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Refresh – Heal – Reset

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The last few years have been brutal for most, if not all of us. NGOs, churches, and other not-for-profit organisations have been particularly hard hit in terms of financial income, volunteer fatigue, and uncertainty about the future. Isiphambano is no different. Our staff and volunteers have worked incredibly hard over the past few years to keep the doors open and to keep us engaging on issues of cross-centred and contextual…
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A Lament for the Place That Proclaims Your Word

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O, Father, you know my heart, you know my fears and worries, you know my disappointment, my temptation to give in and give up. You are the Creator of these people, in this, your world; you are the Creator of me, in this, your world. You ordain steps, and you’ve brought us here; and yet you know my heart full of questions. You hem me in, behind and before, and…
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Brackenfell

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Brackenfell wat wil jy my vertel? Vertel van die stryd Oor ‘n aand Wat min anders was as laas Saterdag aand Want elke aand sit ons bymekaar, Met min mense wat staar, Want ons almal lyk en klink soos mekaar.
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Children of the Kingdom

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My two-year-old has recently learned the word MINE - “It’s not yours it’s MINE”. He says this with such conviction, snatching away anything you might have dared to touch - even if the item actually belongs to someone else. He’s developed an obsession with possession. Dare to mention the sh word… ‘share’, and a meltdown might ensue. Even when there is objectively more than enough to go around. As a…
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Imagine a City…

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One afternoon my children and I drove past a school where the students coming out and parents waiting were overwhelmingly white. Less than a kilometre away, on the same street, we drove past another school, where the students and parents were only black or coloured. My son noticed this and asked me why there was such a different picture outside these two schools, so close and yet so far. Another…
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Decolonisation Starts with You

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When we speak about the decolonisation of the church we mean the removal of Western notions of superiority and the denigration of African ideologies for the purpose of maintaining white people’s monopoly on what true evangelical Christianity is. Decolonisation is not the transformation or reformation of current ways of thinking and knowledge-making which are inherently hierarchical. It is doing away with such hierarchical structures in the first place so that…
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group of people standing indoors

Church Diversity is Not Enough

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Church diversity is not enough… The recent protests for racial justice in the world have had Evangelical Christian organizations everywhere scrambling to put out sermons, statements and hold zoom conversations addressing racial injustice. I fear that when we go back to the new normal, churches who have members and leaders from different backgrounds will see...
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Repentance in a Time of Awakening

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I confess that this current moment of racial awakening in white society and in "evangelical" churches has me deeply conflicted. I have never seen so many prominent white or multi-ethnic (with white leadership inevitably) "evangelical" churches addressing issues of race and injustice concurrently. Of course, we have traditionally had the bi-annual sermon or workshop on racism or caring for the poor but nothing like the sheer volume of sermons, panel…
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There’s a Little Bit of Amy Cooper Inside of Me…

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For the last few days, I’ve seen my social media timeline filled with grief expressed by my African American friends and colleagues. I’ve seen fellow church planters and pastors, with whom I’ve attended many a conference and training, expressing their emotional exhaustion in the face of the killing of yet another black man, the killing...
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