The group of ministers who attended the workshop at URCSA Saldanha, including Rev. Pedro, who facilitated the workshop, seated in the front row, far right.
Although February is well known for Valentine’s Day, for Congregational Witness, February 2024 will be remembered as the month they officially kicked off their revised strategy: to train the ministers of congregations not only to take ownership of the missional transformation of their congregations but also to take charge of the facilitation thereof.
Hence, our main objective regarding the missional transformation of our congregations is to train our ministers on a presbyterial level, not only to own the process of the missional transformation of their congregations but also to facilitate and coordinate the process in cooperation with the leaders of their congregations.
For URCSA Cape, we are in a race against time because almost every month sees the addition of another congregation or two to the more than 170 congregations already without a full- or part-time minister. Hence, we’ve decided to cluster the presbyteries, and because some of the 29 presbyteries only have a handful of ministers.
In session with the colleagues of the presbyteries of Graaff-Reinet and Uitenhage.
So, from January 31 to February 1, 2024, Rev. Stephen Pedro commenced the training and planning workshop with ministers from the first cluster of presbyteries, namely Graaff-Reinet, Gqeberha (PE), and Kariega (Uitenhage) at URCSA Graaff-Reinet. Although only four of the nine ministers of the three presbyteries attended the workshop, it was a solid and blessed start. The valuable input and suggestions of the ministers regarding the process with congregations were well received and documented and will be incorporated in the refinement of the missional transformation process.
The second training and planning workshop took place from Wednesday, February 28, to Thursday, February 29, at URCSA Saldanha. Twelve ministers from the second cluster of presbyteries, namely Porterville and Malmesbury (Wesland), attended the workshop. Rev. Pedro explained, “I was really impressed and inspired by the enthusiasm of the ministers to attend and participate in the workshop. It is heartwarming to see our ministers not only preach the importance of being there for others, but they also practice a ministry of presence and giving of themselves. Already from the Wednesday, during the Dwelling in the Word, with Mark 9: 2-9 as guiding text, one could sense that God is up to something and that this will also be a blessed gathering of the saints”.
Rev. Pedro discussing the missional transformation process to the group.
Rev. Pedro explained further, “The purpose of these training and planning workshops is to start the conversation about the missional calling of our congregations with the ministers first. The first part of the conversation is to introduce and explain the missional transformation process that I’ve designed and developed, to the ministers. The design-proposal was well received by the ministers, and again valuable input was shared which we will work into the process.
“The second part of the conversation/workshop was to explain the core part of our revised strategy, namely, to train the ministers to facilitate the missional transformation process with their congregations.” During this training, we will empower the ministers with the tools to facilitate the three phases of the process with their congregations and where possible with some of the ‘vacant’ congregations within their presbyteries.”
Rev. Pedro explained that he will be assisted by co-trainers whom he trained last year. They will especially assist him with the training to facilitate the tools of the assessment phase of the missional transformation process. These assistant-trainers will take responsibility for the follow-up training workshops. “This will, in turn, allow me to have some breathing space to focus on refining the missional transformation process and to do more research regarding the second and third phases of the process.”
According to Rev. Pedro, the ministers who attended the workshops are very much excited about what lies ahead and are grateful for this initiative and looking forward to being part of and taking ownership of this discernment and transformational process.
Eager to learn more about this process of missional tranformation.
Contact Rev. Stephen Pedro at stephen@kaapkerk.co.za for more information.