From the first moment we started our journey with the PMC, we new that to be missional, we needed a different paradigm. How big a paradigm shift this would be, is something that we just could not contemplate. As country, church and congregation, we experienced very...

Living the Missional Calling
Helderberg Somerset-West
9-11 November 2009
 

Our Journey thus far:

It all started with a relationship: When Coenie Burger and Pat Kiefert met at the turn of the century, Coenie was at CTI Princeton on a sabbatical and met Pat through a mutual friend. Pat was invited to Stellenbosch for a sabbatical and we were introduced to the Partnership for missional churches (PMC).
A number of us went to St Paul in 2003 to meet Pat and his staff, as CI and 10 congregations started SAPMC. Andrew Esterhuizen was elected as the Chair of our committee and I was given the role as project leader.

Pat came to South Africa and we went on a country wide tour to introduce the Partnership, and as a result 5 clusters were formed in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Namibia and the Southern Cape. Looking back, it appears that it is as if God has prepared congregations for the missional vision in Southern Africa. I remember an evening in George: Pat had a less than friendly confrontation with some-one who tried to manipulate us, but in the discussion I remember Pat mentioning that he was experiencing it as the Spirit moving people.

“Die hond het die kar gevang – en nou …?”

Capacity building: A listening team was required, as well as a design team with Pieter van der Walt, Nico Simpson, Johan Kotze and myself. Our capacity was at first almost non-excising. I had to fly across the country to lead the clusters – in my bag I had a paper or two with a next set of questions. In that time I received an angry letter from a friend telling me how disgusted he was with what we had to offer, and then we had the audacity to ask money for it. Luckily this friend did not leave the partnership and stayed with us.

Innovation: After a round of cluster meetings, the design team would meet at Communitas or at Nico’s house, trying to figure out what the next steps should be. Levels of anxiety soared as time went by. All of us were on a steep learning curve! We have read the books, we have studied the maps, but the territory was very unfamiliar. Later on Gordon was appointed as manager for PMC and he joined the design team. We worked long hours to figure out what to do next and how to incluturate this approach in our minds for our journey in the South African context. Sometimes we would wake up in the morning just to realize that what we had designed couldn’t work and we had to start all over again.

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