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Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
CROSS CULTURE CHURCH - JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Cross Culture Church
Contact: Thomas Dreyer - [email protected]
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At A Glance: We are a cross-centred, culture-engaging, reformed church community, called by God to be a family of servants on mission in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg.
This calling becomes a reality as we gather to worship on Sundays and meet throughout the week in our Missional Communities and DNA groups. |
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OUR MISSIONAL STORY:
1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized? |
We are a church plant of the Reformed Church Randburg (a white Afrikaans-speaking church community). This local church realised that the only way to reach the rapidly diversifying community around the church building was to plant a new local body. The church plant is intentionally cross-cultural.
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2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from? |
In traditional churches, people may be very involved with the programs, but really don't get to do life together, or to know each others' spiritual struggles and joys. This limits evangelism to something added-on to church life.
Our calling to plant a cross-cultural church sent us back to God's Word where we see the church together 24/7, devoting themselves to the Word, to fellowship, breaking break together, and to prayer, with the result that God added to their number daily! We are endeavoring to make this vision real and tangible here in the north-west of Johannesburg. |
3. What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church? |
We have learned that reaching people from very diverse cultural and economic backgrounds does not work with programs, but with relationships. By creating spaces of real and honest fellowship we get to know each other well, deal honestly with our differences, and, in that, grow together in the Lord. We have experienced people - some who have been hurt by the church in the past or are still unbelievers - being drawn to these spaces and meet Jesus.
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4. How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision? |
We have our whole church community organised into area-specific Missional Communities. Within these we have started some effective DNA groups which meet regularly. We also have wider men's and ladies' groups who meet together for Gospel-centred fellowship. These are structured to be accessible to people who still have doubts and questions about the Faith.
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5. How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality? |
We begin with reminding people of the Biblical call to live in community in our preaching and our worship times. New members are taught the Missional Community vision in membership classes.
We are constantly inviting people into these Communities and modeling fellowship and hospitality. |
6. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church? |
Communication for a scattered network is a real challenge. We need poly centred leadership - so some people leading on network gatherings, some leading on local gatherings, some focussing on encouraging mentoring and training, some on missional and outreach and so on. If it all points to one couple we hinder growth but if it is all flat level collaboration it also stagnates. Helping people co-lead a scattered network is key. Gathering as a large network and as small houses is key too. Resisting the 'normal' props and patterns of ministry is key too or we may as well just all do more of the same!
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Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
RED DOOR - PRETORIA, GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA
Red Door
Contact: Rhynhardt de Bruin, [email protected]
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At A Glance:
Our three main distinctives are: 1. Mission Minded - living with intentionality 2. Community Cultivating - seeing how the Gospel creates new 'unnatural communities' 3. City Loving - Caring for the poor and marginalised. We love preaching expositionally. We have partnered with a campus ministry organisation, which means we have a lot of students in our midst. Our missional communities gathering once every two weeks, and our DNA groups then gather in the alternating weeks. Our Sunday gathering has a strong family feel to it, where we often refer to the time after the service when we enjoy coffee and tea together, as part 2 of our morning service. |
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OUR MISSIONAL STORY:
1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized? |
Well it started with a realisation that the city was changing and becoming more culturally and racially integrated, yet even though geographical integration was happening, people were still relationally separated from one another. We were a small group of friends that started talking about the possibility of planting a church that would equip people to reach their 'new' neighbours as well as being a welcoming space to people from different backgrounds.
