Yesterday I rode the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge in Joburg along with 26 000 other cyclists making it one of the biggest races in the world. On the way I met these heroes, volunteers who are raising money for CHOC, Childhood Cancer Foundation South Africa. The videos were taken with my cell phone as I rode alongside them.

I was impressed by their commitment, their level of organisation, their numbers, over 100 volunteers who rode in cow suits or CHOC gear, as well as the number of sponsors involved. The ice-cream carts, pulled by two cyclists with tubes in front and pushed by another two from the back, were often overtaking other riders so they regularly had to shout “Keep left!” as can be seen in this video:

The combination of the cow suits, the ice-cream bikes, the bells and their sheer numbers ensured that the Cows’ presence was felt throughout the day. Spectators chucked bank notes into the ice-cream carts along the route but the serious fundraising is on-going on this website

As I was entering the inner-city of Joburg I spotted the first ice-cream caravan. Rob Riccardi who was doing the hard work on the one-gear ice-cream bike was one of the people who started the initiative last year. One of his friends had lost a child to cancer so he and some buddies decided to raise funds for CHOC.

They overshot their target which was to build a CHOC house near the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital so their next goal was to furnish the house and buy a bus. The CHOC Houses across South Africa are homes to children receiving daily treatment from the major hospitals so it becomes their home away from home.

Many of these kids come from poor rural families and often their parents can barely afford to get their children to hospital. The bus will make it easier for them to visit their children as they are suffering the terrible side-effects of chemo-therapy.

Being involved in fundraising for non-profit organisations myself, I was really inspired by these people. I was struck by three timeless principles I witnessed in action yesterday:

1) The power of a personal experience and a story to propel people into action for a cause.

2) The power of networking and relationships to achieve bigger goals than you can reach on your own. I rode with the herd for quite a while and whenever they stopped at watering points it was clear that there were lots of friendships and a true sense of camaraderie.

3) There was space for anybody to contribute, from spectators to supporters at watering points, to cyclists. Most of the volunteers were average or below-average cyclists. But there were also some Super Cows, top cyclists who first raced hard and then did the 97 km route all over again. Andre from Centurion (picture below) was the first Super Cow, pulling an ice-cream bike wearing a cow suit after he finished in an impressive 2 hrs 22 min. The winning time was 2 hrs 14 min.

In another post I would like to explore this theme a little more so watch this space. What fundraising experiences have you had? If you rode the 94.7 did you see the cows and what did you think?

I have been visiting Alexandra sporadically over the past few months, getting to know the place and its people. Whenever I go there I’m looking for language helpers to work with me in my language-learning business. I’m also looking for non-Christians who might be interested in reading the Bible with me.

Alexandra is a township consisting of mainly poor and some middle class residents, living in small old houses, flats, shacks, new government-built RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) houses and some fairly new privately built houses.

The Michelangelo Towers in Sandton

One of the intriguing features of Alexandra is its location. It lies right next to Sandton on the west, the upmarket Johannesburg suburb, home to luxury hotels such as the Michelangelo Towers, the InterContinental  Sandton Towers and various multi-national corporations.

Linbro Park - Country Living in the City

On the east the township is bordered by the N3 highway and right next to  that is Linbro Park Agricultural Holdings where we live. We are renting a house on a small holding, one of five dwellings on the property. Many of the residents here ride horses and they drive around with bumper stickers saying “I love Linbro Park – Country Living in the City”.

I am currently reading a fascinating book about the history of Alex which explains this rather odd location of the Black township, slap bang in the middle of White suburbia. I will blog about that later.

Two weeks ago I took my family on a drive through Alex. It was Sunday afternoon around 16:00 and everywhere small groups of people were walking with Bibles. We also saw a large group of Independent African Church members making their way up a hill in their white and green attire.

We parked our car on the pavement next to a shack. Less then five minutes after we started walking we were invited for cold-drink. A young lady with a big smile wanted to know what we were doing here. We told her that we came to visit our neighbours because we live just across the highway. “But then you must come inside!” she said.

