Wilberforce Academy SA team members Jess Holing and Ryan Smit report on the recent fourth Wilberforce Academy week at Stanford, Western Cape where 120 believers focused on the call to speak the truth in love in every area of life
In the middle of a scorched-orange thicket of oak trees, surrounded by burnt farmlands, stood the beautiful tented Beloftebos (Forest of Promise) venue — unscathed by destruction. Just days before the 2026 Wilberforce Academy began, wildfires swept across the farmlands of Paardenberg and Papiesvlei near Stanford. Flames crept to within mere metres of the iconic venue — yet, in the midst of seemingly unbridled devastation, God’s protection stood as a visible miracle for all to see.
From January 18 to 23, 80 delegates, alongside 15 team members and 25 faculty members, gathered among the blackened tree trunks of the familiar Beloftebos. Gathering with open hearts and attentive minds, ready to receive and respond to the Lord of all creation who quite literally protects, provides, and restores. This marked the fourth annual Wilberforce Academy held in South Africa.
Over the course of the week, as delegates lived in community, sharing meals, and building relationships, faculty members imparted and the Holy Spirit solidified biblical truths and foundations. Topics covered included foundational subjects such as, Thinking Christianly, Made in God’s image, Gospel and Culture, and others central to our current cultural moment. These included, worldviews and philosophies, dynamics of culture, race, identity and gender, morality, governance and politics, biblical economics, family life and the genocide of abortion, vocation and calling, and the African roots of Christianity.
Across nations and vocations
It was deeply encouraging to see eight African nations represented at this year’s Academy. In addition to 60 delegates from South Africa, a further 20 delegates from Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, as well as first-time cohorts from Eswatini, Botswana and Ghana, joined together in a beautiful display of what it looks like to worship God alongside brothers and sisters from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9-12).
Not only did we gather from diverse parts of the continent, but we also gathered across generations, cultures, and backgrounds, united by a shared pursuit of knowing the way, the truth and the life found only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Each day included shared meals, morning worship and devotions centred on our identity as adopted children of God (sonship), teaching sessions, and vocational discussion groups where delegates could reflect on how the day’s teachings impacted their lives, especially their work lives, and prayed together. These moments of fellowship created space for deep connection, mutual encouragement, and the sharing of wisdom across different vocations and life experiences.
The vocational groups — covering education, academia, STEM, ministry, politics, law, healthcare, media, business, and the newest addition, agriculture — are a pivotal part of the Wilberforce Academy’s design. Meeting daily, these smaller groups allowed delegates to grapple with how to practically apply each day’s teachings within their specific areas of work. Facilitated by faculty with expertise in each field, these spaces helped bridge faith and vocation in tangible, meaningful ways.
Another key component of the week is the many testimonies and practical examples of modern-day William Wilberforces who are standing for what is good, right, beautiful and true — both in South Africa, through faithful individuals and organisations, including the Christian Legal Centre and Cause for Justice, and the UK, through the work of Christian Concern and the Wilberforce Collective. May we all follow, as they do, the instructions in Ephesians 5:8-20.
“Scales have fallen from my eyes”
Scripture is clear that, as Christians, being part of and embedded in culture, we are called to engage the cultures we live in, bringing light and cultivating Gospel-centred culture wherever we go. (Genesis 1:26-28, Matthew 5:13-16 and 28:18-20, and others) And we are warned not to be taken captive through “philosophy and empty deceit, based on human tradition, based on the elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
The Wilberforce Academy exists to establish biblical foundations, through practical teaching, and to equip believers to proclaim Jesus and live out His ways wherever He places them. Yet for these truths to bear lasting fruit, we must remain rooted in Christ — in His Word and Spirit — and this includes submitting to the Father’s work of pruning and pulling out weeds that sometimes obstruct our growth. (John 14 – 17)
Catherine Bruce, a delegate at this year’s academy, shared her experience of realising that although she knew Jesus, she had unknowingly been holding onto beliefs that were contradictory to Truth.
“I feel like a brand new person,” Catherine shared. “I feel relieved from striving within a career that I thought was separate from Jesus. I feel as if scales have fallen from my eyes — like I finally see more of Jesus.”
Rooted in the Word, sent into the world
The Wilberforce Collective in Africa, a community of Wilberforce Academy alumni formed in 2025 and including the past four annual cohorts, serves as a space for continued connection, encouragement, support and collaboration. Through the Collective, alumni are invited into an ongoing community, called by Christ into all of culture with confidence and conviction.
“Come and have a seat at the table,” Catherine encourages those considering applying for the Academy in years to come. “Come and drink from the water of life, and find Jesus in your vocation — not outside of it.”
The resounding message, not only to Wilberforce Academy South Africa 2026 delegates but to all Christians, is to continually return to the Word (God’s words, the Bible), soak ourselves in it, and remember that Jesus is the centre. Not only of our private lives and personal relationships, but of every area of life, both private and public.
We cannot afford to be indifferent to what is unfolding around us: in culture, in families, in individual lives, in legal systems, in classrooms, boardrooms, hall rooms, washrooms, consulting rooms, surgeries, laboratories and the farm. With a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind, we step confidently into the world as bearers of light — deeply rooted in Scripture and ready to speak the truth in love as the Holy Spirit leads. We are expectant and excited to see what God will continue to do in and through the hearts, minds, and hands of the 2026 Wilberforce Academy and the wider Collective they have now become part of.
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:17–19)
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Thank you Wilberforce members for engaging those around you with His love & truth.