Through these conversations we started developing the idea of what a missional church would look like, and this led us to come into contact with and being introduced to Missional Made Simple that gave us a lot of concrete tools, for the things that we were dreaming about. As we started gathering a core group, we were 5 adults at the time, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and we were seriously challenged by how we could grow this group. Luckily we were already starting to digest some of the Missional Made Simple material and new avenues opened up, because many people suffered loss and were in great need. The first new member to join our group was my Mexican Neighbour. We didn't know one another before the pandemic, but one morning she experienced car trouble and that gave me an opportunity to serve and get to know her and her family. We then also partnered with a campus ministry organisation called Campus Outreach. They already had a presence on the University Campus of our city and embodied the missional mindset that we had at our core. We could finally launch our first in person gatherings in March of 2021 as we started with approximately 18 adults. The pandemic, along with our initial vision has helped the church grow, not around the Sunday services, but around lives captured by the vision that we are to make disciples of all nations. The growth has been slow, but deep and for that I am extremely thankful! |
2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from? |
I was strongly influenced by David Bosch in: "Transforming Mission". There he explained his view of the "Missio Dei" - The God of Mission. Basically saying that God is the one that has always been on Mission and that He is the primary Missionary agent in every and any circumstance. We don't bring the God to people, we simply partner with God has already been doing and how He has been preparing people's hearts for the message of the Gospel.
The led me to asking the question: "What is God doing in our city?" In Pretoria South-Africa we have a history of deep racial division and discrimination. Even though there are still some strong remnants of this previous regime and system, we have seen how the city, neighbourhoods and workplaces have been changing as the city has become more Metropolitan, creating 'new' missionary fields. We wanted to plant a church with the mindset to equip people to reach these 'new' missionary fields in fresh and creative ways, as well as have a church that people would feel comfortable with inviting their new friends and colleagues to. |
3. What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church? |
Culturally we invest a lot of time and effort to make sure that our gatherings are built around hospitality. There is hardly a time when our people gather that food is not involved!
Structurally we have organised the church so that we have less 'church events', so that people are freed up to spend more time pursuing relationships and being social/servant-hearted/intentional with the people around them. The 3 discipleship environments that we have as a church: Sunday Gatherings, Missional Communities, DNA groups, also help to communicate what we value and we have moved away from the cell-group, Bible-study model. Even as a young church plant we want to spend less money on our Sunday venue and sound system and more money on people and discipleship. We are giving 25% of our monthly income to residency programs, campus ministries, and supporting international missionaries. We want to put our money where our mouth is. I constantly preach from the pulpit, how the Gospel not only transforms us, but commissions as all as discipleship makers. Being a multicultural church, most of us need to communicate in our second language, English, and even this helps reminds us that we are not seeking our comfort, but want to live for something more! |
4. How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision? |
We have three different discipleship environments:
1. Sunday Gatherings - to equip the Saints 2. Missional Communities - to Strategically live on Mission together (groups of 8-12 adults) 3. DNA groups - to mature believers (3-5 men with men and women with women groups) We try to keep church 'events' to a minimum to free people up, who are already busy in the city, to have more time for socials, to build relationships and to serve their community. When we do gather, we always try to have food present - we love our food! We want hospitality to be at the core of all we do. Inviting people into our lives and homes. |
5. How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality? |
I have weekly check ups where I follow up with all our Missional Communities to see how they are coping. In the space of a month I would get to all the groups.
We have monthly check-ins with all our DNA group leaders where I can give some coaching and training. We gather online to help both sets of parents be present. We have bi-monthly social gatherings with our DNA-group leaders. One month the men gather together, and the alternating month the Women will gather. The goal of these gathers is to give soul care and give encouragement to one another. We meet once a quarter as a church for a 'family meeting' after church to discuss important matters and give feedback. This is also a platform where I reinforce the vision of the church and give some training. |
6. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church? |
There will be some resistance to this model of church. People don't always want to move beyond their comfort zones. There will be fear and feelings of inadequacy. People would much rather have Bible studies to first 'grow' in their knowledge, before they can share it. You might even be accused of devaluing/undermining God's Word by not teaching it in every environment all the time, even though the Gospel forms the foundation of every discussion and gathering that we have.
