My new friend, Portal Pete [as i call him, or Pete Portal to his other friends], shares some thoughts as to why he and his wife Sarah decided to intentionally move into Manenberg:
“Why would you move to Manenberg?”
“Christianity is an invitation to be part of an alien people who make a difference because they see something that cannot otherwise be seen without Christ. Right living is more the challenge than right thinking.” This means that “what makes the church ‘radical’ and forever ‘new’ is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the church’s view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend towards solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus. These ‘solutions’ are only mirror images of the status quo.” (Stanley Hauerwas: ‘Resident Aliens’)
I believe that there are simply no economic or political solutions to the economic and political problems the world faces and itself generates. If the assertion that God (and not capitalists or terrorists) rules the world, then it logically follows that only through Jesus’ sacrificial love ethic will the transformation of communities, societies and nations be possible.
Let’s get personal. Last October, my wife Sarah and I felt God ask us if we would move into Manenberg. We had recently arrived back in Cape Town from a year studying in London, and were initially looking for a sweet little Victorian cottage in Observatory. But we couldn’t let go of the deep-set feeling that commuting from the suburbs into Manenberg each day would just perpetuate the unhealthy prevailing narrative of whites going to ‘help’ those living in townships. The fact is, ‘being with’ is a lot more meaningful and generative than ‘doing for’.
And so – in April this year we moved in. Best decision ever, because it has allowed us to listen to, learn from, and be friends with, those whom we would never have otherwise met. Put slightly differently – when you are neighbours with someone, you develop an equal relationship based on familiarity and friendship. When you visit somewhere to ‘help’, ‘minister’ or ‘serve’, you develop a skewed relationship based on providing something. (Sidenote – I once heard someone say ‘the poor [whoever you think they are] don’t need soup and shoes – they need a place at your table for the next twenty years.’ I couldn’t agree more. Though, it’s those the world views as rich who would really benefit from eating with those seen as poor – not vice versa.)
I believe that if Jesus was alive in human form today and moved to Cape Town, he would live in Manenberg – or somewhere like it. And so, if the Christian life is about trying to follow Jesus, and be like him in everything, it seems quite clear that more of us should be living amongst the poor, traumatized, disempowered, violent and addicted.
Here’s my reasoning:
Jesus came from an accursed and belittled place. (John 1:46)
He himself was financially poor. (Luke 2:24 – his parents offered two doves rather than a lamb – a sign of their financial poverty.)
He seemed to spend more time amongst the poor and marginalized than the influential. (Mark 2:15)
And he was misunderstood for doing so. (Matthew 11:19)
Might Manenberg be a contemporary equivalent of Nazareth – accursed and marginalized? Guess so, based on newspaper headlines and conversations I’ve had with Capetonians:
“Manenberg?! No man, those people aren’t right.”
[Middle class coloured friend]
Or… “Listen, what you’re trying to do is noble, but those people will never change, they’ll just take advantage of you. Look, you don’t understand them like we do. There’s a reason people don’t go into those areas.”
[Middle class white friend]
Or… “You mustn’t go there – it’s too dangerous, the people are evil.”
[Black lady I met in a taxi].
Are Christians commissioned to walk as Jesus walked? Yup.
Is discipleship about ‘being Jesus’ to the world? For sure.
Might this mean exposing the first world myths of ‘quality of life’, ‘security’ and ‘comfort’? I reckon.
What about the apartheid mindset of fear and division? That too.
Does it not then follow that to move into Manenberg actually makes more sense than not?
Ah – hmmm – about that…
Irresistibly Fish 
Leave Mannenberg. You want to make a difference, go preach in Camps Bay. That is where the rich and famous live. They are the ones doing all the stealing and oppression of the people. Go move there – or live on the beach there or something. Go preach there to the wealthy. They are the ones who have the money to make a difference. They are the ones who are captains of industry and leaisure.
Go there – Camps Bay – the modern day Babylon. Really!
It’s worth saying that living in Manenberg and preaching in Camps Bay are not mutually exclusive. John Wesley famously said “the world is my parish” – where I live does not limit me to only sharing my faith there.
