This year’s KMMC took a huge step forward in partnering with local churches when a meeting of church leaders who attended the conference was held.
According to Dave Turner, one of the local organisers of the KMMC and a lay pastor in Middelburg, it was an extremely positive gathering, the result of which will provide the KMMC with a core of church leaders from all over the country and further afield in Africa that will promote the event among their congregations, communities and other church leaders.
“The Lord laid it on my heart that the KMMC organising committee should work closer with local church leaders in a partnership in the gospel to the benefit of all involved,” says Turner.
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He emphasises that the KMMC honours church leaders as people who have laid down their lives and given-up careers to serve God’s people in a full-time capacity doing a job that is among the most difficult in the world, incorporating the roles of teacher, counsellor, authority, janitor, preacher, organiser, visionary and shoulder to cry on all at the same time.
“We believe a partnership between the local churches and our ministry organisation will form a net that will bring in an abundant harvest for the Lord.”
Turner points out that such a partnership would be mutually beneficial. From the KMMC side it will help bring people to the event and provide church families for the men who have experienced conversion at the conference and have a need for guidance and fellowship on their road to discipleship when they return home.
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“For church leaders the benefit of the partnership is that the groups of men from their churches attending KMMC will return vitalised and encouraged, which will help lift the spiritual temperature of the church.
“Secondly, it is a good way for church leaders to participate in the growth in the body of Christ, because if church members invite friends, colleagues and neighbours to attend KMMC and they are saved then the chances are they will return from KMMC to attend their church.
“The third benefit of KMMC for church leaders is that many of the topics that are difficult to take up and teach at a congregational level, like the need for tithing, commitment to local churches, submitting to authority, and serving under the church leader, are taken up at the inter-denominational, extra-congregational level of KMMC,” says Turner.
He believes the partnership benefits extend beyond KMMC and local churches to the advance of God’s kingdom itself.
“People attending KMMC gain a broader perspective and understanding of the necessity for unity between the different churches and necessity for members of the body of Christ to work together in advancing God’s kingdom,” explains Turner.
Pastor Stef Davi, who ministers at the Full Gospel Church in Sterling in East London and attended the meeting agrees that there is much scope for church leaders to form a partnership with KMMC in the gospel for the sake of God’s kingdom.
“I believe the meeting was God-inspired, because at the end of the day we are all working as co-labourers with Christ to win souls into the kingdom.
“If we encourage people, especially the unsaved, to attend the KMMC and they are converted we all benefit from the growth as there has to be a continuation of the process of guiding the newly converted and bringing them to maturity, so that hopefully next year more men attend KMMC.”
Davi says the meeting was also beneficial in giving church leaders the opportunity to interact and fellowship, which often seemed like divine appointments.
Pastor Eldin Rudolph from the Celebration Centre in Port Alfred agrees saying that the diversity of leaders in the body of Christ allowed for meetings between people who might not normally cross paths.
“Besides the aim of getting a network going between church leaders and the KMMC the meeting proved to be an opportunity for us to meet some strategic people who could help us with plans for our church.
“For instance, we have been working for more than six months on plans for a college in our church and wondering in which direction to proceed. However, God brought people across my path at the meeting who could offer us advice and solutions.
“There was also good fellowship and connections made among the church leaders during which we could encourage each other and learn what other pastors are doing and going through,” says Rudolph.
Both Rudolph and Davi agree that the church leaders’ meeting could become an integral and fruitful part of the KMMC in future years.
Turner says KMMC has formed a database of the 130 church leaders that attended the meeting and shared their hearts around such a partnership. The KMMC organising committee will maintain contact with them throughout the year to build relationships and grow the partnership.
Turner believes the meeting shifted the unity between local church leaders and KMMC at a spiritual level.
The KMMC encourages any other church leaders who would like to join the partnership to contact Dave Turner, Phone (049) 8421911, Mobile 0798791848, or Email: devlei@vodamail.co.za