Cecile, Marisje, Andiswa and Anelia outside the shack we were invited into

Her shack was about the size of one of our two bathrooms. Within seconds she had a one litre bottle of ice cold Coke and was pouring it into glasses. I don’t know where it came from but the speed at which she had it ready was pretty impressive. Then Anelia, our four-year old daughter asked “Where do you keep your food?” We all burst out laughing. She didn’t ask the question out of curiosity but because she was hungry.

Cecile asked our guest if she had a tissue for the baby. She replied: “No, but let me quickly go and buy one.” We said “No, that’s not necessary” but a little later she was back with a roll of toilet paper.

Like so many previous occasions of visiting people living in simple conditions, this was once again a humbling experience for me. In my next post I will write about our second family visit to Alex. The new header image on my blog was taken during that visit, which was last week Sunday.

I just received the following information via Facebook from dr Anthony Turton, water scientist who formerly worked at the CSIR.

The gold mining industry in South Africa is proposing a water treatment plant that will take mine water contaminated with heavy metals, radioactivity and sulphates, treat it and then sell it on to consumers as part of their environmental management planning to terminate their future liabilities.

The public participation phase of the Environmental Impact Assessment is currently underway and will close on Friday 24 July 2009, after which a decision will be made to proceed or not to proceed with the project.

I signed the petition “South African Water Action” to voice my concern over this issue which directly affects the health of all South Africans. I’m asking you to sign this petition to help reach the goal of 1 000 signatures.

Click here to sign the petition and/or to obtain more background information.

Andries Louw

Andiswa sitting for the first time

Wednesday we parked at the Child Welfare office around lunch time. It was cold. I watched as Andiswa’s father grabbed her from my wife’s arms. I saw the lines on the side of his face by his eyes and mouth grow deeper as he stood there, savouring the moment.

He couldn’t take his eyes off his six month old daughter as we walked inside the building. He looked like the proud father of a newborn infant – his body language, the way he held her, the permanent smile on his face. Was he going to take responsibility?

Andiswa, born on Christmas day, is not your typical “foster baby case”. Normally welfare gets a court order to remove a child if the child’s safety is under threat. Andi’s parents brought her to the welfare voluntarily in January and requested she be put into foster care, but did not want to sign her off for adoption. In February she was temporarily entrusted to us under a private arrangement facilitated by the social workers. The plan was to place her with us as “place of safety” parents, a six month agreement but the process was delayed several times. After she had been with us for 3 weeks, Andi’s birth mother disappeared without a trace. Meanwhile Cecile was taking Andi to the Child Welfare office almost weekly for her father to see her and to discuss the way forward.

As we sat down on Wednesday, Andiswa’s father was trying to feed her with a bottle Cecile had prepared. Occasionally he would converse with his friend in their mother tongue and the social worker with us in Afrikaans. The conversation was almost predictable, Andiswa’s father mumbling along in Nigerian-English about his fruitless efforts to track down the mother.

Understanding about every third word, I could make out that he was now ready for foster care, a two year arrangement. He thought it meant he could get his baby back at any time. The social worker explained that it’s not that simple, that the baby is bonding with her primary caregivers and that the court would act in the best interest of the child when deciding whether she could be returned.

He wanted another week to find the mother before making a decision. The social worker had enough. “I think you should take back your baby and care for her until you can make up your mind”, adding in Afrikaans “This is far too comfortable for him. His child is being cared for very well, there’s no pressure on him. In fact, I don’t even need his permission to place her in foster care.”

In a moment I saw him sign away his child. A quick exchange of words with his friend was followed by “OK, let’s go for open adoption.” Open adoption allows the biological parents some access to the child as determined by the adoptive parents. Eventually he agreed to foster care as a first step.

Cecile put Andi on the table. “Look, she’s sitting!” cried my wife. It was the first time she could actually sit on her own. Out came the cell phone cameras. We celebrated the moment together.

Next week we will go to court to rubber stamp the split second decision of a father to sign his child away. This is leading to adoption. I am excited to become Andi’s new dad, yet I feel like crying. I wanted him to fight for his child, to take her back. We simply have to find ways of empowering parents to be parents.We need to change this nation, one family at a time.

