Church in Malawi is very different from church in Canada, the moderator learned while visiting five congregations last Saturday.
After spending a week in the northern district of Livingstonia, in Malawi, Rev. Dr. John Vissers, moderator of the 138th General Assembly, along with his wife Lynn, and Rev. Dr. Rick Fee, general secretary of the Life and Mission Agency, flew to Blantyre, in the south, on Friday. Saturday was a whirlwind day of visiting congregations in the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian.
The smallest of the congregations visited by the moderator and his entourage has 600 congregant members; the largest has nearly 5,000.
Each congregation also has associated prayer houses, each of which may have from a couple to several hundred members. There might be up to a dozen or more prayer houses per church.
If anything, Malawian congregations are very focused on presbyters. Lay leaders are responsible for all administrative duties, and also take on many preaching and worship roles.
The minister is a teaching elder, providing pastoral care, preaching once a month or so at the main Sunday worship, and leading worship and preaching at all the prayer houses in a rotation.
On the day the Canadian moderator toured five Blantyre area congregations he was impressed by how busy the church was on a Saturday afternoon. At one church, the synod moderator and local minister were busy performing two weddings. At another there was a meeting of a women’s guild. At another, more weddings and other activities.
The church in Malawi is deeply integrated into the society. Malawians proudly speak of how much the Presbyterian Church has influenced the politics and social culture. They tell of how governments seek the church’s opinion and sometimes even its approval.
On several occasions, Vissers has spoken of how impressed he is by the deep integration and holistic approach taken by Malawian churches. The Livingstonia Synod in the north and the Blantyre Synod in the south both have dynamic and growing churches with strong lay leadership. They have active evangelism committees and provide a great deal of lay leadership training. The whole church is encouraged to take part in worship. In every congregation even the children lead worship one Sunday at least annually. Youth groups lead worship a few times a year.
At the same time the congregations and synods are involved in development work with some of the most vulnerable people in their society. HIV/AIDS has eviscerated a whole generation. There are many households headed by children, grandparents, or a sick or dying parent. Many families make less than a dollar a day. The levels of poverty are staggering. And in this dark corner the church carries a torch in the name of Jesus Christ.
Blantyre Synod, through its health and development commission, provides a wide variety of programs among the most devastated in society.
The Presbyterian Church in Canada first established a relationship with the Blantyre Synod in 1959 and has been a partner on relief and development projects for decades through Presbyterian World Services and Development.
Through International Ministries the PCC has also provided missionaries for many years. Currently two families are serving in Malawi. Rev. Mike Burns is associate minister at St. James, in Blantyre, while his wife Debra works and provides support at the Blantyre Synod Health and Development Commission, working particularly with orphans and other vulnerable children. Rev. Dr. Todd Statham is a lecturer at Zomba Theological College, and lives with his wife Annika and their children Sophia and Mio.
