A little over a year ago 21-year-old Will Garringer of Columbus, Ohio in the United States started a run club that he hoped would be “a cool little community where we did a devotional beforehand and then we ran together”.
Today Run With Christ – which describes itself as “way more than a run club, but rather a movement to make Heaven full” – is in more than 80 cities across the US and in six other countries, including South Africa.
Will told CBN News that he gives God all the credit for the ongoing explosive growth of the club where Saturday after Saturday people are getting saved, prayed for and connected with the local church. Currently RWC is active in USA, South Africa, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Finland and Australia.
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I spoke to Zandeli Gamble in Pretoria and Stacey Tait in Cape Town – the founders of the first two Run With Christ clubs in South Africa. Both had been thinking about starting a club that combined running and faith when they heard about RWC in the US and contacted Will. Like him they are both in awe of what God is doing through the movement.
25-year-old Zandeli, who heads up RWC Pretoria and RWC South Africa says she is interviewing and building relationship with people from many other centres who want to start RWC clubs. This month she expects new clubs to start up in Despatch in the Eastern Cape and Ballito in KwaZulu-Natal.
Asked what she makes of the movement’s momentum, she said: “What we’re expecting with RWC, is to be honest just a massive revival. And bringing all the churches together – and also creating a space for people that do not necessarily want to go to a church but they’re willing to go to a run club and then, through that, obviously hear the Gospel.”
RWC Pretoria was launched on March 15. They meet at West Cafe in Hazelwood – at 7am currently. They start with an icebreaker, share a Word and a testimony, pray for one another, warm up and then go for a 5k or 3k run or walk. Afterwards they fellowship over coffee. Zandeli says some people had accepted invitations from new friends to visit church where they gave their hearts to Jesus and were baptised. She said quite a few people who came to RWC had stopped attending church because of hurts. Through relationships begun at RWC many of them were being plugged back into church, she said.
“Run With Christ is really 10% run club and 90% ministry,” she said. They have worship nights on Mondays, sometimes they have prayer nights, they do a weekly outreach in Mamelodi – and next year a team from RWC Pretoria is going on a mission trip to Uganda where they will be taking Bibles to people in their heart language.
29-year-old Stacey who is a media team staff member at Grace Chapel church in Woodstock, Cape Town, says she was not even a runner when God inspired her to start a run club.
“I have such a big heart for community, and so I kind of took on the concept of where Paul says: ‘I’ll become all things to all men.’ And so I was, like, running is the thing that is clearly where people are at, and it’s bringing people together, so why not redeem that and leverage it for the mission of Christ?” she said.
After a few interest runs and a prayer and worship time on Clifton Beach, Run With Christ Cape Town was officially launched on Saturday October 25. Their plan is to meet every second Saturday at 8am on the lawn in front of the Green Point Lighthouse. Like RWC Pretoria, their format flows from ministry to run to fellowship.
Stacey said it was pretty cool to see that some of the people who showed up for their inaugural run came to church the next day.
“I think everyone is searching for belonging and value to be seen and even to just find peace. And I’m hoping that people who come will get a picture of what the real Christ-like community is like, and they will get to come be a part of that – but then don’t just come and meet people, but meet Jesus.” she said.
In January Will and a team from the US are visiting Cape Town to connect with South African branches and to share RWC’s global vision. Fifty people from RWC Pretoria have already committed to going to Cape Town for the meetup — “and we haven’t even really started promoting it yet”, said Zandeli.
In the US RWC has taken off among the Gen Z age group with a lot of buy-in from college students. In SA, while most of the people who show up are in their 20s and 30s, the vision is to include everybody. Moms with young children and elderly people have been joining on Saturday mornings.
You can find out more about Run With Christ South Africa, Pretoria and Cape Town on Instagram. You can contact Run With Christ South Africa at runwchristsa@gmail.com.
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