Our theology/thinking behind our response

We believe that church leaders are primarily called to inspire and release individuals in the church community into the calling God has on their lives - we don't believe that church leaders should primarily be birthing, implementing and leading and governing social impact interventions like schools, places of safety, crèches etc.

It is our desire to see the individuals in the church community sent into and supported in these spheres in a way that is biblical, developmentally sound and honouring to God. We realise that the majority of individuals in Common Ground will not be called vocationally into the development sector - and would like to create as many opportunities as possible for the majority to help people understand and know how to respond to God's call to partner with the suffering.

In the story of the Good Samaritan we read how a man, on his way to Jericho, came across a suffering individual who had been beaten and left for dead. The Samaritan did what he could with what he had and recognising his own limitations to fulfill the man's needs, and so took him to an inn keeper. He continued with his business trip, but followed up on the man on his return. In the same way, many of us are not called to working with the poor or suffering full time, but will often come across suffering on our path. We need to be wise in discerning how to respond but also recognise that there are many inn keepers in our city who address specific social issues in a technically sound and God-honouring manner on a daily basis. We endeavor to get behind some of these inn keepers - men and women vocationally called to respond to specific social ills in Cape Town.