Our history
Faith Ministries
Faith Ministries was started in 1976 by a Scotsman called Alastair Geddes. Alastair had come into the then Rhodesia as a member of the BSAP (British South Africa Police) in 1965 as an unregenerate young man who was adopted by a Christian family whose influence led to his conversion a short while before the end of his five year contract. He returned to Scotland now a believer, married Kathryn, and went off to Christ For The Nations (CFNI) in Dallas, Texas, as one of the first international couples in the recently formed school. It was there he met with Archbishop Dr. Ezekiel Guti, who was the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe Assemblies Of God Africa (ZAOGA). Alastair's intention was to prepare for ministry in Rhodesia where he intended to return as a missionary.
After a year's training at CFNI, they came to Zimbabwe. Initially, Alastair worked with Dr. Guti in ZAOGA, teaching in their churches and helping with seminars. During those days in the early seventies, there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the charismatic movement affected this country. A lot of people were hungry to know more about the Holy Spirit and the reluctance of the established church to move into the spiritual realm opened a door for man like Alastair who held Life In The Spirit seminars. Many people were baptized in the Holy Spirit at these seminars. Unfortunately, when they returned to their churches, they were not encouraged to grow in their new-found joy in exploring Spiritual Gifts. This was the reason why fourteen people found themselves in Alastair's lounge in 1976, asking him to pastor them.
The new work grew in leaps and bounds. Soon, they were meeting at an army barracks chapel at KG VI. Lunch hour meetings were held in town practically every day and the influence of the church continued to grow. Alastair took an active role in the national leadership of the church and was behind the Rhodesia Charismatic Conference of 1978 which made a significant impact on the church.
It was at this point that a few of us as university students found ourselves going across the road from the university to the chapel at KG VI. We were impressed with this Scotsman who was bold enough to tell his congregation of mainly white members that if any of them had problems with sitting next to blacks, they were in the wrong place. Remember that this is during the height of the liberation struggle when tension between blacks and whites was at its peak with many lives being lost on both sides. Many names were involved with Alastair in these early days but most of them soon moved on.
The chapel at KG VI could only accommodate a maximum of 200 people and it was not long before the place was packed out. We then moved to The College Of Music which was to be our home for many years. The church provided a bus for us as students from the Christian Union on campus and Alastair made sure that we participated in the life of the church. As chairman of the CU, I got a chance to preach in the main service one Sunday when it was our turn to lead the service. At this time, I had developed a relationship with Alastair. I can recall clearly after the service one Sunday when his broad arms encircled me as he invited me to consider coming on staff as his Joshua at the end of my degree programme which was in 1980. At that point in time, I was like Moses at the age of 80. I had always known I was called to ministry but my years at university had convinced me that I was ill-equipped for ministry and so when doors began to open left right and centre, I was scared. My decision to accept Alastair's invitation was based partly on Alastair's character as a person. He is physically big and, as a former policeman, very little escapes his detective eyes. He can be very intimidating. I knew I needed to be under a strong leader who could be like a father to me and Alastair had those qualities. I knew that, given half a chance, I could take over situations and that I needed to be led and yet not managed. I therefore finished my studies in 1980 and joined the church in January 1981.
I worked with Alastair for about 18-20 months at the end of which I was sent off to Bible School at CFNI. During this time I got married and it was with my wife that I set off for the States. My time under Alastair was a time of learning. He had this teaching on Donkey Principles from the life of Saul and how Saul had to look after donkeys in preparation for the throne. I sometimes found it difficult to look after the donkeys Alastair made me look after.
Alastair was a regular speaker at CFNI. During his visit while we were there, he suddenly dropped a bombshell on us by announcing that CFNI had asked him to start a branch school on Long Island and that he had accepted. He was leaving Faith Ministries and he wanted us to take over. This was a shock to us and although he had so much confidence in us, we felt we were not ready. To take a young black pastor and put him over a largely white congregation at a time when Zimbabwe had just attained independence with a great number of white people leaving the country because of political insecurity did not sound right. We asked him to ask a senior white brother in the fellowship, Ron Davies, to take the position of senior pastor while we would do the work. So it was that after nine months at CFNI, we returned to work under Ron Davies who was also the director of a literature distribution ministry called Global Literature Lifeline. Alastair had also brought in two other ministers from outside Faith Ministries to be part of the ministry team under Ron Davies. The arrangement was disastrous and, after nine months, it fell apart with the elders asking me to assume the position of senior pastor. The other ministers left to minister elsewhere.
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More History
The Foundations
1984 marks the beginning of the present shape of Faith Ministries. It was the year I took over as senior pastor. It was the year Mike Andre joined us after spending seven months in Basingstoke with his family. Prior to this he had attended Faith Ministries briefly after a pastorate at Mabelreign Chapel. Mike was to become my number two until the year 2000 when he and his family emigrated to Canada.
The first few years of my leadership were frustrating years as we laid new foundations. Faith Ministries had prided itself in being a multiracial church but after Alastair's departure, many of the founding members were called elsewhere. We lived through a very painful time as the number of whites dwindled, the leadership core shrunk and the finances took a dive. There were many months when we would pay the junior staff first and have to wait way into the next month before we got any remuneration. We learnt to live on little but we also learnt to walk by faith. I had inherited a very able administrator, Pam Marson, who was to be a key player in the ministry.
The Timothys
I can recall crying to the Lord to send me leaders because I had lost several who had been white. I fasted to twist the hand of God to send me some of the friends I had led with at the Christian Union. God did not heed my prayers but instead, told me that He would give me a chance to raise my own sons. I didn't know how that was done but God told me to get some young men and women and to teach them all I knew. That was the beginning of our Timothys programme. We had many young people from the neighbouring schools and so that's who we started working with. We developed our own philosophy of ministry and fed them this stuff. We would meet on Sunday afternoons for a couple of hours of teaching and interaction. We worked on their character and gave them assignments to practice what they had learned.