“Go preach to the wealthy – they are the ones who have the money to make a difference” – what an unfortunate phrase. If ‘making a difference’ came down to the amount of money one could throw at any given situation, then Western aid would have solved the world’s problems by now. Your premise, that one requires money in order to bring about transformation, completely misses the point of this post.
That. What he said.
It is getting boring hearing about you going to poor areas. Often these people are not as clever as you and out of a job. They are basically losers (don’t mean it in a bad way), who are hard to help. But always you are on a platform above them like a man feeding dogs at a kennel. It is the same, same, same – maybe you should consider going to a place where the people are more clever and successful, and try to change their minds instead? Preach outside Caprice on Camps Bay for example. These people are dropping R1000 an evening or more. I’ve heard of some at Shimmy Beach dropping R10K for a bill. This is SIN! Real SIN! Go there – go preach to these people. That my friend is a challenge for you and it could make a huge difference. Imagine convincing a queue of people to donate R100K to help the poor instead of using it for cocktails? Be a street preacher on Camps bay this summer and change things. Otherwise you’ll be on the streets of some area – helping another tik-kop or whoever and its circular – they go back to it usually. Go to Camps bay and get people of power and influence and money to help. I know you don’t want to hear it as you are in your comfort zone of helping the less clever, losers (as above) and you know how to handle that. TIME FOR A CHANGE.
So losers not in a bad way? Thanks for stopping by Shenaz. While I totally agree with you that those rich folks need a wake up call of their own, I don’t believe Pete or I feel particularly called to minister to them. It is the marginalized and the outcast and people who society at large sees as ‘the least of these’ that we feel Jesus is directing us towards. But definitely there is huge sin of excess happening there just like you say.
How can you say they are losers? Did you not read history? We had apartheid and the group areas act. Many on the flats are very clever. Haven’t you heard of the clever kids? Jokes aside, we are not as dumb as you think.
1. People work and earn money.
2. These people donate to you.
3. You live off these donations.
4. You offer some kind of service? Preaching? Making soup or something for the poor? Getting them off drugs? A value-added service?
Wouldn’t the poor get more if you weren’t the middle-man?
Why don’t you also get a job as a waiter or something to earn?
Hey Sean, i think i understand your questions bro. There have been a lot of people who have leeched money off of other people and done a shoddy job in terms of ‘earning’ it or being worthwhile and so many stories sadly of pastors who have done the same and are driving big flashy cars and living in big expensive houses on the backs of other people. That is something that frustrates me as well. I do think it is easy to read a thing and think you understand the people and throw judgement without actually taking the time though to meet the people and see if your gut feel is on track. Perhaps if we had the chance to sit over a cup of coffee someday and share our stories – i would love to hear yours and what you are involved in that helps make a difference around you as well – then you might have a different opinion – or maybe not, and that is okay too.
Both my wife and i are not huge fans of fund-raising so that others can pay for our work as you suggest. When it came to our time in Americaland, we felt that for that specific thing it was a God thing for us and we knew it was impossible to do it with the resources we had and so we shared the idea with family and friends and a bunch of them put their hands up and said we’d love to support you in this way but we made it for a very set time – an 18 month commitment and then it was over – not that we would ask again or try and drag it out – and so when the end of August came we thanked people and told them it was done – a few people during the time we actually told them to give their money to other people/issues as we had enough.
At the moment my wife Val is earning money for the work she is doing and i am looking at working part-time so i have more time to write and speak [which is hopefully some kind of service to people] and some of our decisions as to where we choose to live might be in part made so that we have the ability to put time and energy into other things we do [like i mentioned someone gave us the gift of an empty house for a few months so we have saved a lot on rent – so grateful for people who love us and want to do nice things for us]
I’m not sure what you mean about being the middle man to the poor. That is exactly what we are NOT wanting. We are just looking for a place where we can be friends with people around us – preferably a place of diversity so that all our friends don’t look and sound like us [we don’t believe that is the most healthy/helpful] and we are looking to make a difference in the lives of the people around us wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
So we will both be earning money and staying in a place where the money we earn will allow us to be. A few people have independently come to us and said they want to keep sponsoring us because they believe in what we do and we are certainly not going to refuse that. But we also look to give away at least 10% of what comes in to friends in need or organisations we believe in as we believe God has called us to be generous. He funds His work.
