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SOMA
(Sharing of Ministries Abroad) statement on
Community Transformations Consultation (CAPE TOWN)
Posted
17 Nov 2000
SOMA International
Beyond
2000 Community Transformation Consultation
October
30 - November 2, 2000
Cape Town
This
week, SOMA hosted a four-day Consultation in Cape Town for 210
Christian leaders from 30 nations. While most of them were Anglicans,
there was a strong ecumenical representation. They came to study and
examine a remarkable and rapidly spreading move of God that is
touching every continent. This move is not only revitalizing and
growing churches -that has happened before- but is transforming the
social, political, educational and economic structures of the cities
and towns where it is occurring. In a number of cases, transformation
has even occurred in the physical land.
What
makes this well-documented move of God's power so extraordinary is
that it is beginning to provide effective solutions to many of the
desperate needs and challenges in today's world: disease, poverty,
corruption, addiction, family disintegration, perversion, and
environmental destruction, to name a few. There are even early,
medically corroborated reports of people being healed from AIDS
coming out of Uganda.
The
Consultation listened carefully to people who are living and working
on the front lines in some of these transformed cities, as well as
others whose careful research has put these stories on the world stage.
The
participants gathered in regional groups to ask the same question as
the bystanders at Pentecost: "What does this mean?" They
grappled with questions such as "How can God use me as an
instrument for His purpose?" "How can such transformation
flow into my life, my family, my church, my city, and my nation?"
"How can the wineskin of our church heritage contain this new
wine?" "Since community transformation normally occurs when
local churches are closely united in vision and purpose, how can we
join hands with believers from different traditions from our own?"
The
participants met in 6 regional clusters - representing the West,
Southern Africa, East Africa, West and Central Africa, Asia, and
Latin America. There was also a bishops' group. Each group presented
a report of their own intentions upon their return home. God spoke to
us clearly and challengingly over these four days. What was striking
were the many common features of these reports, despite their
geographical, cultural and contextual diversity.
Here
is what we heard:
Vision
Our
vision has been to narrow, often to our local church or diocese. God
is asking us to seek him for a vision for the transformation our
cities and nations.
Perspective
We
heard God challenging us about how we see reality, and to develop a
world-view which will provide the foundation for Him to move in power.
Holiness
God
cannot work through unclean and unsubmitted vessels. We heard his
call to examine ourselves, seek his cleansing, and walk before him in
holiness of life.
Humility
The key
to seeing God move is humility, through which we recognize our
complete dependence on him for everything. God is asking us to
increase our hunger and thirst for him, and to grow into true humility.
Prayer
and intercession
Informed
and fervent prayer is a key to achieving powerful results. God is
calling us to become more committed and passionate in our individual
praying. He is asking us to pray informed prayers, based on
researching our communities, and to raise up an army of intercessors
in our churches and cities to pray for spiritual breakthroughs.
Leadership
At a
time when church leadership often appears timid and weak, God summons
us to become visionary, courageous and persevering leaders whose
hearts are determined to obey, regardless of the cost.
Unity
God
loves unity, and promises to pour out blessings when his people come
together with common vision and purpose. Most examples of community
transformation occur only when these conditions are met. He is asking
us to become agents of unity and reconciliation with other branches
of the Body of Christ.
Compassion
We
heard a clear call for the church to take its gloves and immerse
itself in acts of loving and sacrificial compassion in a way that
tangibly demonstrates God's love for a needy world.
Youth/Future
Generation
God
urged us to pass on the baton to the next generation, seeking
opportunities to disciple younger people into becoming community transformers.
We hear
these admonitions from God issuing from his mercy. They represent an
invitation to enter a new and exciting future, in which we can expect
to see him move with great power.
We also
hear them with a sense of urgency. "Let him who has ears hear
what the Spirit is saying to the Church."
The
Revd David Harper, SOMA International Chairperson
The
Revd Trevor Pearce, SOMA International Deputy-chairperson
"BEYOND
2000" CONSULTATION
CAPE
TOWN, 30th October - 3rd November 2000
REPORTS
FROM REGIONAL CLUSTERS
WEST
AND CENTRAL AFRICA
God, we
believe, is speaking to us about:
-
The
need for personal and corporate repentance, leading to sanctification
and effective prayer
- Spiritual
mapping, leading to informed intercession and breaking of strongholds
- Acknowledging
the sovereignty of God, and responding to this in humility, total
dependence, and hunger for His presence
- Calling
us to wait on Him and to work with Him for the transformation of our
cities and nations
- Unity
in spirit within the denomination and in wider body of Christ, as a
prerequisite for revelation and transformation.
EAST AFRICA
-
Prayer
and intersection:
-
as individuals, and as a group at this Consultation
-
by raising an army of intercessors
-
by networking with existing intercessory groups
- Future
Generation: discipling the younger people into the whole idea of
Community Transformation (i.e. what God is doing)
- Reconciliation
and Unity: opening up to other denominations to share and learn from
what God is doing there, and seeking to be part of it together
(taking the initiative and having a bigger picture of the Church)
- Research:
historical information (spiritual mapping)
- Humility
and holiness (brokenness and purity)
SOUTHERN
AFRICA
-
Pursue
covenant unity of the body of Christ
- Humility:
a realisation of our utter dependence on God in seeking His face -
even a willingness to change our world-view
- Vision:
committing ourselves to God's unfolding plan for the transformation
of our land
- Raise
up a growing army of fervent intercessors
- Sacrifice:
believing that God is able to do the impossible as we lay our lives
down to be used in His purpose as He wills.
ASIA
-
Step-up
Intercession (Asia Prayer Journey)
- Repent
and learn humility
- Pursue
unity
- Reach
out to the helpless and wounded
- Pay
the price-stand in solidarity with the whole Church (in the context
of persecution)
LATIN
AMERICA
-
We
commit ourselves to sustained and fervent intercession: before,
during and after Transformation, through chains of prayer, to be
selected prayerfully, with teaching, prayer weekends and prayer marches
-
We
commit ourselves to the Transformation of the Anglican Church in
Latin America as our primary community
-
We
resolve to promote spiritual growth and fellowship throughout the
Anglican Church in Latin America, through periodic regional conferences
-
We
recognise that Community Transformation can only take place in UNITY
among our diverse Anglican Churches and our sister churches and
denominations; and we will continue to work towards this
-
We will
pass on the baton to the next generation, through a sustained youth
interchange, and preparing young, future leaders.
"THE
WEST"
Informed
repentance of spiritual poverty and lack of thirsting for God
(Revelation 2-3)
God is
telling us:
-
To wake
up, and see the world and Church from God's point of view
- To
hunger and thirst for God, and pursue humility and dependence upon God
- To
engage in informed, fervent, sustained intercession, to seek God's
face, using results from diagnostic research
- To
seek the manifest presence of God, not programmes; to position
ourselves "next to the Ark"
- To
pursue in love the cosmos.
THE BISHOPS
We are hearing:
-
That
God wants to transform the nations, and we recognise that our role in
this is to take leadership within the diocese for the transformation
of the community.
- A
call to holiness, humility and obedience
- A
call for the healing of the past through repentance and deliverance
- A
call for unity of intercession in seeking the presence and will of God
- A
call to recognise that we have something to offer to, and to learn
from, the body of Christ.
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