The Amahoro Africa gathering has surpassed my wildest expectations. I was moved, challenged and encouraged. I was networked, connected, inspired and lifted up to a new viewpoint of hope and vision for this beautiful, tragic, struggling, bleeding, pulsating, dancing, dynamic, big-heart continent which I have the privilege of calling home. This was not a conference. It really was a family-reunion of visionary, thinking and praying doers who welcomed me as a new member. I now have a responsibility towards my new family to follow conversations up with action and prayer. I can’t wait to get started.

This is what I wrote last night as a comment on the Amahoro Africa website. Amahoro means peace, harmony, holism, much like the Hebrew shalom. My previous post was entitled Amahoro Africa conference: The African Reformation. Now I understand why the organisers haven’t called it a conference, but a gathering. Monday night they said it was a family reunion. It sounded cliche to me.

One of my roommates was Steven Kurikunkiko. He told me his story of growing up as an orphan in Uganda. His parents were killed in the war when he was six. In 1996 he went to Rwanda, where his parents had originally fled from, also because of a war. He was greeted by the sight of dead bodies in the streets and people walking around with chopped off hands and feet.

Steven started caring for widows, orphans and HIV positive women who had been raped during the genocide that broke out in 1994. He and his wife are renting a building where 160 widows are making crafts and are being trained as tailors. They have 15 sewing machines but Steven says if they can get another 65 machines they will be able to train some while others are selling clothes on the market.

Last night I discovered that Sean, a South African now living in London, is already supporting Steven. Sean told me about Friends-of-Steven and about the charity he is setting up that will allow people to donate towards Steven’s project and other similar ones. Then I understood why I saw Steven and Sean sitting together so often during breaks. They are friends. They belong to the Amahoro family. It’s not a cliche.

Yesterday a man from the Batwa tribe (“Pygmee”) in the DRC spoke about his village and their challenges. A church in Texas are friends with them. Before they started talking about money, friendships were built. Batwa people are visiting Texas and Texans are visiting the Batwa village.

Philbert Kalisa, founder of Reach Rwanda (see also here) told me about their work in reconciling warring tribes with each other who then build houses together in “villages of hope”. How many more stories, projects and friendships are there among the hundreds of participants who were here from West, East, Central and Southern Africa, from North America, Europe, Australia and Nieu Zeeland?

I found new hope for Africa and my African identity took on new meaning. Time to get our hands dirty!

The Amahoro Africa conference starts tonight at the YFC campsite, CYARA in the Magaliesberg. Looking at the schedule it seems that the two dominant themes for this annual gathering of leaders from Africa and beyond will be the Postcolonial Church and the African Reformation.

I will be attending and am planning to blog and tweet more about it in the coming week(s). (Follow me on Twitter here). Roger Saner has started blogging about Amahoro a few days ago. He posted a very useful introduction to Amahoro here and published some interesting thoughts that already elicited a fair amount of discussion here and here. Steve Hayes posted much of his contribution to Roger’s posts here and here. Nic Paton posted on Amahoro here. Graeme Codrington had posted a few podcasts and summaries of addresses from the Amahoro 1 conference in Uganda, 2007 here.

I would be interested to know if anybody else has also posted on Amahoro or is planning to do so in the coming week or weeks. Most of the mentioned discussions have centered around the concepts of postcolonialism, apartheid, racism and the African/Western conversation.

I am very much looking forward to attending Amahoro, not so much because of the keynote speakers (although I have reason to believe that their inputs will be very good), but especially because of what I expect will happen between the participants and because of the networking opportunities. I hope that we will somehow be changed in God’s presence and be moulded together in our journey of discovering our true identity as the church in South Africa and Africa. I hope to discover more of my own African identity even though I am a white Afrikaner. I hope that I will be able to listen well and seek to understand before seeking to be understood.

I also hope that we will be able to re-discover what it means to be followers of Jesus Christ and what it means to be the church, irrespective of our backgrounds. It is our shared identity of being in Christ (died and raised with him) that should move us to confront the injustices of colonialism, apartheid, racism, sexism, exploitation of the poor etc.  And it is our shared identity of being in Christ that should move us to create new communities of hope, life and reformation. As leaders we should deal with these issues in our own lives, repent and forgive on behalf of others who might be unwilling to do so and create examples of the African Reformation in action.

