Editors’ note:
TGC Africa believes in the power of “coalition.” To that end we delight in finding like-minded, Christ-centred ministries and movements across the continent, so that we might platform them and also promote greater synergy in service of God. One of Paul’s favourite analogies for the church was that of a body, which contains various parts that fulfil a host of important functions. Christianity across Africa is no different. No organisation can do everything, so it’s a joy to highlight others.
City to City Africa fosters the growth of urban gospel networks and assists church planters and ministry leaders plant contextualised churches in the major cities of Africa.
Tobie Meyer wasn’t yet with City to City in 1989, but he knows the history well. An associate professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, Tim Keller, moved with his wife, Kathy, and their three young sons to New York City to start a Presbyterian church in the middle of Manhattan. Many didn’t expect it to survive. Early on there were Sundays when the auditorium was nearly empty at the start of the service; and Tim and Kathy would think, ‘This is it. This is the Sunday no one comes.’ But then Manhattanites, mostly young professionals, would slowly trickle in and fill the seats.
Against all human odds, God favoured the work. Secular people came, returned, and listened again and again to sermons centred on the gospel. Conversions and baptisms followed. The church grew. Christians around the world—particularly those called to urban mission—heard about this church and realised something special was happening.
There are certain characteristics of cities that all cities have.
One group of pastors from Amsterdam were so intrigued that they got on a plane and flew to Manhattan to talk to Keller face-to-face and investigate his theology and practise. Others also came, observed, and asked questions. How was this happening? 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 Tim and the staff of Redeemer Presbyterian Church began to prepare to do just that. They launched the Redeemer Church Planting Center, later rebranded as Redeemer City to City (RCTC).
How City to City Arrived in Africa
Tobie Meyer, executive director of CTC Africa, connected with CTC much later through a man named Al Barth. In his past life, Tobie worked as a lawyer in South Africa and the UK. 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 CTC as a catalyst, looking for church planters in Europe and Africa. The Christian ministry Campus Outreach began working on varsity campuses in Johannesburg. Young men and women were being converted and discipled, but it was a battle to get them into local churches. Campus Outreach saw a need to plant churches that would reach these students and graduates as they became young professionals. Al started 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.
The emphasis CTC placed on the gospel and the city (part of its “DNA”) resonated with Tobie. He wanted to learn more. “There are certain characteristics of cities that all cities have. It made sense to me that if a certain type of urban ministry proved effective in Manhattan or Amsterdam, there was a strong likelihood that it could be fruitful in Lusaka or Nairobi,” says Tobie.
In 2009, when Al invited Tobie to join several other church planters to come to New York City for a six-week church planting training “intensive,” Tobie was all in. He recounts, “It was just a great privilege to be in that 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 quizzed them as to why they were doing this and why you did that. And so by the end of six weeks, we had seen a spectrum of churches and methodologies, and been immersed in robust theology.” But there was something else that impacted Tobie: grace-saturated, gospel-centred theology was the key component in true renewal (both personal and corporate) and in church planting.
A Growing Team and Reach
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 handful of African pastors could get to New York every year; the model was prohibitively expensive and inefficient. By this stage, regional “affiliates” connected to CTC had started forming. Two early affiliates were CTC Europe and CTC Australia. So the idea of CTC Africa was born. Tobie says, “We saw the potential of having 50 plus African pastors in a training environment, carefully contextualised for Africa, and with the future possibility of instruction in English, French and Portuguese. It just made so much sense.” So CTC Africa was officially formed in 2017.
We are all about connecting with people, serving, training, and networking.
The team comprises 11 people: five are based in Pretoria (South Africa); the other six are spread throughout the continent. They strategise 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) resides in Cape Town, but is originally from the DRC; Samuel Boateng (West Africa) is from Accra, Ghana; and Tobie leads the work in the Southern Africa.
Then there are another 14 people on the continent who are supported in some way by CTC in their ministry. Tobie spends a lot of time networking, coaching, and catalysing virtually and through travel to African cities. The Pretoria staff develops training resources for church planters and leaders. They invest much time and energy in recruiting and assessing leaders for their church planter training events.
Strategic Training and Theological Vision
Tobie is passionate about the work and his continent. “We are a parachurch organisation and not the church,” Tobie says. “We come alongside the church. Our aim is to help and support the local church. We are all about connecting with people, serving, training, and networking. We spend time in cities and try to understand the landscape.”
Our great concern is to see healthy, gospel-centred churches planted across our continent.
Thus Tobie echoes what many missiologists say about Africa: much of what goes by the name of ‘Christianity’ is moralistic, legalistic, and syncretistic. “When the orthodox gospel is faithfully presented, the lights go on, and people say, ‘Wow! This is what we need. This is what we’ve been missing,’” Tobie continues. “Our great concern is to see healthy, gospel-centred churches planted and thriving across our continent.”
CTC Africa’s annual ‘flagship’ event is their Africa Intensive. This training programme, which is now only two weeks, is for church planters who are in the process of building gospel-centred churches. These men are immersed in urban church planting concepts, theological frameworks to grow healthy churches, leadership development resources, and other church planting principles. The program is rigorous, with highly interactive training and rich engagement between participants and trainers. But the gospel remains at the centre of it and each part. Whether the topic is developing a theological vision, or preaching the Old Testament, or contextualising to a specific neighbourhood, or even choosing in which neighbourhood to plant, the gospel informs everything.
Looking Ahead
CTC Africa has already trained leaders in 35 African cities. And this has had a wide ripple effect—hundreds of churches have been impacted. Tobie sees a tremendous openness and hunger for gospel-centred churches and is optimistic about the future. “We would love to have healthy, vibrant networks of churches collaborating for the shalom of their cities established in ten major cities across the continent over the next five years.”
City to City Africa has already trained leaders in 35 African cities.
The plans for this year include an English intensive in May, a Portuguese intensive in August, and a French intensive in October. Some 20 church planters are registered for the upcoming Nairobi event. However the reach of their intensives is far wider than this, as there will be a large ‘gallery’ of observers who listen, learn, and return home with something of the City to City Africa’s DNA and vision.
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 of ourselves:
- How could you partner with other gospel-centred churches that are not part of your denomination or network? CTC would love to contribute to that. They host events that bring leaders from different churches together to talk about church planting and encourage collaboration in this kingdom enterprise.
- What is your role as a church in church planting? Tobie states that the data is clear on the value of church planting for the growth of the kingdom. Not only is there evangelistic fruit in the new church, but it also renews existing churches in the region. So every church should ask themselves what are we doing about church planting? It doesn’t mean that every church should plant next year. But it means that every church should be involved in some way: giving toward church planting, praying for church planters, identifying church planters, or hosting residency programs with church planters.