The link between Sydney and the gospel work of African Enterprise is continuing, with clergy about to relaunch teaching Moore College’s Preliminary Theological Certificate in African cities under the AE umbrella.
COVID brought these training visits to a halt, but this month the Rev Stephen Liggins, senior assistant minister at Springwood will travel to Zimbabwe to teach PTC intensives in Harare.
Mr Liggins, who taught the PTC in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi with African Enterprise from 2003 to 2014, said the aim is “to get untrained African Christian leaders, or African leaders who haven’t had much training... and put them through the six Level 1 PTC subject over a couple of years”. He said that the Rev Chris Jones from Windsor would travel to Harare in October to continue the work, and the hope is that local Zimbabwean people associated with AE who already have a good theological education will help to facilitate the teaching when the Australian clergy aren’t available.
“We would love it if the teaching ended up being a combination of us and the people in Zimbabwe,” Mr Liggins says.
“I am really excited to be part of this initiative. The African church is large but many of its leaders haven’t had the chance to get much training, and if we can assist with that training it not only helps them but their churches and the wider church in Africa.
“When I’ve gone in the past, people certainly have been greatly helped by having good theology taught to them well, but I have learned a lot from Christians in Africa in the areas of evangelism, prayer and hospitality. It’s definitely a two-way thing... I find them quite inspiring.”
AE has had a partnership with the Centre for Global Mission at Moore College for more than 20 years, teaching PTC all over Africa – including to the current CEO of African Enterprise in Australasia, the Rev Simba Musvamhiri, who has since earned a Masters in theology.
At a recent fundraising dinner for African Enterprise held in Sydney, Mr Musvamhiri thanked those present for their fellowship in the gospel, their giving and their “prayers for the glory of Jesus” across Africa, but particularly in the South Sudanese city of Juba, where AE will run a mission in October.
Following Jesus is “as big as the world”
African Enterprise seeks to resource and equip local churches to evangelise cities across Africa, using what it terms “stratified evangelism”. A mission takes up to 18 months of planning, implementation and follow-up – including mapping the city and ensuring each section has a trained group of pastors and laypeople from local partner churches ready to share the gospel.
Archbishop Kanishka Raffel, one of the keynote speakers at the fundraising event, said he loved AE’s strategy of “gospel proclamation into every level of society: government and business and the military; shopkeepers, factory workers and prisoners; young people in universities and schools and on the streets, in the parks and townships”.
He recalled hearing the South African founder of African Enterprise, Michael Cassidy, speak at the University of Sydney in 1986, shortly after he had become a Christian, and was struck by his desire to help the victims of apartheid – and transform their oppressors – through the gospel of Jesus.
“I went away from that meeting thinking that following Jesus was going to be as big as the world; and that following Jesus was the hope of the world,” Archbishop Raffel said, adding: “The opportunity to partner in the gospel with African Enterprise is a precious privilege of fellowship with brothers and sisters whom we may never meet until we get to heaven.
“But how glorious it will be – how glorious it will be – to meet those who came there because of the ministry of African Enterprise in which we partnered in prayer and giving! What a glory and a reward that will be.”
To find out more about AE, including prayer diaries or the opportunity to donate, see africanenterprise.com.au
Feature Photo: Partnership in the gospel: African Enterprise mission in Lusaka, Zambia, in 2022; and inset, Archbishop Raffel speaks at the AE dinner.
