This article is written as a reflection on the relevance of being church in a world defined by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The reflections are done by listening to the stories and experiences of vulnerable men and women who were displaced from their areas of living on the streets into (mostly) temporary shelters. Different organisations, state entities, universities and churches collaborated to serve vulnerable people with dignity. Wonderful and tragic stories played out during this time. Corruption and misuse of power played out alongside passionate and sacrificial work being done by professionals and volunteers alike. This mixed package of care helped the author to reflect on the embodiment of faith and on being church. The value of collaboration is unpacked, and parts of a visual journal are used to bring the stories of people closer. Lessons learned include a growing understanding of the context of homeless people, the contributions they made to the learning experience, and the re-interpretation of critical elements of being church and what can contribute to becoming church in a just and dignified way. The re-interpretation of prayer, discipleship, missional focus, stewardship and leadership, and liturgy is used in re-interpreting being church. The conclusion brings us to the understanding that true community, as expressed in sharing in communion, is critical in becoming a transformative church. Where people from different walks of life connect in an honest way, the transformation of individuals and communities happens and can still happen.
This article links to the focus and scope of the HTS journal in the way it connects the practical environment of people who are homeless to the experience of and thinking about church. The article reflects on being church and how to interpret faith in a Corona-defined world. From a theological reflection point of view, the understanding of liturgy and faith are re-imagined in the context of the lives of vulnerable people living in shelters. Key insights of the article poses to help the reader understand how dignity, justice and community help us all to re-imagine how to be church. It challenges the institutional church to become more of the community that embraces and welcomes vulnerable people to experience God and church in their spaces.
I would like to tell you about Johnny Q (not his real name, because we do not know what his real name is due to the fact that he is deaf-mute). He ended up at the shelter for elderly men of the Dutch Reformed Church Oosterlig congregation. The men living in the shelter immediately started taking responsibility for Johnny Q. They cut his hair, cared for his feet (which were very dirty and full of calluses as a result of living on the streets for many years), cut his nails and bathed him every day. The community of elderly, previously homeless men adopted Johnny Q. They cared for him so well that his condition of bowel incontinence was only picked up much later because his comrades kept him so clean and hygienic.
This is one story of the many that came out of a collective response by NGOs, churches, universities and the City Council of Tshwane to the crisis that erupted during lockdown. These stories came about on 23 March 2020, when the president of South Africa announced a 21-day national lockdown (26 March–16 April, extended to 30 April; South African Government News Agency [SAGNA]
The author is part of an NGO called PEN (Participate Empower Navigate), which focuses on bringing healing to communities of vulnerable men, women and children living in the city or other urban contexts (
At present, the staff at PEN are confronted with the question of the relevance of being church in broken and bleeding communities of the City of Tshwane and other urban areas. During the lockdown, the different NGOs and entities collaborated in new ways in order to collectively care for more than 2000 people who were living in shelters and who had previously lived on the streets (Marcus et al.
In order to consider the question of the relevance of being church clearly, we have to understand the hermeneutics and embodiment of faith in a Corona-defined world. The author will describe the people who were cared for in the shelters so as to understand the contexts of this discussion. Valuable lessons learned through collaboration are documented. Lessons learned through encounters with people living in the shelters will be highlighted, as will be the effect of the lessons learned on the understanding of being church. The implication of these encounters for the relevance of being church are then considered.
The author’s understanding of the hermeneutics and provocative embodiment of faith during the lockdown period was informed mainly by the desperate need for dignity and justice in the way the church responds to vulnerable people. This need should be rediscovered by the church as the way she defines herself as an expression of the Kingdom of God in a post-Corona world.
The question about ecclesiology has always been relevant, and remains very relevant in this time. It is a question that needs to be revisited continuously. Many different models of doing so have been developed through the years. Cardinal Avery Dulles (
Updated descriptions of ecclesiology, or a transformative ecclesiology introduced by German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, were very helpful in reflecting on how to re-interpret church. A more modern-day reflection by the American systematic theologian Patrick Oden (
List of shelters where the author was involved.
