AN OVERVIEW OF CCAP GWERU PRESBYTERY

Gweru Presbytery is found mainly from the Central part of Zimbabwe, stretching to the West and the Southern part of the country. It covers the following towns: Chegutu, Kadoma, Kwekwe, Gweru, Bulawayo, Zvishabane, Gwanda, Beitbridge, Hwange and Victoria Falls.

1. The size of the Presbytery.

Gweru Presbytery has 8 congregations namely, Gweru, Bulawayo, Kadoma, Hwange, Kwekwe, Lobengula, Sizinda and Chegutu. Within these congregations, there are 39 prayer points, that is: 8 Mission Stations and 31 prayer houses. These are places where we expect believers or people to gather every Sunday for worship.

In terms of Statistics, the Presbytery has 2125 members in full communion with the Church, 536 catechumen members and 1444 Sunday School children. All these figures include men and women, boys and girls. Among these statistics, we have men’s Guild Association with 187 members, Women’s Guild Association with 957 and Youth group association with 338 members.

In the whole of Presbytery, there are 178 Church Elders and 150 Church deacons. These help in the administration of the local prayer houses

2. Pastors and Evangelists:

We have 5 Pastors, all full time serving all congregations in the Presbytery. 2 of these Pastors are visiting Pastors of the remaining 3 congregations. The 3 congregations really need their own resident Pastors. Synod is helping us working to that effect.

We do have 6 Evangelists. Two of them are working for the Youth. One is in the Evangelism Ministry for the whole Presbytery. The other 3 are stationed at prayer houses.

3. The Work

Pastors are not at one prayer house every Sunday, but they have to move from place to place. The other prayer houses where the pastor is not there, the Church Elders are responsible to take care of the worship service. Due to this task given to elders, Pastors do train their elders on regular occasions in order to equip them for such services to the Church.

Ordained Pastors only administer sacraments. They also take pastoral ministry of the Church. Much of the daily activities are visiting and encouraging the weak, the backsliding and the sick. Visiting and comforting the bereaved. Winning souls to Christ is one of the major areas of work.

CCAP is mainly found in towns, mines and farms. But now we have realized that we have a mission in rural areas too. Therefore little by little we are entering the rural areas and the response is very positive.

Welfare of Pastors and Evangelists:

Congregations on their own give Stipend to Pastors and Evangelists on monthly basis. They provide for accommodation and pay for water, electricity, phone and other bills. Some, not all, do help by providing food, clothing and other things. Some are even failing to help and this results to difficulty in the life of workers.

Challenges

The closure of mines and big companies where most of our members work has caused us great harm. Many have lost their jobs. Those who are left at work, their working hours have been cut off to only two weeks per month, therefore cutting off their salaries again by half. Some of those who lost their jobs have moved out to some other places in search of jobs or otherwise anything for a living. This has displaced most of our members to places where we are not found and some abroad. Thus our statistics is going down.

The above challenge also contributes to the financial crisis we are in. Our main and only financial base or source is the tithing of our members. Our members’ tithing is our financial base. All our congregations have building projects they are undertaking but struggling to complete due to the same cause, that is; church halls and toilets blocks on church sites.

Our congregations cover wider areas of operation. This becomes a challenge even for the pastor to fulfill his duties to a prayer house. For some prayer     houses are 500km away from the main Station where the Pastor resides. To travel such distances one has to take the whole daylight, reaching the final destination while tired and expected to perform well in whatever service to be taken. In some areas there are limited forms of transport, which may also seriously affect the Pastors’ work.

This analysis of the Presbytery has current exact and correct statistics and facts gathered when the executive committee of the Presbytery toured its congregations from 15-23 September 2009. Surely we have a major role to play in the business of the whole Church and the country if we are to fulfill the Great Commission in Mathew 28

We commit ourselves to work on the improvement and development of the Church of God. We thank you for your support so far and look forward to greater things happening through CCAP Gweru Presbytery.

Humbly Submitted by Reverend Aston Galanti

Gweru Presbytery Secretary

In the pictures: Rev A Galanti  Gweru Presbytery Secretary holding communion (Mgonero ku) Amaveni Church in Kwe Kwe