Wilberforce Academy recently came to South Africa for the third time. Embeth du Toit and Ryan Smit of Wilberforce Academy South Africa share how God is uniting believers from South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe to proclaim the Lordship of Christ
From 19 to 24 January 2025, a group of about 90, including 60 delegates, 18 faculty and 12 team members, gathered at the beautiful Beloftebos (Forest of Promise) for the third annual Wilberforce Academy South Africa.
We gathered around tables, feasting on the hospitality and culinary giftings of the Beloftebos catering staff. We gathered in daily corporate worship and devotions from Romans 8. Faculty members delivered teachings on biblical foundations, the roots of Christianity in Africa, truth and secular philosophies, culture, race and identity, politics and economics, life and family, and calling and vocation.
This year’s Academy concluded with the launch of the Wilberforce Collective Southern Africa – community of Wilberforce Academy alumni spanning the three (hitherto) annual cohorts, eight vocational fields, and five Southern African nations, including (in addition to South Africa) Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zanzibar.
Throughout the week it was impressed on Southern Africans in attendance to not take the fruits of Christianity for granted. Cultural fruit, no matter how seemingly secure, can be lost if severed from its root. Of this stark reality, the UK is a disturbing example – a nation now fighting for its Christian soul in the areas of end-of-life care, marriage, God-given sexual identity, protection of women-only spaces and a host of others.
Christian Concern, especially through Andrea Williams and Andrew Marsh, both of whom serve on Wilberforce South Africa’s faculty, have been faithfully sounding the alarm over the past decade. Their wake-up calls to Christian Concern allies and collaborators, like Ryan Smit and his team, have not fallen on deaf ears. This message and the action it inspires – of allegiance to Christ as Lord of all, is now reaching beyond South Africa into the rest of Southern Africa, as far as Zanzibar (Tanzania). Christian Concern’s practical and continued support of efforts to strengthen Christ-honouring culture in all sectors of society and to push back against an anti-Christ cultural tide in Southern Africa is yielding fruit year on year. 2024 saw the establishing of a Christian Legal Centre in South Africa and a Regional Legal Support initiative to ensure that the lessons learnt by the UK and South Africa are carried over to the rest of Southern Africa – so that mistakes and losses can be averted in the rest of the continent.
With eyes wide open, and full of confidence in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we gathered in prayer for our continent – singing in harmony as South Africans, Zimbabweans, Namibians, Malawians, and Tanzanians that “Africa will be saved!”.
We also gathered in vocational groups to explore the outworking of our faith where God has placed us to work. We gathered in seminars/break-out sessions, to learn from the lives of those who have been walking with the Lord Jesus in their various vocations in obedience to Him as Lord of all, secure in the revelation that we are saved by grace through faith, and for good works. (Ephesians 2:1-10) We gathered, ultimately, in the victorious Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-14, Colossians 1:10-20)
It was a striking demonstration of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:16-17)
It was evident from the start that the Lord wanted our hearts – to transform and fill hearts, minds, and lives. More than just growing in knowledge of a biblical worldview in order to be equipped to counteract worldly ideologies, the testimony of this Academy Week is that God drew near and opened a whole new world to His gathered people – a world in which Christ – and He only – is (and must be) at the centre of every part of our lives, both private and public.
“Personally, I am transformed. I am not the same person as when I came last Sunday.”
– Anthony Masala, WASA 2025 Delegate
It is amazing to see how, after a week of delighting in the truth of Christ, strangers become friends, different generations and cultures find family in one another and a body of different parts, in one Spirit and under one Head, the Lord Jesus, is set on a unified course: to proclaim the Lordship of Christ. We look with eager expectation to the year ahead, awaiting with confidence the faithfulness and fruitfulness that will flow from the 2025 Wilberforce Academy South Africa.
