AMECEA: Prepares to Launch Golden Jubilee For Small Christian Communities Ecclesial Model in Region
Participants during meeting towards launch of Golden jubilee for Small Christian Communities
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
In remembrance of 50 years existence of Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), the region that comprise of eight National Conferences and two affiliate countries, the AMECEA Secretariat through its Pastoral Department is preparing to launch a one-year celebration of pastoral solidarity through SCCs.
In the very first meeting of the preparations on Tuesday 6, June that brought together a team from AMECEA and representatives from the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), the coordinator of AMECEA’s pastoral department Fr. Emmanuel Chimombo, clarified the need for the jubilee celebration saying, “Participants in the meeting are to help brainstorm and reflect on how best 50 years existence of Small Christian Communities can be marked in the region.”
He highlighted what SCCs mean in the Church and how it was established in the region that brings together the eight National Conferences of Catholic bishops in Eastern Africa, namely Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, as well as Djibouti and Somalia the two affiliate members.
According to Fr. Chimombo, “During the 5th AMECEA plenary Assembly that was held in 1973 in Nairobi, Kenya, the AMECEA Bishops resolved to embark on building the Church that is truly local. They proposed a shift in the ecclesial model from the parish-centered to the Church in the neighborhood, sharing the same way of life and living the Gospel values in the community.”
Referencing what the AMECEA bishops said then in the plenary, Fr. Chimombo narrated, “While the Church of Christ is universal, it is a communion of small local Christian Churches, communities of Christians rooted in the society.
The plenary then declared, “We believe that in order to achieve this, we have to insist on building church life and work on basic communities in both rural and urban areas. Church life must be based on the communities in which everyday life and work take place. Those basic and manageable social groupings whose members can experience real interpersonal relationships and feel sense of communal belonging both in living and in working.”
As a new way of evangelization in Africa, SCCs is a communitarian pastoral model and “a small group of about 10-15 people who meet weekly in their homes on rotational basis to reflect on the Bible especially the Gospel of the subsequent Sunday, and connect it to their daily lives.”
The theme of the intended golden jubilee launch is “50 years of building the Church as the family of God in the AMECEA region.”
Highlighting the objectives of the intended launch to the participants during the Tuesday meeting, Mr. George Thuku who works in the Pastoral Department at AMECEA said, “The celebrations will feature various activities aimed to evaluate the impact of small Christian communities in the AMECEA region, to celebrate the 50 years of AMECEA’s small Christian communities and to re-awaken the spirituality of the Small Christian Communities.”
He underscored that the team will come up with activities to help in the realization of the intended goals.
So far a special prayer for the 50 years anniversary of SCCs in Eastern Africa has been formulated and is be shared with the Bishops’ conferences in the region who will further distribute to dioceses to be used through out the year-long celebration.
