South African church helps ‘everybody’ feel like ‘somebody’
The Lord’s Place
Germiston, South Africa

By Sara Horn

Imagine the excitement of starting a Purpose Driven campaign in your church. You bring the congregation together, you create the small groups, and you make sure that everyone has copies of The Purpose Driven Life. The problem – only 50 members of the church can read English. Fifty-five members can’t read at all.

That’s one of the challenges that The Lord’s Place, an independent church located in Germiston, South Africa, was faced with two years ago when the pastor, Victor Kakudi, decided to lead his church to become purpose driven.

“The education level is very low, though there is a growing interest in schooling and education,” said Kakudi, who attributes the interest to a compulsory and almost free education system that began in 1996 as a result of policy changes by the South African government.

After going through 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting in January of 2004, the church, then numbering 120 members, was ready for the 40 Days of Purpose campaign, which started in the fall of that same year. Because of the church’s composition, made up of more people who couldn’t read than could, Kakudi preached The Purpose Driven Life messages from the pulpit and the messages were also orally passed along in small groups.

“We learned that most people don’t read to understand, therefore repetition and emphasis has given us good results,” Kakudi said. Young people in the church also helped read and translate for the elderly members in small groups.

Despite the literacy challenge, the church members saw God work deeply in their lives as they sought to impact others the same way. Two “daughter churches” were planted that same fall in two different provinces, and the church reached out to the community by planting vegetable gardens for random neighbors and forming a “poverty alleviation partnership” with the local authorities to help care for those affected by and infected with HIV/AIDS.

Since becoming a “fully fledged purpose driven church” in May of last year, the church has flooded their community with their efforts to evangelize and share the Gospel with people, targeting the unchurched and those who have been left behind by society.

Open air meetings in the evenings are held throughout the week in people’s yards, something that has never been done before in that area of South Africa, and as a result, has attracted a lot of attention and interest by neighbors. Thirty percent of members have committed themselves to serve in ministry and each church service sees more people “giving their lives to Christ.”

The Lord’s Place now sees more than 500 attending each weekend and an explosion of growth within their children’s and youth ministries. One member who runs a private nursery and preschool offered her facilities for use by the children’s ministry and the church saw many of her children who she teaches during the week attend the children’s church on Sundays as well.

“There has been an exponential growth within our children’s and youth ministries, not only in numbers but also spiritually, which one can only explain as remarkable,” Kakudi said. He explained that young people are not only discovering their purpose but they are also taking roles in the church and inspiring other young people to do the same.

As the church now uses volunteers to teach adults how to read and write, other challenges must be addressed.

“We’ve extended the size of our tent seeing that there is overcrowding and we still have a problem with the number of seats available,” Kakudi said. “The worship team has increased in size; people are standing up and doing what God calls them to do. The church has become healthy.”

In addition to the now three daughter churches that have been started, Kakudi is also mentoring other churches to implement the 40 Days of Purpose campaign.

“We believe that church stands for Care, Help, Unity, Restore, Community, and Hope,” Kakudi said. “This shows the community that Jesus came for all of us.

“We have a saying that says, ‘The Lord’s Place is where everybody is somebody.’”

All 2006 Church Health Award winner information is correct as of Jan. 1, 2006.