LEADERSHIP

One of our core focus areas at CAST is around leadership development. This is because we believe that to see a church (the body of Christ) actively working towards peace and justice in the world, we need leaders from across different sectors who are able to integrate their whole-life transforming faith into their areas of leadership. We work with Christian leaders across all sectors (church, business, public services, students, and so on) to support them in thinking about their areas of leadership in light of the pressing justice issues that face our people.

Our leadership work involves developing leaders who are fully equipped to understand what justice and injustice in their local areas looks like; how to respond to the latter; and how to lead others in this work. These are leaders who are able to analyse – think theologically about – and then respond to the contexts they find themselves in – in eThekwini, KZN and South Africa – and then lead other people to do the same.

More than 80% of South Africa’s population marked themselves as Christians in the last census. We also know that South Africa has the highest inequality rate in the world, one of the highest crime rates in the world, and one of the largest levels of unemployment. These different stats do not seem to match up with the level of professed Christianity.  At best, it seems that our faith is not impacting our world; at worst, the stats would suggest that Christians are involved in perpetuating indifference or injustice. The importance of raising leaders who are able to think about the problems our country and world face through a theological and faith-based lens is therefore essential. We need Christians who are able to bring Jesus’ hope, love, peace and justice into every sector of our country. This is where our leadership work comes in.

Just Leaders

In 2023, we launched and piloted the Just Leaders Programme, currently in its third year of running.

We have been blessed to journey with diverse groups of learners (in terms of age, race, socio-economic background and geographic background) during the course, and as alumni. We have observed learners’ growth, transformation, academic questioning and engagement, and develop strong connections to each other.

“I believe with all the wealth of information that we received, I AM going to be the solution and the change that I want to see in the community.

I believe that God has trained us with Just Leaders to have the courage and wisdom to know how to respond to the things I feared to tackle in society.”

– Linda Hlongwane

See our Just Leaders Course outline for more information.