Abstract:
This thesis is a missiological analysis of the crisis of the phenomenon of the mission station in
post-independent Zimbabwe. Using qualitative methods that included archival, desk and
ethnography, it explores the mission station in the context of the wider missionary enterprise of
the nineteenth century, in terms of its limitations, weaknesses and challenges, but also its strengths.
Focussing on Epworth mission of the Methodist church in Zimbabwe, it engages the wider mission
enterprise, in relation to the manner in which mission was conducted during the missionary era
and how that approach gave birth to the current church. With so much promise at the start, Epworth
has become anything but success. The thesis considers the underlying causes of the current
challenges facing Epworth and mission work of the church as a whole. The underlying missionary
motivations and attitudes are explored, the proximity of mission to the colonial forces are engaged
and how this affected mission praxis. The research revealed that mission station was a phenomenon
adopted by missionaries on the mission field without proper missiological reflection on
implications and ramifications for the future. As a result, as political, social and religious
circumstances changed particularly with the coming of independence in 1980, the mission station
struggled to withstand the pressure and hence the crisis. Considering that the Methodist church in
Zimbabwe was born out of the missionary enterprise and that it is from the mission station that the
majority of its membership has been constituted and nurtured, and from the mission institutions
such as schools, clinics, children’s homes and theological colleges that its influence has radiated,
it explores the limitations of such a model of mission in a post missionary and post-colonial
paradigm. It proposes new and relevant models of doing church, which are contextual and border
on decolonisation of the mind and a bias towards the poor. Missional theology as the new approach
embodies such a range of contextual theologies and can be useful in the case of Zimbabwe.