Growth may be fast, but in my experience it is normally slow. This is both good and challenging. Challenging as a young church plant there is always the issues of finances and having enough people to serve and help on Sunday's. It is good for us as we know that we are not an 'attractional' church, so the growth that we do experience is either from people come to faith - which is phenomenal! - or from Christians that are deeply committed to living a Missional life. We need to relearn and retrain people to recognise good fruit what the measurements/parameters of fruitfulness are, and not just other people, my own heart as well! Building relationships, fostering new connections with people, serving sacrificially and lovingly your community, people coming to know Christ, people sharing their lives with one another, people sharing their hearts/hopes/dreams/fears with one another - these are the metrics that we need to value and they are much more difficult to measure that the simple metric of: "How many people attended church on Sunday". When things are tough, your heart will crave and want to run to that metric - I constantly need to remind myself to stand form in the vision that God has called us to and that He will build His church. |
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
TABLE CHURCH - CENTURION, GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA
Table Church
Contact: Christo Venter - [email protected]
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At A Glance: We are Table Church in Centurion, South Africa. We see throughout the Gospels how Jesus uses the Table to bring people together.
Our vision is to invite people to this Table where Jesus is at the head of the table and all of us have a seat and a voice. We believe that this is a powerful tool God has given us to invite and love people into life and devotion. Our passion is to see God glorified by every tribe and tongue in our city and all nations. (Yes we do sit around physical tables at our gatherings, so it's not just a metaphor) |
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OUR MISSIONAL STORY:
1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized? |
The city where our church is situated is has not always been a very diverse community, but that is starting to change at quite a rapid rate. A small community within an existing church became aware of this and we were very passionate about reaching the diverse community. When we paired this passion with our passion for those who are far from God and without community, it became immanent that God is calling us to plant a church with him.
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2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from? |
We knew this church needed to be missional, because our hope from the start was that we will see growth by God adding to our number those who were being saved, or at the very least those who are not in Christ-centered community. This is what Jesus has always called us to, as we are called to make disciples. We realised that making disciples isn't just programs for believers, but engaging with and inviting those far from God closer to him. This was a knew revelation for us and our vision is built on this idea that all of us need to be discipling someone into life and someone into devotion.
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3. What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church? |
I believe the way our groups are set up and the way events are organised in our church. I, however, am convinced that we as a church need to grow a lot in terms of how missional we are.
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4. How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision? |
We have a few events built to encourage and equip the believers for the mission. These are our discipleship groups every second week and our weekly Sunday Gathering and our weekly prayer gathering. Then we have quite a strict policy that every event outside of these, should be aimed at reaching those outside the community of faith. This "rule" has even sparked ideas for events we would not have thought of and we have seen God using this to help as meet people we would never have met.
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5. How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality? |
The two strongest tools we have found is first by creating a platform where people can share testimonies of things God did when they were living out missionally and the second is to have frequent one on one check ins with individuals to ask what their struggles are and how the are coping with the missional lifestyle they are committed to.
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6. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church? |
The most important on we've learned is that we should not love our institutional structures more that the people we are trying to reach. Other than that we have learned that being a true missional community takes time. Reaching people this way is a very intimate process and I can truly say that it makes it hard at times, because we genuinely LOVE the people God placed in our lives to love. This has been a major obstacle for us, as we have tried to streamline this process at times and it simply does not work and even hurts people at times.
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Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
THE MESSAGE CHURCH - CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE
The Message Church
Contact: Gerard Jampies: [email protected]
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At A Glance:
We are a church on the Southern Tip of Africa, in the city of Cape Town, South Africa. The Message Church is a small family church with a strong student focus. We are located at the foot of University of Cape Town, where there are 6000 under graduates from all over the continent of Africa. Our tag line is the Message church…Where Jesus is Lord, people are loved and the Bible is taught, expresses our key convictions. The heartbeat of our church is shaped around “Gospel Communities.” Groups of all ages and stages of life that seek to live out their Gospel identity in the City of Cape Town. |
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OUR MISSIONAL STORY:
1. What’s the story of how your church was planted, replanted, or revitalized? |
The Message Church was planted as a student church on the campus of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. A group of students were driving across the city to fellowship at one of our denominational church’s (REACH-SA), and it was proposed that a student service be started. This was a success, however it became apparent that students ministry is very transitional and therefore a core group of people needed to make the viable. This when there began wrestling with a missional community ideas to grow a core of committed believers.