Facility name | Number placed | Sex | Age category | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lucas van der Berg Stadium | 400 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless |
Lyttleton Town Hall | 39 | M + F | Adults | Homeless |
Oosterlig | 20 | M | Older adults | Homeless |
NG Pretoria Church | 20 | M | Older adults | Homeless |
Melodi Ya Tshwane | 25 | F | Adult mothers and their children | Homeless |
Capital Park | 52 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless |
Life Changing Ministries | 90 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless + PWUD |
St Wilfreds | 24 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless |
Mabopane Indoor Sport Centre | 85 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless + PWUD |
Lyttelton Sports Park | 348 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless + PWUD |
Bethesda Men | 15 | M | Adults and youth | Homeless + PWUD |
Bethesda Women | 14 | F | Women and children | Homeless |
Tau Village | 16 | M | Older adults | Homeless |
Nkululeku | 16 | M | Adults | Homeless |
Rayton church | 23 | F | Women and children | Homeless |
Many informal shelters were also served e.g. hotspots in parks and open areas | Adding numbers to around 2000. |
The South African practical theologian, Johann-Albrecht Meylahn (
In trying to understand the hermeneutics and embodiment of faith in a Corona-defined world, it is important to understand something of the context of the people who form part of these newly founded communities.
The people who filled these newly founded communities in the 19 shelters in Tshwane were people who were living on the streets when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in a public speech on 23 March 2020 that all people must be removed from the streets at the beginning of lockdown. This forced movement of people went with and caused a variety of different reactions and gave rise to good and bad experiences;
Different shelters catered for different categories of people. There was a focus on elderly men, younger men who used drugs and younger men who did not use drugs; there also were shelters focusing only on women and others for women with children. A need was identified for shelters for families but, due to a lack of capacity, this need could not be met.
One of the lessons continuously re-learned when working with homeless people is that there is not one definition of homeless people. Homeless people are very different from each other. They become homeless due too many different and complex reasons, and have many different needs and preferences. Many people who are homeless are working somewhere but cannot afford accommodation due to the distance from their home in a rural area. They will then work in the city, sleep on the street and travel home during holidays or over weekends. Others become substance users and need to hustle on the streets to sustain their needs. Alcoholism often goes together with life on the streets. Mental health problems are often a cause or implication of life on the street. Some people who end up on the street are young people who cannot find a job and can no longer stay with their families. Men and women become part of the complicated sex trade and drug industry in trying to survive. These are just a few scenarios of people who end up living on the streets. Homeless people are human beings who deserve and require a dignified and respectful response from the people and communities around them. This was also true of the care that was planned for people who lived in the shelters (Marcus et al.
There were many intended and/or unintended effects on people who lived in the shelters. Many people were forced to move from their known areas, where they were comfortable and able to look after themselves and their friends (sometimes also family members) in known circumstances. They could hustle for food and livelihoods in communities that had a familiarity and a predictability. Being moved into shelters, these people were forced into new communities with people they did not know. They were taken away from their everyday access to drugs, sex and the many other necessities that meant something to them. Their way of life that they knew before lockdown was disrupted and changed forever. They were put into a totally new context outside of their comfort zones (even though these were sometimes dire and, in the view of other people, undesirable). In the shelters, people had to find a new way of being and a new way of living. Some unintended effects, like in the story of Johnny Q, were new relationships and the establishment of community/communities. Rules and boundaries for living together had to be negotiated and agreed upon. As they were adults with rights to make their own decisions, interesting issues arose; for example, they were not allowed to leave the shelter in order to protect the health of others, but some felt their freedom was being restricted. Bathing and personal hygiene became part of the new rituals to which they had to adhere.
Other unintended effects were that people had access to nutritional food on a regular basis, which had a very positive effect on many of them. Health workers regularly checked every person and made sure they received their medicine correctly and timely. Mental health issues (which are prevalent in homeless communities) were identified and addressed. HIV testing and TB monitoring happened on a continuous basis. Friendships were formed and new partnerships were built. Previously, organisations did not find the need to talk to each other, but now they were forced to talk in order to reach out, work together and come up with innovative solutions. The collaboration combined the strengths of the different partners.
