Movement Leaders eXperience (MLx)
(Written by Brandon Jones)
In November here in Cape Town, a dream that has been on my heart for several years became a reality. It all started when I was living in Kenya in 2016. My wife and I hosted and facilitated a small retreat of East African leaders we coach and disciple. It was a short two-day event but it left me dreaming of doing something bigger and more impactful to empower African leaders to reach Africa.
When I moved in Cape Town in 2019, I was part of a dreaming and strategic planning process that we did as a hub. In this, we determined that one of our key priorities is raising up indigenous leaders to bring the gospel to their communities. Under Gawie’s leadership, we came up with the vision for what has now been called MLx (Movement Leader Experience).
In November, it saw fruition as 30 indigenous leaders from Southern Africa, Eastern Africa and countries I can't mention came together for the purposes of encouraging one another, learning from one another and developing deep apostolic vision for indigenous workers engaging the nearly 1000 unreached people groups in Africa. It was a truly amazing time! One local leader, in reporting to our team that helped put the event on, said that in his more than a decade working in missions he had never been a part of something that truly empowered African leaders like MLx did. In describing his expectations, one leader said that he hoped MLx would be able "to network with field leaders to accelerate movements towards the unreached and to create synergy and accelerate existing movement growth." He ended by saying, "It's exciting to be a part" because MLx did exactly this.
The leaders at the event have been continuing to connect and learn from one another since November. In February, several of the leaders visited the All Nations teams in Malawi to help them strategize for long-term sustainability. Another outcome of MLx is that All Nations Cape Town has been encouraged and spurred to help scout areas where we don't have workers yet (predominantly in Western and Northern Africa). Please pray with us as we consider this!
I am dreaming of taking short trainings to capital cities that will allow us to find indigenous leaders to begin to train and coach. We long to see the kingdom of God established anywhere it is not yet present and see how significant and important it is to walk with local leaders in doing this.