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2. Where did your vision and conviction to be a Missional Church come from? |
Towards the end of 2008 and into 2009 we began to think about who we were as a church and what we wanted to be. What did it mean for us to be the church? Who were we? What did God want us to do? We were gathering faithfully on Sundays and there were a few Bible studies. But was that what being the church involved? Slowly we started to realize that to be the church wasn’t about impressive buildings, well-run meetings or programs or even large numbers at our services. To be the church we had to be about the Gospel and about people. But what did that mean? In short we learnt that to be the church, we needed to be centred on the Gospel, engaging in God’s Mission of making disciples and doing so as the family of God.
Over the last number of years we have sought to live these out in our Gospel Communities (GCs). |
3. What is it about your church that you believe makes it a Missional Church? |
Understanding the biblical story is the first and most important aspect of The Message church’s desire to be missional. We seek to be shaped by God’s story and our new identity in Christ. At the Message one of the ways we want to foster a missional community is through the pulpit. We want to regularly teach and preach on our identities in Christ. We emphasise 5: Family, Disciple, Missionary, Servant, Worshipper. Each year we preach on these identities and remind the community about our missional identity. That we do not become missionaries when we go to the mission field. Or that mission is not an added extra we tag onto to an already packed life but it is essential to your new identity in Christ. Therefore, live out who God has called you to be.
We add structures to enabling congregants to live out there missional identity. We have created a quarterly event called a evangelism/ apologetic Sunday. This evangelism Sunday is an opportunity for people in the church to invite, colleagues, friends, neighbours to a thought provoking event. For example, we have done the following topics: “Why Jesus Hates Religion,” “Why is there so much suffering in the World;” “What is the Gospel;” “Can I trust the Bible?” Here the hope is that people would be praying for the lost and this Sunday provides an opportunity to invite them to a hot button topic. Furthermore, we have GC Sundays (Sunday gathering in smaller settings in people's homes). The plan is to have these (GC Sundays, once every six/seven weeks). These are borne out of the same conviction, to make gathering with outsiders, those who are not yet friends with God easy and relational. One of the greatest GC stories was seeing a woman being really loved and discipled by a group of women (during the GC weekly gatherings), after experiencing this for a number of months, she put her own faith in Christ and still seeks to grow in her faith. |
4. How are you structured/organized to accomplish your Missional vision? |
The centre and heartbeat of the church is the Gospel Community life. These are our groups of people that seek to live out the Gospel together. We have deliberately spoken of them as GC’s and not Bible studies or home groups due to the old ingrained mentality that a mid-week meeting consists of prayer and a bible study. We want the GC’s to live out there new Gospel identity in community. We emphasise 5 identities regularly and encourage the Gospel community leaders and core-teams to remember they are seeking to live out their identity together. Within GC’s we have DNA’s. A DNA group is typically a group of 3-4 people, normally either all men or all women, who meet together (approximately) weekly to encourage, train and nurture one another in their discipleship. The ‘DNA’ stands for ‘Discipleship, Nurture and Accountability’. When they meet they will generally study the Bible together, pray together and help one another bring their everyday lives into step with the truth of the Gospel.
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5. How are you training and coaching your people to live with Missional intentionality? |
Because Gospel communities are the ‘heartbeat’ of the church. We have established a core-team of 2-3 families in each GC to carry the load of keeping the groups focussed on living out the three important identities of: Family, Disciple, Missionary. There is little formal training on a monthly basis, but the team meet up with the GC leaders to encourage and remind about the focus and intention of Gospel communities. In addition began identifying key individuals who will be trained up to facilitate counselling to those struggling or suffering. At the heart of biblical counselling and pastoral care is the conviction and desire that all experience Christ centred renewal in every area of life.
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6. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a Missional Church? |
We can talk about it all day every day, but it won’t happen until someone just starts. We have also got to position ourselves well; by really knowing the needs of those we are seeking to reach.
Being able to share your faith or talk about Jesus is something that is going to be caught rather than taught. Not that there is no need for teaching how to share your faith and understanding the central tenants of the Gospel but people will learn more by watching and learning. Critical mass is vital. If momentum is lost in the efforts to be missional it is very difficult to regain that. |
Missional Progress
Coming Soon...
Kenya
Missional Churches Coming Soon...