Even formal care institutes and organisations were compelled to collaborate, such as the universities with the City, the City with healthcare institutes, etc. New operational standards had to be developed to manage shelters and to train shelter managers and other supporting staff to do things that had not previously been done. New collaborative entities were put into place during this time, and these are still continuing.
Some church members were moved into action by becoming involved in food provision, and others in developing activities and programmes to support the people living in the shelters. A few individuals understood that merely making friends and building relationships was a very important response in itself. Not many people reached that point of understanding. We found that many people could not cross the barrier they had built for themselves: they could hand out food and clothing, but could not get themselves to engage with the people living in the shelters. Fear and misconceptions about each other keep these barriers in place.
Against the background of describing the context and seeing the people who filled the shelters, lessons were learned about being church.
One of the valuable results of the forced collaboration has been the rediscovery of the strength of working together. Across church denominations, across faith groups, but also – and very importantly – across fields of expertise, new ways to collaborate had to be designed. All this collaboration made people realise that we are stronger together.
A few principles crystallised in the experience of taking collaboration forward:
In order to work together well, it became critical to agree on the broad direction of the value that everyone wanted to bring to the beneficiaries: not being outcomes-driven, but rather input-driven. We understood that if we agreed on adding value to the lives of the people, well-defined and thought-through inputs would be most beneficial for the beneficiaries.
There are real risks in working with partners who do not share the same values and principles. If people are in it for selfish and self-enriching purposes, you will never work together well. Regularly coming together to make sure all are in agreement on the direction and on the impact that are needed, continuously revising the strategic direction and re-evaluating the strategy were critical in keeping all on the same page.
Relationships are critical in establishing a foundation of mutual trust and respect. One of the key principles that was rediscovered was that all initiatives, drives or actions were founded in people connecting on a relational level first. Trust is built between people on an individual basis, and this trust is needed to take on the many different and sometimes very challenging problems that might arise in a collective way. Values must be re-visited and re-confirmed throughout each new situation that arises. There was an instance when the police came into the shelters to confirm identities and search beneficiaries in order to find criminal elements. There was a collective response to object to this violation of peoples’ rights. The police action was condemned and people’s rights were protected: no person, not even in a shelter, can be searched without due process and legal documentation (like a warrant) (see the interpretation of the Constitution as explained by Van Kerwel [
Section 14(a) of the Constitution specifically protects the right not to have a person or their home searched. A person’s home, it is widely accepted, constitutes the highest expectation of privacy. According to section 36 of the Constitution, rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited by a law of general application, if the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.
Over the years, PEN (
Justice is not a simple principle to implement and to make part of your approach. South Africa’s political context and history have caused extensive complexities in our society. People who are poor in our country are suffering greatly. Their suffering is linked directly to our apartheid history, but also to recent political iniquities caused by corrupt leaders and corrupt systems implemented by a self-serving political leadership that does not prioritise the needs of vulnerable people, but prioritises self-enrichment to the detriment of the vulnerable.
During this period of lockdown, it was confirmed by the media that corrupt officials in Tshwane and Gauteng used the resources meant to care for people living in the shelters to benefit their own families and friends (see reports in
Agang et al. (
According to Agang et al. (
A real dichotomy is found between the faith world of the church and real life. People are limiting faith to Sunday church service and do not translate the same values into everyday life. This is especially relevant at the local municipality level of government, where local churches should be helped and encouraged to have a clear voice to protect the dignity of vulnerable people in their communities and to address unjust practices (Agang et al.