Thanks for stopping by.
Brett Fish
People that work are funding it.
My question is…Do you offer a value added service? What is the amount coming in? What comes out? Do you get what I’m saying man?
Would the poor get more out of direct donations i.e. a car being sold for cash then that money to a shelter? Or so that you can drive around (to the poor)?
So as a middle-man, why not become a waiter then you can also earn and more goes to the poor.
Also, do you open the house you got to the poor street-kids?
i imagine we will. although at the moment the house is a hypothetical house so it is tough to answer that question without knowing where we will be or what we will be doing. but we have a huge heart and desire to be people of hospitality and so we would love to have a home that is open to all sorts of people.
Start a soup-kitchen. Ingredients are cheap.
That might be helpful for the short-term and in fact we intend to have regular dinners for people around us to come together and build relationship and be able to share on what’s going on around them, but not sure soup kitchens [giving someone a fish] is great long term. i think we would be more interested in teaching skills or helping people get to the place where they can maybe start their own soup kitchen or at the very least be able to have the resources to make their own soup. The questions we wrestle with are how do we move from short term gratification problem meeting to long term problem solving and resource building among others. That is what excites me more for sure. In our Americaland experience i saw way too much of giving people fish and i am hungry to see more teaching people the skills of fishing.
Sean, you seem quite fascinated by my life which is great and i think it is important to be challenged on how we live and spend money absolutely. i think too many are getting that horribly wrong and in my own life i know it get it wrong too sometimes – but that is certainly not my intention.
But i know nothing about you, so perhaps you can tell me a little bit about yourself, what your life looks like, what you are doing to help those around you. i imagine there are a lot of lessons to be learnt. Cos you seem to have strong conviction on ‘the right way to live with resources etc’
1. Are you working as hard as possible? Or do you spend a lot of time loafing or watching TV? If you loaf and get donations then its not on. I suspect this is the case with you as you
have a lot of time on your hands. Your loafing is other people’s hard work supporting you.
2. I work 3 jobs. I do a day job in warehousing. I do an evening job delivering for restaurants. I work a sat/sun shift at a medi-clinic doing admin. I get about R9000 total. I use R2500 for rent, R800 for food, R200 train, R300 petrol -lift club, R200 clothes (ave), and the rest goes to help family and to study – I am studying unisa mechanical eng (2 per semester).
3. I am fascinated at the amount of time on your hands. Getting donations and not working. You seem to have it very easy. Why not get a job like a waiter and earn? It would add validity to your preaching. Easy come easy go – donations are easy to get and give away.
Wow Sean, seems like you are certainly putting in the hours man, well done and so cool that you can help out family and be funding your own studies. I imagine that will pay off well at the end and hope that when you are making the big bucks you will also find worthy causes and people to get behind. Seriously, it sounds great.
I probably don’t spend all my time as well as i could but not huge on the loafing and television watching – there has been a tv at the house we’ve been housesitting the last three weeks but normally we prefer not to have one in the house although we do enjoy movies and sometimes series on the laptop. But i think having a tv makes it easier to just sit in front of it and veg and waste time like you said so easier just to forego the temptation completely.
You seem to have a clear picture of me and what i do [or in your case don’t do] and i’m interested to know where you get that picture – i do spend a lot of time online because i do a lot of writing which i feel has potential to help people in different ways but i typically wake up at 5am so i have three hours or so while others are sleeping to ‘waste’ on that endeavour. Other online stuff throughout the day happens in the background of other writing that i might be busy with. i am working with a group called The Youth Hub who send out devotions to young peoples’ phones which hopefully enable them to live life better and more effectively and so some of my time goes into writing for them, I will also be doing some Improv teaching in a local school shortly and do various speaking at churches and schools as opportunities come up, helping people to live out the lives of love we are called to as followers of Jesus.
Also when i was a youth pastor when i was younger i worked at Spur for 5 years so have definitely walked that path and had three jobs at once to enable me to do the youth work i was involved in. It was a little easier before i was married and had more flexible time on my hands. But i have definitely trodden that path to some extent.
What SKILLS do you have to teach?
