| The Churches of Christ in Zimbabwe base their ecclesiology on a collective metaphor called the New Testament Church, rooted in the apostolic beginnings of all Christian faith communities, the Pre-Council Jerusalem Church. This effective incarnation of mission within the biblical account establishes the pragmatic connection of mission theology, context culture, and faith community in koinonia, kerygma, diakonia, and martyria.; This case study begins with the Churches of Christ in Karoi, Zimbabwe and compares them to the Pre-Council Jerusalem Church as portrayed in Scripture to explain and inform missional leadership among the Churches of Christ for a missional faith community. Anthropological research was done in the Karoi context through extensive participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and focus groups. Data obtained are used in this research to develop a political ethnology of the Shona cultural leadership and the Karoi area Churches of Christ leadership, as it pertains to missional leadership construction.; A biblical hermeneutic of the first century Jerusalem cultural leadership and the Pre-Council Jerusalem Church leadership as it pertained to the early church's missional leadership construction, is also ethnologically described. Questions rising from the comparison lead to theological investigation of Word/Spirit process, anthropological investigation of individual worldview processing, and change theory investigation to explain God's direct mission intervention in a context, through the activities of the Holy Spirit, for encounter and change.; As a result, the Pre-Council Jerusalem Church informs missional leadership in the Karoi area Churches of Christ yielding implications for change in missiological leadership themes, mission theological themes, and faith community character and structuring. These implications recommend to Karoi area Churches of Christ Leaders, missionaries and their organizations, and the Churches of Christ in Zimbabwe. |
