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| AMECEA Delegates Fr. Febian Pikiti (Third Right), Mrs. Rose Musimba (Second right) and Fr. Joseph Healey, MM (Extreme Right) in a group photo with H.E. Cardinal Philippe Ouedraogo, the Archbishop of Ouagadougou and SECAM Secretary General Fr. Joseph Koma Koma (Second Left) |
Small Christian Community planning workshop organized by SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) Commission of Evangelisation in association with Missio Aachen, Germany has recommended the creation of a SECAM-MISSIO Small Christian Communities (SCCs) Networking Team.
The workshop which was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso from 6th to 9thAugust was attended by fourteen delegates from Germany, Bolivia and six African countries (Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Togo and Zambia). These were joined by 15 grassroots representatives of Base Christian Communities (BCCs) in the host country.
The three member AMECEA delegation to the workshop included Father Febian Pikiti, Coordinator of the Pastoral Department of AMECEA; Father Joseph Healey, MM and Mrs. Rose Musimba, members of the Eastern African SCCs Training Team.
The SECAM-MISSIO Small Christian Community is supposed to be a small team whose membership will be those pastoral agents who are actively involved in the promotion of this ecclesial model.
The Networking Team will promote information and sharing of experiences about the importance of SCCs in the Local Churches of Africa, reciprocal theological reflection with the Department of Theology of Missio in Germany and interaction with other continental bodies where SCCs are seen as a new way of being church.
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| Group photo of the Workshop participants in Burkina Faso |
In his “Opening Address” at the workshop, Cardinal Philippe Ouedraogo, the Archbishop of Ouagadougou, emphasized the significance of small Base Christian Communities in Africa in relation to the 2015-2016 worldwide Year of Mercy in the Catholic Church and the continent-wide 2015-2016 African Year of Reconciliation (ATR).
He said that African BCCs combine the pastoral experience of the apostolic church in the 1st Century and the values of African culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. BCCs play an important role in the growth of the African Church today and promote the theology and practice of the Church as Family of God. He urged the delegates to find concrete ways that SCCs/BCCs can help family and marriage in Africa, adding that at the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October, 2015 “we African Bishops will have something to say.”
All the participants in the workshop felt support for their involvement in SCCs around the world and expressed both enthusiasm and commitment to march ahead.
Source: Fr. Joseph Healey, MM