ABOUT - Three Contexts

Mission means both “work” and “send”.

TIMs are sent by their churches to participate in God’s work. This is not primarily an educational course, although training and education is included. There are formal and informal study components and they are designed for serious and dedicated students. However, our understanding of “Formation for Mission” is much broader than quantifiable knowledge. It is a qualitative goal. We are seeking to develop people who can understand and operate in a broad variety of contexts with a broad variety of people. These are ‘missionaries’ who operate out of a valuing of partnership and humble service. Leadership is understood to be focused on empowering others. Therefore, much of the TIM programme is about developing habitual behaviours and worldviews shaped by love of God and a vision for life-flourishing.

The work takes place within God’s world, so learning to view the world through God’s merciful vision requires being in different places and encountering different people. TIMs will learn how to adapt to different settings and situations, stretching their capacities and discovering their limitations.

The TIMs will spend much of their Diploma time in the Philippines and transit through Singapore to visit the CWM Offices and undertake orientations and leadership training. After that, they will transit to South Africa for a Contextual component of their TIM experience.

Singapore Scene-setting

The TIMs meet in Singapore and are welcomed to the CWM office. In the first 2.5 days of the programme, participants will participate in Clifton Strengths workshops to better learn about themselves and the others in the group. They will look at strategies for working together and how they can best contribute within the group setting.

The TIMs are oriented to the overall programme. Specific contextual learning methods are introduced and TIMs begin to get to know one another.

Filippino Contextual Study

The Philippines historical-political landscape has been shaped by over three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, followed by American governance and Japanese occupation. Each left lasting cultural and political influences. Since independence in 1946, the Philippines has had periods of authoritarian rule and democratic restauration. Wealth and poverty, power and corruption, beauty and decay, generosity and joy, are all words past-TIMs have used to describe this colourful country.

The Filipino Contextual Study forms a central component of the TIM Programme, immersing participants in the complex social, cultural, and spiritual landscape of the Philippines. As TIMs undertake the Diploma studies at Union Theological Seminary https://www.uts.ph/ , they are invited to encounter God’s world through the lived realities of Filipino communities, learning to interpret mission through the lens of contextual struggle, resilience, and faith.

Field-visits may include (but are not limited to): farming community, urban mission, socially marginalised groups, political advocacy event, health and welfare work, school or children’s mission setting, food distribution centre, etc… Through this immersion, TIMs begin to see how history, economics, politics, and community life shape the mission needs of the region. This part of the programme provides not only exposure but also a framework for interpreting how God’s Spirit moves at the margins and how local realities inform transformative mission practice.

South African Contextual Study

South Africa is home to two of the CWM Member Churches, each with its unique calling and mission in a complex pluralistic society. Understanding the communities’ mission needs requires understanding history, politics, economics, societal constructs and the web of diversity in a dynamic environment. The TIMs will discover Southern Africa through lenses that hold both differences and similarities to their previously shared Philippines experiences. The TIMs will work with CWM Mission Secretary for Life-flourishing Ecology and Economy, Rev Daimon Mkandawire, and grapple with African dynamics at Iziko Lamanaqabane and Ujaama (UKNZ). In between, they will meet and work with young people from across Southern Africa as part of the CWM African Youth Initiative.

In each case, the TIMs will discover the relationship between economics and mission and justice. They will explore what the Gospel has to say to the margins and how people are empowered by God’s Spirit. For ecclesial leaders, mission in, from and by the margins requires a cultivation of humility and curiosity.

Iziko Lamanaqabane – Gathering Centre in Johannesburg.

https://www.izikolamaqabane.org/

 

The Ujaama Centre at the University of Kwa Zulu Natal, Pietremaritzburg.

https://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/               What does Ujaama refer to?

From   John S. Saul: Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 131 (March 2012), pp. 117-125

Ujamaa in the Villages

After the publication of the Arusha Declaration, a paper on “Ujamaa vijijini”, literally meaning “Ujamaa in the villages” and conventionally translated as “rural socialism” marked the beginning of a phase

of villagization and was again based upon the idea of development through “working and living together” (Schneider 2004: 349).

According to Nyerere (1962), the land was a gift from God entrusted to the whole community. Consequently, in his understanding and ideology of Ujamaa, the individual had neither the right of ownership of land nor the right to exploit the labor of others (Tetzlaff 2018). The  villagization program, therefore, aspired to the collective organization  of production and economic equality as well as the participation of its members in decision-making processes regarding village life. Hence, the aims of villagization were following the key principles of Ujamaa, which was now becoming a concrete reality.

Schedule

Concept Note