Abstract:
The existence of the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa (LECSA) and Paris
Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) in the western areas of Johannesburg, South Western
Township (Soweto) and, more poignantly, Meadowlands and their forced removal experience
are succinctly captured. The struggle of the LECSA and PEMS Meadowlands Parish in
becoming a missional ecclesia in a sea of missional challenges in her context is vividly spelt
out. They, inter alia, include constitutional matters, language policy, finances, ministerial
preparation, lay-ministry development, institutionalisation of ministry, unity issues, prophetic
ministry, mission and evangelism. The researcher, then, proposes an intervention – of course
not a perfect one – that perhaps will galvanise the LECSA and PEMS Meadowlands Parish
members to improve on what they have been doing and become a missional ecclesia in her
context, Meadowlands.
Description:
This article represents reworked aspects of the MA thesis of Rev L.T. Kganyapa, titled ‘The struggle of the Lesotho Evangelical
Church in Southern Africa (LECSA)/Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) in Meadowlands, Soweto, in becoming a missional
ecclesia in a local context’, completed under the supervision of Prof. Dr T.S. Kgatla, Department of Science of Religion and Missiology,
Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