According to the Amahoro website, this is what Amahoro is about:

Amahoro Africa is working to see the Gospel of Jesus bringing transformation to communities across Africa.  We facilitate holistic transformation by encouraging, resourcing and connecting emerging African leaders who are committed to the tangible manifestation of justice, mercy and goodness in their local context.

In his letter to attendees, Claude Nikondeha, director of Amahoro Africa writes:

Those who will be assembled for The Gathering are on a trajectory of transformation in their communities and countries.  They are working for something more than the salvation of the soul, but investing in the restoration of all things.  They are working for change on the ground, be it in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa or the Dominican Republic.  They understand that the work they do is their response to the Gospel imperative, to bring good news to the poor and broken of the earth. But our good works and good efforts need roots and nourishment to sustain us in our Gospel-inspired work.  To do the work of transformation without the accompanying spirituality is to run on empty.

Read his full letter here.

Please pray for this conference and for everybody attending.

I rate the past 2 nights’ church planting sessions with David Watson as 4 of the most mind-switching hours in my life… seriously. I wrote this tweet (a twitter post, in case you didn’t know) on Friday. You can follow my tweets here. On Thursday I started following David on twitter. I can highly recommend it. Here are a few good ones as an example:

Spent afternoon talking about the difference in selecting people to start a church and planting the Gospel into social unit to start church8:05 PM Apr 25th from web

Most think you start a church by gathering people from various social groups to form a new social group called a church. NOT.8:06 PM Apr 25th from web

You start a church by introducting the Gospel into existing social units when God will use it to redeem what is already there.8:07 PM Apr 25th from web

The tweets above touch on two of the foundational princiles he employs, namely that it’s not about church planting but about Gospel planting. (Read his own posts by following the links). The second principle is that it’s not about individuals but about social units.

What really grabbed my attention was the story about his journey with the church. He started out as a Southern Baptist church planter in the US and then planted some more churches in Hong Kong and Malaysia. In 1988 he was sent to do church planting in South Asia. At that time there were only 27 churches with about 500 Christians in a group of 120 million people. In 1991 David and his family moved to Singapore because of opposition to the work.

He struggled with God and wanted to quit this ministry until he realised that God was not releasing him but instead was taking him back to an intense study of the Bible. It was then that he discovered that there is no church planting in the Bible. Jesus said “Make disciples”. Church planting is a by-product of disciple making. It’s about giving care and meeting people’s needs, meaning that there is no separation between so-called social ministry and gospel ministry.

David eventually returned to South Asia in 1992, saying “God, if you can give me just five people I can pour my life into, I think we can do this.” Within a year he had four men that were ready to try something new or insane.

I’m now skipping a lot of detail to give an overview of the rest of the story. He began with simple Bible studies. He didn’t start with Christ, but with the Creator. As he put it “There’s a reason why we still have the Old Testament and why it’s before the New.” His approach to evangelism is based on John 6:44-45

⁴⁴“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’^[a] Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.

In practice this means that he reads the Bible with people and when they ask him about his spiritual life, he tells them where it comes from. The Bible studies are designed to help non-Christians discover for themselves who God is and what God says about humanity. That leads to people asking: If the Creator God is holding me accountable, what am I supposed to do? That eventually leads people to Jesus. So people are drawn to Jesus because they are being taught by God when they listen to his word. (Read John 6:44-45 again.)

The result was that 8 churches were established in one year. The number of new churches added in the following years were as follows:

• Year 2: 48
• Year 3: 126
• Year 4: 327
• Year 5: >500
• Year 6: >1000

Within five years David moved out and started mentoring leaders in other places around the world. According to the external audit that was finished in December 2008 there are now more than 80 000 churches with an average size of 63 people among that particular group, counting over 3 million baptisms.

It is impossible to do justice to everything he said within one post but here are some of my initial observations: Although this Texan was talking about big numbers he did it in a humble way. It wasn’t about the quantity but rather about the quality. Because the quality is established in the kernel, it reproduces more quality, which leads to exponential growth.

He places a lot of emphasis on starting with good seed in fertile soil, getting the DNA right from the start. This means starting with non-believers (not Christians!) that are open to learn about God. He uses the term Person of peace, also used by Ralph Neighbor and others, to refer to key people in a social unit, based on Luke 10:5-11.