The church (especially the Dutch Reformed Church [DRC]) is still struggling with the hurt caused by language policies that were used in the past (and in some instances are still being used) to deliberately exclude people from experiencing church community. We, as the DRC, connected community to language and deliberately excluded people in this way. In the South African context, the implication of this exclusion is linked directly to the exclusion of people of specific races. Choices made in the selective use of language can no longer be a reason to exclude people from any experience of community. Building community and sharing the love of God might mean that the church will have to do church in multiple languages. John Calvin already made this point long ago in his commentary on John 19:19-20, in which he argues for translating Jesus’ name into three different languages. In this way, people across the whole earth should know about Jesus. According to him, a multilingual church is the only true church (John Calvyn’s commentary on John 19, as quoted in StudyLight.org
In reflecting on a re-interpreted understanding of the church, it is critical to look at the purpose of the church in a historical way.
Buchanan (
If we think of the call to Reformed churches to stay true to their roots, the expression
This quotation calls the author to take the responsibility of having a prophetic voice very seriously. It also calls on her to rethink how we are being church. We should critically review our own identity and relevance in the light of a world redefined by Corona and all its (not yet clear) implications. Moltmann’s plea (
The ability to keep true to the call of
From left to right: Gerrit Ferreira, Sam Moimane and Mike Burt. These men were members of CAPRRA and volunteered to take the responsibility to manage the shelter without any compensation.
From the outside looking in, some life choices people make appear to be unhealthy or unwise. Still, they have the right to make their own choices. Basic human dignity lies in the right to make your own choices.
Homeless people face the same complexities as everyone else with regard to relationships, families, health and social issues. Fear, stress, uncertainty and being overwhelmed are natural things to need help with.
Friendships were formed and a deep-rooted sense of community was established.
The traditional components that influence the functioning of the institutional church are made up of different elements. Below I name a few that seem relevant in reflecting on re-inventing being church. These comments are very brief and limited only to those relevant to this specific conversation. This is not meant to be a comprehensive discussion on any of the mentioned components of the institutional church. There are many distinguished writers who have done great work on any of these topics. To mention just two, among many: Bonhoeffer’s work (
The few components to be discussed here are prayer, discipleship, leadership, stewardship and liturgy.
Prayer is a critical part of the church expressing herself in the intimacy of personal prayer or in the shared experience of communal prayer. The aim is as much to express your inner feelings and words to God, as it is for God to have a space to speak into Christians’ lives. In a re-interpreted understanding of church, prayer becomes a protest against the brokenness and the evil found in the world and in systems of political and economic life. The simple and honest way vulnerable people come to express their anger, their pain and their desires reminds of the old creed:
Personal prayer should then become an agenda of transformation, and communal prayer becomes a space of collective outcry against the evil found in each other, and in the systems we design in the political world. If the institutional church then is where heaven and earth reach for each other, it becomes a space for the collective cry towards heaven, addressing the institutional spirit of evil (found in the structures), but also heard by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is not satisfied with a mere passive hearing, but requires of a re-interpreted church to be called to action by declaring prayers that inspire people to live justly as explained by Volf (
Dictionary.com (
A person who is a pupil or adherent of the doctrines of another.
One who embraces and assists in spreading the teaching of another.
Any follower of another person.
In other words, to be a disciple is to be a learner and to become a follower. In Christianity, this is taken a little further: it comes down to taking what you have learned and internalising it, then encouraging and inspiring others to do the same (Osmer
The most important characteristic of a religious practice in the way it teaches its participants to construe their everyday lives in terms of an interpretation of the ultimate context of existence and to align their lives accordingly. (pp. 91–92)
In a re-interpreted church, the place of discipleship becomes one of intense involvement with others. It is all about building deep-felt relationships and trust and becoming a person that others will want to follow, taking personal interest in the well-being and growth of others. This became visible in the lives of people living in the shelters; the way they took responsibility for each other and started to lead themselves, but also their fellow brothers and sisters. It became the quest to ‘not leave anyone behind’, to become personally, emotionally and economically involved with each other. The process of discipleship is a two-way learning experience. Vulnerable people have a lot to give and to teach. If the church sees her role as facilitating relationships, it should include a constant switch between the roles of being a pupil and of being a teacher. In its successfulness of facilitating the development of people as disciples of Jesus, the church will be asked to affect the lives of people differently. Oden (
Church is transformative when it engages in the development of people to better reflect the life of Christ in their lives, and when this transformation then extends itself beyond the boundaries of a church community, as such people live their lives in new ways wherever they are. (p. 137)
This can become true even in shelters and in affluent church communities.
