One of the most remarkable stories in South Africa is that of a small, poor, township known as Soweto. In this unlikely locale, Mosa Sono leads a thriving congregation of over 8,000 with a commitment to present the gospel of Jesus in a way that touches the practical lives of hurting people.

Seeing the Unseen — Mosa Sono

“South Africa is a miracle of transformation.”

Mosa began his message by saying that when democracy came to his country in 1994, there was a great need for leadership to lead a country that was thoroughly divided. It was a country of two completely different economies, where the first world and the third world coexist.

A leader, according to Mosa, needs to inspire peole with hope. What is seen is temporal, but what is unseen is eternal.

His story

Soweto is an interesting contrast to the nearby city of Johannesburg. In Johannesburg, gold was discovered in the early 1900s and there was a true gold rush there. With the mining companies developing in the city there was a great need for laborers and many blacks were brought to the city to work in the gold mines.

However, there were so many blacks, that they were soon perceived as a threat and were relocated to a temporary residence camp south west of the city.

The “South West Township” soon became known as Soweto, but it never became anything more than a “temporary” sort of town complete with educational systems designed to suppress the blacks who lived there.

However, Mosa described getting a vision to start a ministry to reestablish the credibility of the gospel in their town. Many people were skeptical about Christianity because it seemed to them that all it offered was the promise of life after death. “Is heaven our only hope?” Mosa asked.

What they did

They studied the book of Nehemiah, and learned some key principles from his leadership in Judah, but then they struck out in three key ways.

They would serve people.

They claimed Luke 4 where Jesus cited Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” — Luke 4:18-19

This described their mission. They would make it their goal to serve people.

They had to transform people’s mindset.

Many of the poeple who lived in Soweto had allowed themselves to develop a “dependence” mentality. Mosa realized the need to engage people’s minds to help transform their thinking away from that kind of defeated attitude.

He claimed, “People easily accept for themselves the ‘less than the best.'”

To do this, he taught people God’s truth when it comes to miracles: “Start with what you have, do what you can do.”

• Before Jesus turned the water into wine, he told the people to fill the jars with water.
• Before he fed the 5000, Jesus said, “What food do you have?”
• Before the ten lepers were healed, someone must have said, “Why should we just sit here until we die?”

At that point, I also remembered that before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he asked the others to roll the stone away.

The point: if you want God to work a miracle, you need to start with what you have and do what you can do.

Finally, they had to embrace holistic ministry.

It would not be good enough for them to simply do preaching and teaching and small groups and other “religious” kinds of services. They needed to be doing something practical for the lives of people who may never actually give their hearts to Jesus. They started a number of ministry programs to meet people’s needs:

• Literacy Programs
• Computer School
• Health Education
• Counseling
• Leadership Seminars

These efforts have enabled them to have a thriving ministry to the heart, minds, and everyday lives of the people in their city.

The job of the leader

To close out his message, Mosa challenged us all to realize that “The job of the leader is to continue to see the unseen.”

My Conclusion

Mosa’s final words to us were in the form of a quote from his homeland: “Though the cock does not crow, it will still dawn.” I don’t really remember his point with that phrase, but it seems to me that we leaders need to realize that even when all the signs are gone, the future still comes.

Another way of looking at it is that when times are bleak, when expectations are not met, life still goes on.

Leadership is not about making sure all the roosters crow at the right time. Leadership is about preparing people for the next day so that when it comes, they are ready.

Mosa is right that there is more to the Christian life than the promise of heaven. There is a God who wants to have a relationship with us right now where we are. He wants to bring healing to our brokenness and remind us of his greatness. He wants us to connect with him.

I need to keep remembering that for most people, there are many things standing in the way of them making a connection with God—a worry about disease, a lack of food, a defeated mindset, or even a negative predisposition to the things of God. As a leader, I need to identify those “roadblocks” and seek God for the ways to gently remove them so that the connection he desires can truly happen.