The churches are small, averaging 63. That’s one of the key factors that allow them to reproduce quickly. In his experience two major factors that kill church planting are buildings and paid local leaders. He said if the average pastor was to be paid $100 a month, they would need $8 million a month to keep the 80 000 churches in South Asia going. Instead these churches run on $4.76 per month.

I got the impression that he is living a simple, non-glamorous lifestyle. When they  moved to South Asia in 1989 they went with four suitcases and two small children. He has done lots of language and culture learning. He kept saying that it’s simple but that it comes at a cost.

Moreover, he has mentored leaders all over the world in different contexts with similar results. He spends most of his time mentoring leaders and strategising church planting movements.

My last observation for now will be about the hardest principle he lives by, especially for my academic theological mind that so easily allows me to stay within the comfort zone of reading, talking and thinking. It is obedience, simple obedience to the One whom I call Lord. That great sermon of Jesus on the mountain ends with two very strong references to obedience: Matt 7:21-23

²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ ²³Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

It ends with the parable of the house on the rock vs the house on the sand, the house on the rock being “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice”.

I will need to write quite a lot more to try and process the input I have been receiving over the past few months. It includes a week-end of training by David Broodryk from Midrand, South Africa who is being mentored by David Watson and a day seminar by Neil Cole (USA) about simple / organic church.

One of the golden threads through all of these sessions was that I shouldn’t educate myself beyond my obedience. That is a fine line to tread, but one that makes sense. I have started to put some of the basics into practice but still have a long way to go. That is one of the reasons why I have lately been blogging less frequently. I need more time to change my lifestyle!

If you want to learn more about what David Watson and his associates teach, please work through the following on-line resources. That way you will get it from the horse’s mouth:

• David Watson’s blog
• Church Planting Movement Training Resources
• Church Planting Round Table
• Reaching the Online Generation

Also watch David Broodryk’s Kingdom People website for upcoming missional discipleship & church planting training in South Africa. Click here to subscribe to his discipleship news email list.

Baby Andiswa on her daddy's lap in my car outside the Police station

In about a month’s time my wife will take baby Andiswa to court. Actually she will take her to Child Welfare and the social workers will get a court order to have the now three-month-old baby girl removed from the care of her father so that she can officially be placed in our care as place-of-safety parents. We are still in the process of being approved and will appear before a panel before it becomes official.

We met Andiswa and her parents at Child Welfare about seven weeks ago. They brought her there telling the social workers that they couldn’t care for her anymore. Normally social workers have to remove children from their parents by a court order if the child is being neglected or abused. These parents were bringing their baby to the welfare office out of their own accord!

They didn’t want to give her up for adoption so their remaining options were foster care (two to four years) and place of safety, which is a six month arrangement. The purpose is to allow the parents time to get their act together so they can take the child back.

Because there was no court order however, they have had to make a private arrangement. They took all the relevant documentation to the police and signed an affidavit that they were releasing their baby into our care. The father had lost his job and couldn’t afford the rent anymore. We first tried to convince them to go and live in a shelter while he looks for a job. After a long discussion we agreed that we would take Andiswa for three weeks. That would allow the social workers enough time to find a shelter for mother and baby while daddy would look for a job.

Cecile with Andiswa on the first day we brought her home

My wife Cecile would take Andiswa to Child Welfare once a week so that her parents could see her. Three weeks later we gave her back, happy that her parents were now ready to take care of her again.

But the success was short-lived. Just over a week after we returned her, Andiswa’s father called us saying that the mother had disappeared two days earlier. It was Saturday morning and we were just getting ready for our four-year-old daughter’s birthday party. After consulting with the social worker we arranged to meet the father later that afternoon. He was clearly distraught and didn’t have a clue how to care for a baby. Back we went to the police station for another affidavit.

The fact that Andiswa’s mother has since been reported missing changes everything. Now it becomes a matter for the courts, especially as her father still doesn’t want to give her up for adoption. It is amazing how quickly we have formed an emotional bond with this little person. Ironically that is what makes it hard to keep her longer. The longer we keep her the more difficult it becomes to give her back. But somehow we need to create a culture of making our homes places of safety and foster care.