This is not an equally popular strategy in all churches. The big missional focus should be to make the world a place where God can be glorified, and not only focusing on the conversion of people. If we think about a re-interpreted church, missional intent should be focused on seeing the world in its wholeness: restoring it to a state of being that is healed, glorifying the Maker. Maybe one should look at it in a systemic way: if one part is broken, it affects all the other parts. If the ecology is suffering under the evil of greed and gluttony, the poor are suffering. If family values are discarded, the daily lives of vulnerable children, women and men are influenced, and this causes even more exposure and vulnerability. The mission should be to make the world a better place for all, according to Agang et al. (
Stewardship is not traditionally seen as a very important part of the heart of the church (Vaters
The most widespread sin of the modern-day church is poor stewardship. Too many churches are mishandling the money that has been entrusted to us. Many churches are enslaved by unsustainable debt. More churches close their doors every year because they are unable to pay their bills than for any other reason – maybe more than all other reasons combined. (p. 1)
Recent media attention received by churches and their leaders has highlighted that the integrity of the leaders in particular has left nothing to boast about: corruption in the church, as in state entities, is rife, and pastors are misleading the people who put their trust in them (McCauley
In some instances, the author has experienced the rituals expressed in the form of liturgies used in some formal churches as stale and meaningless, e.g. the application of communion as an activity that must be done, rather than a deeply meaningful ritual. In her experience of being church together with vulnerable men and women, communion became alive again: glimpses of this were seen in the sharing of bread and water in the context of sharing a humble meal with a homeless person. The dinner queues became the communion table where the broken and the healed met to share life and stories of hope. People started sharing stories of sacrifices made in order to secure the dignified care provided in the shelters. The rituals, re-interpreted, built a community of people who became part of the body of Christ in new ways: breaking a hard-earned, dry and stale piece of bread on the sidewalk of a busy street in Pretoria became the deepest expression of a sense of belonging to something bigger. Together we drank from the cup of despair and disappointment and found it became sweeter than if it was consumed alone. To sit at this table became a moment of conversion – to follow the Jesus who walks the streets and sits with the lonely and addicted sex worker in Robert Sobukwe Street. New forms of liturgy arose in the washing of the feet of Johnny Q and the playing of chess with John du Plessis. Sharing in community led to visualising the body of Christ.
In the end, the most comprehensive answer the author could find to the question of how to re-interpret the relevance of being church in a post-Corona world was found in listening to the experiences of the many vulnerable people affected by Corona. In an effort to understand the hermeneutics and embodiment of faith in a Corona-defined world, a better understanding of who the vulnerable people were who filled the shelters, and listening to their stories about God, about their own faith, along with the lessons learned from their stories of becoming church in a re-interpreted way, helped the author to understand that dignity, justice and community form the baseline in re-interpreting being church in a Corona-defined world. Collaboration, and acting from a shared base of value-driven responses, helped the author to draft models for dignified and just care. The conclusion was formulated that true community, and sharing true communion in an honest, just and dignified way, brought us to a re-interpreted experience of being church. Our understanding of who God is and who we are, have developed and deepened. This expression of community will help the institutional church ‘… to become in the church who we are to be in this world’ (Oden
Albert Bredenhann is the photographer who took the photos with the verbal permission of the participants.
John du Plessis and Ronny Klopper who were willing to share their experiences and photos of themselves.
CAPRRA and its members for taking on the great journey of opening and managing a shelter.
Prof. D.P. Veldsman for his guidance and support in bringing experiences to words.
Thank you to all the people who taught me so much through their bravery and enduring hardship everyday living on the streets of our towns and cities.
The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
M.v.N. is the sole author of this research article.
Verbal permission was obtained from interviewees to be identified in published answers and images.
This research received no specific funding from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.
The views and opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of any affiliated agency of the author.