After about two years, I woke up to discover that the seeds we had been faithfully sowing were beginning to sprout. We had developed some leaders who were maturing and needed to be given space to stretch. The womb could no longer contain them and they needed to be born.
Basingstoke
A significant development of this time was a chance meeting with Dave Richards, who was the Senior Pastor of Basingstoke Community Church in the UK. Dave and Chris together with Stephen, their third and youngest child were on their way to South Africa when they decided to stop in Harare to see Mike and Cheryth who decided to introduce them to us. That afternoon as we sat in our lounge in Avondale, a relationship was born that was to profoundly influence my life and calling.
One of the principles I believed in was the whole area of spiritual authority and accountability. I had always wanted to be pastored but it seemed that no one was willing to pastor me unless I left Faith Ministries and came under their denomination. My meeting with Dave filled this vacuum when I asked him to be my personal pastor. Discipleship through relationships was where I felt our genes lay and this is what I wanted to walk in and reproduce in those I led.
We soon met most of the Salt & Light family that Basingstoke was a part of, including the father of the family, Barney Coombs. Our association with Basingstoke over the years has been life to us. It has saved us from many mistakes that would have cost us heavily. The relationship has also opened many doors of ministry literally around the world as the Salt & Light family is a big family.
Growth
When we saw that we were developing leaders who needed space, we tried to go the way everybody seemed to be going at the time. The mid to late eighties were a time of mega church thinking in Harare. We therefore tried to find a bigger venue so we could grow big. God resisted us. I felt that we had got to another defining moment in the ministry and the way forward was as clear as when God had spoken to us about raising sons. The Lord spoke to us from Acts 5:28 where the accusation turned into our marching orders, fill the city with your doctrine. Matthew 28: 18-20 and Acts 1:8 hit us in the face. That is how the church planting vision was born in us. By the end of the eighties, we had six congregations around the city of Harare.
TARGET 2000
Somewhere around 1987, we came across OC Ministries from which DAWN was to be birthed. Faith Ministries was not the only church talking about church planting. We were merely responding to a move of the Spirit that encompassed not only Zimbabwe, but also the world. DAWN, Discipling A Whole Nation, was a vision of saturation church planting.
We became part of Target 2000, a local expression of the DAWN vision. From the research we did, Zimbabwe had ten thousand churches in 1992 and would need twenty thousand by the year 2000. As Faith Ministries, we set a goal of growing from six to forty churches by the year 2000. We had forty churches at the end of 2004!
The Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ)
After the last major crusade CFAN (Reinhardt Bonnke) did in this country, a damaging article was written by World MAP. This article landed in the hands of government intelligence who wanted to know our role in facilitating such reporting. We realized then that there was need to form a platform that would provide a voice for the evangelicals in the country. Instead of starting something new, we looked at the constitution of the EFZ and realized that it would serve our purposes.
A number of us moved in and in the following AGM were elected into office. The organization existed in name only at the time. We therefore set out to bring it back to life and fifteen or so years later, it is a powerful voice to reckon with. I served as vice chairman for seven years and as chairman for two years. We are still passionately involved with the EFZ.
Zambuko Trust
The idea of being senior pastor of Faith Ministries for the rest of my life did not make sense to me. I felt caged and in 1996, I went through a serious identity crisis over this issue. To find my way, I took a job as Executive Director of Zambuko Trust, a micro finance organization. I felt the Lord wanted me to go into the market place where He promised He would speak to me. I wanted to work in the secular world and interact with people in the market place. I knew right from the start that it was for a short while and so nobody was surprised when in 1999, I felt my time was up.
Of Travels
We have had the opportunity of travelling to every continent in the world with the gospel, speaking in conferences, churches and Bible Schools. Spring Harvest in the UK under the direction of The Evangelical Alliance has been one of the most outstanding assignments. Faith Ministries has made its mark in a few places around the world. Over the years we have raised or influenced people who have moved to other situations but still regard us as a home where they got their ministry genes. The Lord has been good to us.
Rough Roads
It has not all been smooth sailing. There have been very difficult times along the way. Over the years we have suffered some casualties with a few men and women dropping out of the kingdom completely. Some have died prematurely while others have struggled to get back to their former place in the Lord. While we have tried to live at peace with all men, there have been times where in the interests of righteousness, we have had to speak out. We have picked up a few stones in the process. We have also had a few splits along the way, three that I can think of.
The Joys
Serving in Faith Ministries has been a privilege. I think our cutting edge has been in the area of leadership development which is a subject close to my heart. Our vision has been to produce mature disciples and, in a small measure, watching our sons take over responsibility from us has been a thrill! Identifying, training and releasing young leaders is a very fulfilling ministry.
I was called to ministry as a young man while looking after my father's sheep and goats out in the countryside. Over the years, I have found incredible fulfilment in shepherding the people of God. At the end of the day, it's all about Jesus and we meet Him everyday in His people as they struggle to know Him and to make Him known. Ebenezer, thus far the Lord has been with us.
Whither to Faith Ministries?
Our vision is still to fill the city, our definition of city is the nation, with our doctrine of the risen Christ, the message the disciples were being persecuted for. We will continue to disciple through relationships, to plant churches and to seek to influence society around us with the gospel of Christ. We believe the Lord has prepared many in our midst to speak into the economy, into society, into the church and into the political arena. We seek to be relevant in our message. I believe the best is yet to come.