Unaware of all the drama in her little life

Baby Andi is lying in her carry-cot on the table next to me while I’m writing this. Her cute baby sounds, fast breathing and involuntary body movements pull the strings of my heart in a tug-of-war away from her parent(s). A few people have said that they admire us for doing it but I’m not writing this to get admiration. Rather I’d like to challenge you to do something to make a difference in the life of a child without a family. Become place-of-safety parents or foster parents or adopt a child. Visit an orphanage.

Taking babies to court might be one of the most significant things we can do to keep them out of court by the time they turn sixteen or twenty.

Most people know that 21 March was Human Rights Day in South Africa. Less known is the fact that Sunday 22 March was World Water Day. It might be quite significant that these 2 days follow each other so closely. This year the focus of World Water Day was on the waters that cross borders and link us together.

There is a direct link between the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and the cholera epidemic in our northern neighbour. The water-borne disease has in recent months spreaded to South Africa. Early December last year the Limpopo river that forms the border between the two countries, has tested positive for cholera. The closure of the refugee centre at the showgrounds in Musina less than 2 weeks ago made it even more difficult to contain the spread of the disease as more infected people travelled deeper into South Africa.

According to the official World Water Day website, “The world’s 263 transboundary lake and river basins include the territory of 145 countries and cover nearly half of the Earth’s land surface. Great reservoirs of freshwater also move silently below our borders in underground aquifers.”

The Times displays a slideshow entitled World water wars, quoting water expert Fred Pearce: “In the past the world has gone to war for many reasons – land, oil, gold. As populations rise – future wars will be sparked by water scarcity.”

The Mail & Guardian asks in an online article yesterday: As climate changes, is water the new oil? The South African Water Research Commission writes about Water Day under the heading: Transboundary waters: We all live downstream.

I like the comment on the official World Water Day site: “Whether we live upstream or downstream, we are all in the same boat.” This also seems to be the spirit in which one of our own water experts, dr Anthony Turton approaches the water situation in South Africa.

Having been controversially suspended from the CSIR last year before he was about to present a paper at a scientific conference, he recently commented on the blogpost I wrote about his suspension. He said he doesn’t want to get embroiled in an ongoing dialogue about his suspension but that he is working along with a few others on the formation of a new company, TouchStone Resources where they are developing their dream team of water experts that will offer their skills to stakeholders in the water sector who are interested to work with them.

I asked him 4 questions to which he provided some interesting answers:

1) Am I right in saying that you still have opportunities to continue the debate and help find solutions?

2) Who are other key role players (individuals & organisations) that are working on preventing a national water crisis?

3) Do you agree with dr Kobus van Zyl’s assessment that the biggest single problem lies at local government level?

4) Apart from using water sparingly, what can ordinary citizens do to help secure the future of South Africa’s water?

I have asked critical questions about our minister of water affairs, Mrs Lindiwe Hendricks because she said in parliament last year that there is no water crisis in South Africa. I was pleasantly surprised by Turton’s comment that “I am working closely with the DG of DWAF, and also the Minister. I have close professional relationships with both and those relationships are robust. These are good people that need our support. I have never pointed a finger of blame, because I believe this to be unhelpful in finding solutions. I am a solution-seeker not a blame-apportioner.”

(The DG of DWAF is the Director General of the Department of Water and Forrestry).

Read dr Turton’s full comments here. Educate yourself about water, don’t take it for granted that you can open a tap and drink clean water. Spread the word about this precious resource!

Towards the end of last year (2008) Cecile and I announced to our cell group that the time had come for us to leave the church and embark on a journey to discover where God was leading us. It was not a simple, easy good-bye. We had come to know people really well and we still have an emotional bond with many of them.

Since we joined Kempton Park West Christian Community Church in 2007 we had been mentioning that God was calling us to plant a new church / fellowship / ministry or something but that we didn’t know what it would look like, how it would work or where it would be.

Kempton Park West Christian Community Church was part of the Dutch Reformed denomination but over the past few years its identity had gradually changed so that by the second half of last year it left the denomination and joined the Christian Network, of which Hatfield Christian Church, Maranatha Community Church and others form part.

