Report outline
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- TOTALS 167 169 2745 2836
- TRANSVERSAL CHALLENGES FROM PRESBYTERIES.
- Some of the transversal challenges found in our branches and Presbyteries are the following;
- NAME OF PRESBYTERY NUMBER PASSED ON
- CONCLUSION AND DELIVERANCES
- MAY THE GOOD LORD BLESS THIS CONFERENCE AND GIVE US THE WISDOM TO DETERMINE OUR FUTURE WITHIN HIM.
- That this report be received. That Conference note the successful Council held in Zimbabwe.
- That conference notes that there is a need to give attention to Zambia and ensure their full participation in MCG programs.
The general assessment of our Presbyteries is that they are performing fairly well, but can do better. We are excited by the fact that most of them are beginning to be more focused on their work. What however should worry us, is in areas where the Presbytery is showing a decline, especially in membership and branches. Questions need to be asked as to why do members leave the Guild, or why are they not renewing their membership. If they left where did they go. In situations where branches have declined, the key question is, where the former members of that branch are. These are the questions we should ask, because we cannot afford to be irrelevant to men in the UPCSA. We do have a reason to exist, and those reasons are still there. Some of the transversal challenges found in our branches and Presbyteries are the following;
The MCG Vision 2017 document details the route travelled by the Guild since its formation. Clearly since inception, the MCG has travelled through the chartered waters seeking to fulfill the mandate bestowed upon it by its constitution. In this period, the MCG was pre-occupied by the need to build and ensure unity within the UPCSA. In this regard, we have engaged in honest discussions with the church leadership and our brothers who had left the MCG and were trying to form another association. The MCG saw it as a duty to fulfill the wishes of our forefathers who envisioned the need for a united Presbyterian Church of Christ. Despite the challenges accompanied by this initiative, the MCG remained committed to the unity of our denomination as espoused in the Basis of Union document. We remain committed to this unity as we were when the process started. At this point, it is important to recognize the fact that we remain focused on this path because we have amongst our myth our veterans and intellectual capital who guided us through this journey. In this regard, they not only taught us about the origin of this initiative union, but they clearly educated us about the rationale for union. We indeed remain indebted to them for sharing their wisdom with us at all times when we required it. These are the likes of Rev Mdlalose, who over the years, and for the rest of his life, he has dedicated his energy and efforts to the building of a united Church of Christ. Rev Mdlalose has, during his life committed his quality time to the church, especially the MCG, for which he was hurting at the inability of men to unite and worship God together. During the last General Assembly, Rev Mdlalose almost single handedly changed the course of discussions and rechanneled them to the proper context for all to acknowledge that the MCG cannot be equated to a group of men who want to form an association. This he did fearlessly and with fatherly love to ensure that the rationale for union as envisioned by our founding fathers remains on the right path. We are indeed indebted to Rev Mdlalose, upon whom we have relied for wisdom, and always available and ready to give guidance where necessary. This son of the UPCSA can be described in many words; path finder, critical thinker, father, brother, parent, visionary, information bank, teacher, preacher, intellectual, evangelist and an MCG member for life. Never compromising on principle, he shepherded those of us who got tempted to veer of the path, to remain focused on our brief as the MCG. The MCG is lucky to have such depth of intellectual and committed Christians like Rev Mdlalose, to whom we shall remain indebted for a very long time in the work of our Guild. It is the same Rev Mdlalose, who reminded us in Egoli in 1996, during the 06th Conference that ours, is an evangelism agenda. This conference, should be a brake with the past. It should be a conference which not only positions the MCG to roll out this evangelism agenda, but a conference which defines the MCG as an evangelist. It must define every MCG structure, member and program, the evangelist. Indeed we should be poised to reach out to every member of society where we live, where we work, in every social circle, in funerals, in weddings, in burial society meetings, in the schools, in the trains and buses, and in every corner of our society, and introduce Christ to them. After 13 years of readying ourselves, we cannot any longer preoccupy ourselves with activities which do not seek to alter the world to Christianity. We have arrived, and this conference should indeed signify a new beginning, where our space and platform will be amongst those who do not believe. This we must do in order to honor those who taught and showed us the ways of Christ and constantly reminded us of our responsibilities.
At this point, we remember those of our brothers who passed on since our last conference. For this period under review we have lost 45 members. These are the MCG soldiers who have fought the battle with us until they reached their destiny on earth. The breakdown of the numbers who passed on per Presbytery herein follows;
The names of these fallen brothers are herein attached in the addendum. Their memorial service will be held during the course of conference.
We have arrived at yet another momentous year in the MCG. There is no doubt that we have been abundantly blessed for this period judging by the successes that we registered. Clearly our successful Denominational Council in Zimbabwe was not only historic, but mainly served to confirm the trans-national character of our denomination. It is our hope that the Council we envisage in Zambia in 2014 will be as successful. Indeed there is a lot that can still be done. The fact that we still have many men within our church who are outside the MCG remains a challenge that we should confront in the coming year. This should include our ability to make the MCG reflect the demographics of our denomination. This conference, as we said, should be a break with the past, and the ushering of a new beginning into the future. That future should reflect an MCG that is relevant, responsive and duty bound to bring more men into the church. We should be an MCG on whom those with less faith should find solace, and be the real centre of evangelism within our denomination and the society where we live. MAY THE GOOD LORD BLESS THIS CONFERENCE AND GIVE US THE WISDOM TO DETERMINE OUR FUTURE WITHIN HIM. ON BEHALF OF THE DENOMINATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, WE DULY PRESENT THIS ANNUAL REPORT TO CONFERENCE FOR CONSIDERATION.
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