Khauoe, J: The Template Of The Church in Mission

ABSTRACT The concern is often expressed that African churches seem to have failed to become self- supporting, self-propagating, and self-perpetuating and be a missional church that live up to Christ‘s command to proclaim the gospel to all the people‘s group of the world. The author researches the close relationships that has developed between church and mission in the 20th century, taking special note of developments in major traditional churches. He further conducted an empirical study in twenty selected churches in Gauteng region in South Africa. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that indeed, for generations, African churches have been introverted, seemingly failing to rise to the challenge of becoming the sending church in their own rights. Conversely, the author develops a holistic definition of mission which answers to the needs of the church to proclaim the love of Christ in a comprehensive manner, one that makes sense at the beginning of the 21st century