It is absolutely not the church’s obligation to financially support a pastor or elder. This is a very popular tradition and misconception based on misinterpretations and misapplications of various Scriptures and often leads to gross financial abuse.
We do not see salaried pastors anywhere in the Bible. The Bible teaches against “hirelings”. It is crystal clear from the overall teachings of the Bible that a pastor should work with his hands, taking care of himself and his family, having something to share with others. He should not be a burden on the church.
Nevertheless, we hear a lot of empty excuses today from hirelings as to why they claim to have no time to work a real job. Yet the Apostle Paul often made tents for a living and was way busier with spiritual duties than these guys today. In additional to everything Paul was doing, he also had the time to write two thirds of the New Testament as he was inspired by God to do.
When a man looks at a church as a job or career, or a business that needs to be managed, it then appears to him that he will be very busy with that endeavor. Therefore he thinks he will not have enough time to also work a real job. The truth is the church is not a financial career or a business, nor is it something to be commercially administrated, and so the church is not a complex maze of confusion that needs to be controlled. Hence there is plenty of time for a pastor to work a job and take care of his family while helping with the needs of the church.
Also, a church is not suppose to be so large that a pastor is overburdened and has no time to get to know everyone personally and become their close friends. Again, the Bible warns of hirelings. Among other problems, hirelings really do not care about people or relationships, regardless of how clever they may be at fooling people into believing that they do care. The bottom line is they are in it for the money. That is their primary motivation, which creates a huge conflict of interest and even if the hireling is not a wolf himself, he leaves the congregation in danger of wolves:
11I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. 12But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees: and the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep. 13The hireling flees, because he is a hireling, and cares not for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. John 10:11-14
We regularly see hirelings devastating churches by teaching things that are in their own financial favor, such as the kind of manipulative and exploitive pleas for money that many Christians endure hearing from pulpits at least once a week. Some of these men take even wilder advantage of the congregation and buy luxury homes, luxury cars and taking expensive vacations at the church’s expense and then have the audacity to claim that all this proves how “blessed “ of God they are.
Among many problems, the hireling error propagates legalism. Being salaried is one of the reasons these men have so much extra time on their hands to become busy bodies poking their nose into areas that they have no business to, and legislating all kinds of ungodly rules and regulations that are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Some of these so-called “pastors” may be less involved with such things. Instead they may just prepare a weak empty message at the last minute on Saturday night, teach that message Sunday morning and take the rest of the week off and maybe do a hospital visit or a funeral here and there.
Some hirelings use their free time to write books full of false doctrines and other dangerous errors. Regardless, many of these people live huge lives of freedom and leisure at the church’s expense while every ones else works hard for a living and typically struggles to make ends meet, having to endure the added burden of supporting a meddling busy body, lazy freeloader or both. The Bible forbids favoritism, but typically there is no one in a church that bestows more favoritism upon themselves than a hireling does.
Overall the Bible teaches inter-believer freewill giving on a case-by-case basis as legitimate needs arise often during temporary emergency conditions. Just like any of us should endeavor to help each other in times of need, a church may also help a pastor in a time of real need, such as due to a job loss while he is looking for work, but this should not become a permanent thing as if being a pastor is a job.
Money is an area that God expects us to be good stewards. Money is often also a topic that many people are more sensitive to and therefore have a little better discernment and see things more quickly than they otherwise might. The money preachers target this tendency and make it sound like Christians have some kind of “heart’ issue, pride, greed or selfishness problem if they are cautious, reluctant or refuse to give to them and their ungodly agendas. These preachers are almost always talking about money. These people are the ones who are obviously greedy and who are extorting money and therefore according to 1Cor 5: 9-13 should be considered wicked and should be expelled from the church not pampered and catered to:
9I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; 10I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. 11But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler–not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. 1Cor 5:9-13 NASB
The NASB translation renders the last part of verse 13 in all caps. I did not add that! The KJV also uses the word “extortioner”. Covetousness (greed) and extortion is simply not tolerated. Could the Bible be any clearer?
