Gauteng Province

Ekurhuleni Report: 31st August 2004

The process as described in the SACLA Network strategy started about two and half years ago in Ekurhuleni (the former East Rand). It started as a request from the executive mayor of Ekurhuleni, Duma Nkosi. The Ekurhuleni Religious Forum identified the seven most urgent needs in Ekurhuleni and the most possible sectors of society to address this in.

You can imagine our joy when we realised at SACLA 2 that we were on the right track because our needs and sectors corresponded largely with the SACLA giants and tracks. After SACLA 2 the Christians on the Ekurhuleni Religious Forum formed ECLA, the Ekurhuleni Christian Leaders Assembly. All Christian leaders in Ekurhuleni are de facto members of ECLA. So our work continued with the joy of being the Ekurhuleni expression of the “go ye” command with which SACLA 2 closed.

Where are we now?
Ekurhuleni is a big new metropole, made up out of the nine cities on the East Rand, effectively twenty-five towns / regions with 2,5 million people, 76% claiming Christian affiliations in 2001.

Communication is a major problem, as we have no office or database. We receive assistance from the Ekurhuleni Metro and Jericho Walls International Prayer Network to communicate. Many Christian leaders do not yet know about ECLA! Many of our projects aimed at our giants have got plans but no finances to execute them. We will now be focussing on this problem. We also have a shortage of champions for regions, giants and tracks. We are now concentrating on tracking down champions and are heartened because they are appearing one by one. It takes time, however.

Our other focus is to establish what best practises exist in Ekurhuleni on various issues. Then to enable that these best practises be spread around Ekurhuleni and really to support these organisations that are already doing the good work.

Ekurhuleni has a nine-point prayer strategy agreed at the highest level and a network and information sheet for intercessors, prayer groups and Churches to focus our call to the Lord for Ekurhuleni. The Church in Ekurhuleni has made a commitment to our Mayor and the Premier of our province to pray for them, their governance and the people of Ekurhuleni.

We are also very excited about our Transformation project, called the Trans-Eku Effect. The Trans-Eku Effect aims to mobilise the total Church in Ekurhuleni (all above twelve years old) to reach out in ministry to all the places and people where they move from Monday to Saturday. They would then go back to Church on Sunday to tell what happened and be equipped to go out again from Monday to Saturday. This is based on the four-fold instruction to the seventy sent out by Jesus in Luke 10, modernised as follows (with acknowledgement to Ed Silvoso):
- Bless (speak the Lord’s peace) wherever you go;
- Fellowship with the people;
- Meet or pray for felt needs;
- Preach the gospel.

We are excited because the potential number of people that can be actively involved in bringing the blessing of God to every workplace is multiplied greatly and in a non-threatening way.

(If anyone wants to know more about Trans-Eku please contact Willem Joubert 082 – 6505684)