Unfolding Globalscope South Africa
Our Globalscope international campus ministries started as a dream to reach college students in major university towns around the world, places where few opportunities existed for young people to explore faith in a loving and accepting community. Now, over 20 years later, Globalscope campus ministers are welcoming students into 14 different campus houses, in 10 countries.
But none of those countries were in Africa, until now!
Establishing a new international campus ministry is hard work that requires exploration, lots of conversations, planning, prayer, and people willing to invest their lives into the process.
Over the last couple of years, we have been considering the possibility of starting a Globalscope campus ministry in South Africa, due to the research and initiative of former REACH Coordinator, Seth McManus. Seth is passionate about the need for ministry among university students, and South Africa contains many of the leading universities on the continent and students from all across Africa.
“The fact that Globalscope emphasizes a grace-driven and welcoming community of belonging—those values and those needs are amplified when you’re talking about students who are many of them facing extreme socioeconomic challenges,” says Seth. “So, the things that Globalscope strives to do for students—it really can’t be started soon enough because the needs are so great, and the opportunity is so great to impact students.”
After doing lots of research and getting buy-in from leadership at Common Ground Midtown, the church in Indianapolis, Indiana that he has attended and worked at over the last few years, Seth organized the first of three vision trips to South Africa in 2022, which included Globalscope leadership and ministry leaders from Common Ground Midtown.
First Vision Trip – The “Why?”
The first vision trip was asking the “why” of the ministry and they walked away from the trip with a lot of information, as well as a much deeper understanding and vision for what campus ministry in South Africa would look like. They had the opportunity to meet with several South Africans doing ministry in different contexts and pick their brains and understand what God is doing amongst students there. Seth said, “We didn’t walk away from that first trip with a concrete plan or timeline but did walk away with a clear invitation. Everyone was incredibly hospitable, welcoming, and excited that there were folks who wanted to minister to university students.”
Second Vision Trip – The “Where?”
The group visited several cities and universities in a short amount of time on their second visit to try to get a better and broader picture of South African university life across the country. They met with campus ministers, faculty and staff at universities, and church leaders. Seth shared that “On the first trip we felt a resounding ‘yes’ and invitation, so now we were trying to get more specific on where we should follow up on this invitation- where there was opportunity for partnership and collaboration with people who had shared vision for students.”
From that, all involved agreed that Gqeberha, formerly called Port Elizabeth, was where invitation, partnership, opportunity, and extreme need all overlapped.
Third Vision Trip – The “Who and How?”
On the third trip, the focus was on who is going to be a part of starting this ministry, and how we are going to practically do it. One budding partnership is with a local 130-year-old church in Gqeberha called St. John’s City Mission that is extremely involved in the life of the student-filled community, as well as an unfolding partnership with faculty, staff and students at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, which has well over 32,000 students and is one of the major universities in South Africa as a whole.
Kami Reed, Director of Globalscope, knows that getting the support of local partners is key to any successful ministry. She says that “Many of our most fruitful Globalscope ministries are integrated with the church landscape in their local contexts, as well as with the universities where they serve. This offers invaluable support and credibility to these ministries, while also providing Globalscope campus ministers with the opportunity to not just holistically support students but also connect them with the larger body of Christ both locally and globally.”
What’s Next?
Now with a city, university, and several partnerships identified, Seth, teammate Sophie Anthony, and other potential teammates continue to look toward building a team to help begin this vision for a Globalscope campus ministry in Gqeberha.
A huge part of this process is support raising to fund all the expenses that go in to starting a new ministry, including the costs for Seth, Sophie, and others like them to move to Gqeberha. In partnership with St. John’s, we also hope to hire South African staff members in the future and will also be fundraising salaries for them.
If you feel called to help get this Globalscope campus ministry in Gqeberha, South Africa started, there are three important ways you can be a part of it:
- Give toward the expenses of launching the campus ministry.
- If you feel called to join the team that will shape and build this emerging ministry, reach out to us at mobilization@cmfi.org.
- Pray! Pray for teammates to be called by God to be a part of this pioneering ministry and pray for the hearts of South African students who will be impacted by this ministry and many who will meet Christ for the first time.