Lastly, a Christian simply can’t keep the biblical command to be a cheerful giver and not giving under compulsion if they think they owe a compulsory tax of 10% of their income plus offerings to support a pastor’s every whim and desired lifestyle. Pastors who require a salary place an ungodly and oppressive burden upon churches. These men are not good ministers, for one thing, because they do not set Christians free as a good minister of Jesus Christ is supposed to. 1Tim4: 1-6 clearly shows us that a good minister of Jesus Christ sets Christians free from these kind of legalistic concepts by putting them in remembrance of the truth:
1Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from food, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. 6If you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you shall be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto you have attained. 1Tim 4:1-6
Instead of bringing liberty, hirelings put Christians into bondage and these so-called pastors are the direct beneficiaries of that bondage. They make money at it, and there may not be a more devastating fuel source of abuse in the church than money given to hirelings. The incorrect mixing of money and ministry is very debilitating to the church.
Show us photos of people you are helping. Or photos of nighshelters that you built or food cooked for the poor.
i don’t know that that is always [or ever?] helpful. i certainly don’t need to prove anything i am doing to you but showing pictures of people you are helping is demeaning to those people and treating them as objects or projects which is not helpful or loving.
Then write about it, and change their names. What are you doing to help?
Wow Sean, i agree with SO MUCH of what you say in here. Before we went to Americaland i was working as a youth/student pastor in a Vineyard church in Stellenbosch [i am not officially working as a pastor anywhere at the moment in case you were under the impression that i was?] and wrestling with those various things.
For me a lot of it comes from the picture in Acts 2.42-47 where it gives a picture of the early church meeting around meal tables daily and just being the church and seeing people added to their numbers. So i will go beyond what you are saying and question whether church buildings [especially if they are just used on sunday] are necessary and if a church did not spend 75% plus of their income on the pastors and the buildings then imagine what could be achieved in terms of making a difference locally – so i definitely agree with a lot of that… i don’t think it is as simple as saying they are all in it just for the money – some of them are for sure and others i think are caught up in ‘the system that always was’ and so it is much harder to dislodge or think outside of that because that is the way they have always known it to be.
While the Bible gives the example of Paul making tents to pay his way, it also gives many accounts of him being supported by various churches [you see this in a lot of his letters – at times he is thanking them for doing so, at other times he is inviting their gifts] and if you read carefully you will see that Jesus ministry was funded by a group of women who went around with Him and so while there are different examples given there is not necessarily one ‘this is how it should be’ and i think both are valid and valuable – for some missionaries in foreign countries the money supporting them is basically paying for their time and giving them opportunity to immerse themselves in the culture and the language and relationships – i think it would be more helpful for more people to get invested in local missionary work as opposed to travelling somewhere else to do it but i do think there are cases where it is necessary. a lot of these issues are not as black and white as you may hope and at the end of the day each of us stands before God and gives account of our actions.
i especially agree with you last sentence that the mixing of money and ministry has in many cases been debilitating to the church although probably the incorrect mixing so not that it is mixed together but that it has often been done badly or negatively.
My wife is involved in something called Common Change – well we both are but she is working for them – go check it out – http://www.commonchange.com – inspired by the early Acts church it is groups of friends putting money together to help meet the needs of the people around them who they care about. Not just giving but giving through relationship so people are committing to the longer haul of being involved in their friends lives rather than just throwing money at a middle man or institution…
Thanks for your time. We catch up soon!
I look forward to it. You’re not friends with a guy called Brits by any chance?
Should someone donate to you or to feeding kids?
http://www.feedachild.co.za/?gclid=CMH3obqN_MACFWTHtAodH2sAuA
And why?
i do think i need to stop replying to your inquisitional questions though. i hope my upfrontness and the time i have taken to do so has been helpful but it feels like spending too much more time on this really will be wasting my time and i do have some other things to do. But thanks for the engagement and the challenge. Hopefully one day you will get a chance to really know me and you ca see if that matches up with the picture you have of who i am. Have a great day!
You a freeloader. Get back to work and stop relying on other’s hard work.
Get a real paying job.
i am not looking for anyone to donate to me, but rather than simply donating to a faceless organisation i would suggest they build relationship with people they come across who are in need and do some longer term helping and partnering so that they can see long term change.
You do seek out donations.
Please speak in laymans terms here. You sound like a spin-doctor in government.
I like what Portal Pete said 🙂
Portal Pete speaks true. Thankx for stopping by!