A group of faculty and supporters of George Whitefield College in South Africa recently visited Sydney to reconnect with long-time partners and meet new ones.

The group, which included GWC principal the Rev Dr Mark Dickson and Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church in South Africa (REACH-SA) bishop the Rt Rev Jomo Mchunu were in Sydney for a week before heading west to Perth and then turning homeward. The group visited several churches, as well as Moore College, with which GWC has maintained close ties since its inception in 1989.

“There’s a lot of connection and DNA shared between us and Sydney,” says GWC faculty member the Rev Steve Rockwell, a Sydney man seconded from Christ Church, St Ives to South Africa. “The college itself began with Dr Broughton Knox as its first principal many years ago and Sydney has long been a friend to REACH as well. So this trip was about continuing to build on that, and hopefully also give people insight into what those links are continuing to support in Africa.”

One of the key focuses of the visit has been to engage people with the key mission of the college, which is not only to train leaders but also people who themselves can establish colleges and church networks across South Africa and the continent at large. This is in a context where there are many hundreds of thousands of new converts but very few trained leaders.

“It’s true that many pastors in townships and villages have no theological training,” says GWC lecturer the Rev Phumezo Masango. “There is one church that I’ve been pastoring for around 13 years in Khayelitsha [a largely black African, Xhosa-speaking township in the West Cape]. In the area there are some 300 people involved in church leadership. And at one point there were less than 10 of us who had any theological training at all. 

“These were men who pastored big churches, who had a zeal for teaching and learning but just hadn’t been trained, and as a result teachings like the prosperity gospel can creep into the church and cause damage. There are also many new Christians who simply don’t have people to continue teaching them. There is a huge need that we are wanting to try and fill.”

A key development in the last couple of years has been the redevelopment of the Explore course, a sister project to Moore College’s Preliminary Theological Certificate. Explore has been translated into a number of African languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Swahili, Chichewa and Kinyarwanda – as well as continental languages such as French and Portuguese – and has been an important tool in multiplying the effect of GWC’s work.

While the GWC visitors sought to muster more support for the college and evangelical mission in South Africa, they have also been keen to use their presence as an opportunity remind people of the work God is doing in Africa and the role the African church has to play in the fuure of global Christianity.

“I know that for myself it’s been a massive privilege to be a part of that work through George Whitefield,” Mr Rockwell says. “I have guys in my class from Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe – all over Africa. They’re coming to GWC to be trained and they almost all have the same story. These are guys who have been leading churches for years with no training, and they arrive at the college and have their eyes widened by the excitement of learning and the opportunity to take that back with them when they go home. 

“It’s hugely exciting and I think it’s important for people to actually see that, to support it, and also learn from what African Christians are doing right now.”

Pictured above (from left): Alison Lee, Phumezo Masango, Mark Thompson, Simon Gillham, Bishop Jomo Mchunu, Steve Rockwell, Mark Dickson