Editors note:
TGC Africa believes in the power of ‘coalition’. To this end, we are happy to find Christ-centered ministries and movements across the continent to platform them and also promote greater synergy in the service of God. One of Paul’s favorite analogies for the church was that of a body, containing various parts that perform a number of important functions. Christianity across Africa is no different. No organization can do everything, so it’s a pleasure to highlight others.
City to city Africa fosters the growth of urban gospel networks and helps church planters and ministry leaders plant contextual churches in Africa’s major cities.
Tobie Meyer wasn’t yet with City to City in 1989, but he knows the story well. An associate professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, Tim Keller, moved with his wife, Kathy, and their three young sons to New York to start a Presbyterian church in midtown Manhattan. Many did not expect him to survive. Early on there were Sundays when the auditorium was almost empty at the start of the service. and Tim and Kathy would think, “That’s it. This is the Sunday when no one comes.’ But then Manhattanites, mostly young professionals, slowly trickled in and filled the seats.
Against all human odds, God favored the work. The worldly people came, returned, and heard gospel-centered sermons again and again. Conversions and baptisms followed. The church grew. Christians around the world—especially those called to urban mission—heard about this church and realized that something special was happening.
There are certain characteristics of cities that all cities have.
A group of pastors from Amsterdam were so motivated that they boarded a plane and flew to Manhattan to speak with Keller face-to-face and investigate his theology and practice. Others came, observed and asked questions. How was this done? Why was it happening? These leaders had enjoyed success in planting churches in non-urban settings, but not in their cities. They said to Keller, “Help us do this in our cities.” And so does Tim and his staff Redeemer Presbyterian Church he began preparing to do just that. They started the Redeemer Church Planting Center, which was later renamed Redeemer City to City (RCTC).
How the city got to the city in Africa
Tobie Meyer, executive director of CTC Africa, was connected to CTC much later through a man named Al Barth. In his former life, Tobie worked as a lawyer in South Africa and the United Kingdom. He came to know Christ as an adult and in 2005 God put it on his heart to leave the legal profession and plant a church in Pretoria.
Al Barth worked for the CTC as a catalyst, seeking church members in Europe and Africa. The Christian ministry Campus Outreach started working on university campuses in Johannesburg. Young men and women were being converted and discipled, but it was a battle to get into the local churches. Campus Outreach saw the need to plant churches that would reach out to these students and graduates as they became young professionals. Al began networking with pastors and churches in South Africa, encouraging them to develop a vision for urban church planting.
The program is rigorous, with highly interactive training and rich engagement.
CTC’s emphasis on the gospel and the city (part of its “DNA”) resonated with Tobie. He wanted to know more. “There are certain characteristics of cities that all cities have. It made sense to me that if a certain type of civic service proved effective in Manhattan or Amsterdam, there was a good chance it would be fruitful in Lusaka or Nairobi,” says Tobie.
In 2009, when Al invited Toby to join several other church planters in coming to New York for a six-week “intensive” church planting training, Toby was all in. He recounts, “It was just a great privilege to be in this small group setting [12 participants from around the world] and learn. Every Sunday, we attended three different churches in New York. Redeemer Presbyterian Church had shaped each in some way. Then on Monday we met with all the pastors and asked them why they did this and why you did that. And so, at the end of the six weeks, we had seen a spectrum of churches and methodologies and had been immersed in strong theology.” But there was something else that influenced Tobie: grace-saturated, gospel-centered theology was the key ingredient to true renewal (both personal and corporate) and church planting.
A growing team and approach
Al continued to find and recruit pastors from Africa. And by 2015 about 30 African pastors had attended the intensive in New York. But the reality was that only a few African pastors could make it to New York each year. the model was prohibitively expensive and inefficient. By this stage, regional “subsidiaries” affiliated with the CTC had begun to form. Two early subsidiaries were CTC Europe and CTC Australia. Thus the idea of CTC Africa was born. Tobie says, “We saw the potential to have 50 plus African pastors in an educational environment, carefully tailored to the African context and with the future possibility of teaching in English, French and Portuguese. It just made so much sense.” Thus, CTC Africa was officially established in 2017.
Our goal is to connect people, serve, educate and network.
The team consists of 11 people: five are based in Pretoria (South Africa). the other six are scattered across the continent. They plan strategy in terms of four regions. Each region has a catalyst who leads the work in that region: Florentin Mpundu (East Africa) lives in Bujumbura, Burundi. Andre Ntambwe (Central Africa) lives in Cape Town but is originally from the DRC. Samuel Boateng (West Africa) is from Accra, Ghana. and Tobie leads the project in South Africa.
Then there are another 14 people on the continent who are supported in some way by the CTC in their ministry. Tobie spends a lot of time networking, mentoring and catalyzing virtually and traveling to African cities. Pretoria staff develops educational resources for church planters and leaders. They invest a lot of time and energy in recruiting and evaluating leaders for their church planter training events.
Strategic Training and Theological Vision
Tobie is passionate about his work and his continent. “We’re a parachurch organization, not the church,” says Tobie. “We are coming next to the church. Our aim is to help and support the local church. Our goal is to connect people, serve, educate and network. We spend time in cities and try to understand the landscape.”
Our great concern is to see healthy, Gospel-centered plants planted throughout our continent.
So Tobie echoes what many missiologists say about Africa: much of what is called “Christianity” is moralistic, legalistic, and comparative. “When the orthodox gospel is faithfully presented, the lights go on and people say, ‘Wow! This is what we need. That’s what we’ve been missing,” Tobie continues. “Our great concern is to see healthy gospel-centered churches planted and thriving across our continent.”
CTC Africa’s annual ‘flagship’ event is the Africa Intensive. This training program, which is now only two weeks, is for church planters who are in the process of planting gospel-centered churches. These men are immersed in urban church planting concepts, theological frameworks for growing healthy churches, leadership development resources, and other church planting principles. The program is rigorous, with highly interactive training and rich engagement between participants and instructors. But the gospel remains at the center of it and in every part. Whether it’s developing a theological vision, preaching the Old Testament, integrating into a particular neighborhood, or even choosing which neighborhood to plant in, the gospel informs everything.
Look forward
CTC Africa has already trained leaders in 35 African cities. And this has had a great ripple effect – hundreds of churches have been affected. Tobie sees a tremendous openness and hunger for gospel-centered churches and is optimistic about the future. “We would like to have healthy, vibrant networks of churches working together for their city area in ten major cities across the continent in the next five years.”
City to City Africa has already trained leaders in 35 African cities.
Plans for this year include intensive English in May, Portuguese in August and French in October. About 20 church planters have registered for the upcoming event in Nairobi. However, the scope of their intensives is much greater than this, as there will be a large “gallery” of observers who listen, learn and go home with something of the City in DNA and the vision of City Africa.
Two challenges, countless opportunities
I asked Tobie how pastors and members of TGC type churches could help the work of CTC Africa. He mentioned two questions we should ask ourselves:
- How might you partner with other gospel-centered churches that are not part of your glory or network? CTC would love to contribute to this. They host events that bring together leaders from different churches to talk about church planting and encourage collaboration in this kingdom business.
- What is your role as a church in church planting? Tobie states that the evidence is clear on the value of church planting for kingdom growth. Not only is there evangelistic fruit in the new church, but it is also renewing the existing churches in the area. So every church should ask themselves what are we doing about church planting? It does not mean that every church must plant next year. But it does mean that every church should be involved in some way: offering toward church planting, praying for church planters, identifying church planters, or hosting residency programs with church planters.