The church sent us out for our new ministry one Sunday morning in November. They blessed us and prayed for us and asked that we keep in touch. We are planning to visit our old cell group again on Tuesday night to share with them our experiences so far. Here’s the online version for those who can’t be at the cell group:

Starting a new church isn’t just a brigth idea one simply gets one Saturday afternoon when you have nothing else to do. It is perhaps best described as a very long and sometimes painful birth process… and the baby hasn’t even been born yet!

For us it is the result of many many years of working hard in the church (including seven years of theological study in my case), serving in different capacities in the church: as youth worker, church administrator, youth pastor, cell leader, organiser of mission outreaches etc. It is the result of reflecting on all the energy being poured into programmes and activities that often don’t lead to changed lives and transformed societies. It is the result of prayer over many years, a yearning for God to radically change the church so we can fulfill our calling and live up to our identity in Christ.

Let me make it very clear that we have no intention of starting a new denomination. We have simply arrived at the point of no return where we believe that there must be a better way of being the church of the Lord Jesus Christ than the way we have always been doing it.

Also we are not throwing stones at the established church. Up until last year we have been a very integral part of the established church. It is exactly because we take joint responsibility for the failure of the church to impact society that we are moving into something new which at the same time is something old.

Since the end of 2008 we have tried to use our week-ends to visit as many different ministries as possible. We were looking for ministries that are making an impact on society, Christian communities who are reaching out to the poor in meaningful ways, who are impacting families, the workplace, social groups, who work inter-culturally and are empowering ordinary believers to be disciples of Jesus in their everyday lives.

We first visited the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, a powerful ministry in the inner city of Pretoria working with street children, homeless people, women in prostitution and many other people in need. Next we met with a group who was preparing to go and plant a church overseas. They referred us to Floyd McClung, former leader of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and founder of All Nations, an international church planting movement.

We met Floyd for coffee while on holiday in December in Cape Town. I had read some of his books and was really looking forward to meeting the man behind the stories of working with disillusioned young people on the hippie trail between Afghanistan and Amsterdam in the sixties and seventies. The gentle giant made an enormous impression on me and I will never forget his simple, humble demeanour.

He referred us to David Broodryk who is the founder of another church planting network, Kingdom People. We visited David and Michelle at their home in Midrand. I was fascinated by his journey from evangelistic preacher in Bophuthatswana with large trucks and sound systems to  pastor of a “successful”, growing middle class church in Midrand, to founder of a simple missional house church planting network.

We attended a Kingdom People leadership gathering in the form of a Sunday morning braai and this week-end we attended David’s FEET 1 training on missional discipleship. I hope to write a separate post about that soon but suffice to say that it was sound, simple powerful and practical discipleship in a nutshell.

About a month ago we spent a Saturday night and Sunday morning with Mynhardt and Lisha van Pletsen who started a community known as The bread and wine. (Update: The bread and wine has since merged with another community to form Omni – Church everywhere). We joined them on the Saturday night for an alternative movie night. We were a small group who visited an orphanage in Mabopane and watched a movie with the kids, taking along pop-corn and cooldrinks. They have built a relationship with this orphanage over time and are investing there for the future.

We slept over at Mynhardt and Lisha’s home and had breakfast together on the Sunday morning, reflecting on the previous night’s experience and chatting about how to be the church.

Another stop on our journey was the Vespers service at the Greek Orthodox Church in Brixton. I blogged about it in my previous post. Some week-ends we just stayed at home as a family, praying, reading and enjoying each other’s company, going for a walk with the kids and the dogs.

We visited our good old friends in Centurion, Francois and Marelize du Plessis. One Sunday morning I went mountain biking with Francois and a couple of his buddies. They are involved in another house church movement, Elijah Africa.

Last week Sunday morning I went with my brother to the Wanderers and watched day 4 of the second cricket test between South Africa and Australia.

After this week-end’s discipleship training I can sense that the time to launch a new house church type of fellowship is drawing closer. We will be moving into a new house by the end of March so much of our energy will go into that in the coming weeks. I am excited because I know that God is taking us on a journey with Him!