A Church in the Margins: Reimagining God’s Missional Agenda for South African Cities

South African cities are marked by deepening social and spatial inequalities that produce exclusion, vulnerability, and contested forms of belonging. In this article, these inequalities are understood as the result of historically entrenched processes of colonialism, apartheid spatial planning, and contemporary economic exclusion that continue to shape urban life. These realities not only shape the socio-historical context of Christian mission but also expose the inadequacy of specific ecclesial forms—such as racially and linguistically differentiated synodical structures, centralised theological training institutions, and the historical distinction between “kerk” (church) and “sending” (mission), including mission paradigms characterised by a movement from institutional centers to marginalised communities under paternalistic control. This article argues that faithful participation in the missio Dei, understood here as the Triune God’s redemptive and transformative activity in the world, into which the church is called to participate rather than initiate, requires a reimagined missional ecclesiology shaped in, with, and from the margins. Framed by a broader transforming missiological paradigm and drawing on qualitative literature, this article critically engages key streams within African urban theology, missional ecclesiology, and discourses of power and marginalisation, patriarchy, and ecclesial control to interrogate how churches often reproduce dependency, paternalism, and unequal agency in urban spaces. Using the Reformed Churches in South Africa (RCSAs) as an illustrative case, this article demonstrates how inherited missionary structures have constrained the theological and missional agency of so-called mission churches—that is, churches established among Black and Coloured communities under conditions of financial, administrative, and theological dependence on historically white “mother churches”.