Kingsway
Church
International
Sunday 08:30
About
Our Story
Kingsway Church International was planted out of Covenant Life Church in Midrand, Gauteng when Bruce and Karen Lancaster, together with their daughters, moved down to Amanzimtoti during 2003.
About 220 people attended the launch service in the Supper Room at the Amanzimtoti Civic Centre — most from various New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI) partnering churches in and around Durban. The following week, 10 people gathered for the next Sunday service! But these people formed the core group who effectively planted our church (and some of them were still with KCi over 15 years later.)
As our church began to grow, other eldership couples were ordained and leaders were raised up to serve alongside them. In January 2009 there was a change of leadership when Bruce and Karen Lancaster handed over, as the lead eldership couple, to Greg and Laurie MacKinnon. (The MacKinnons, together with their daughters, moved from Highway Christian Community Church in Pinetown where they had served on the eldership/pastoral team.)
KCi has met in various venues around Amanzimtoti, especially in the early years. In May 2018 we moved to our current venue at 24 Queen’s Terrace, owned by (the then) Lionsgate church. We have been so grateful to the Lord for providing us with a home that has been ours to use “24/7”.
We have seen God’s gracious hand of favour upon us as we have moved steadily forward year after year. Whilst we celebrate our history, we are truly excited about our future in God! We thus invite you to be part of what He is doing among and through us as a local church.
Our Team
In the New Testament we see local churches being led by a team of elders who are supported by a team of deacons. The elders are those who “direct the affairs of the church” (1 Timothy 5:17) and serve as shepherds under the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. Our eldership team consists of Greg and Laurie MacKinnon (who continue to lead the team),
Grant and Lisa Hansen, Leon and Janine Pretorius and Jonathan and Catherine Edwards.
(The elders would love to meet you if you visit our church!)
Our Vision
In a sentence, KCi exists to know Jesus and to make Him known. (It’s hard to go wrong when we keep Jesus at the centre of everything!) Our mission is to be a strongly relevant family church, impacting our city and beyond with the Gospel and the love of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
People sometimes ask us why we have the word “International” in our name. It’s not because we have overseas “branches” of our church! Rather, it reflects our heart to be a “base church”, that is, a church that has a heart for the nations in addition to having a heart for our city. As a base church, we want to be a resource and a blessing to other churches in our nation and beyond.
Even as a local church, in Amanzimtoti, we are able to be part of a bigger global story — especially through our partnership with New Covenant Ministries International. NCMI is a trans-local, apostolic-prophetic team of individuals whom KCi relates to and partners with. Our church was planted, in 2003, in partnership with NCMI. If you would like to know more about NCMI, then please visit www.ncmi.net. Over the years, we have had many people from our church traveling to minister in the nations — especially on short term outreach trips — to countries including Namibia, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Madagascar, Botswana, Australia, Zambia, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. We also want to be a church that will plant other churches in the nations.
There is a simple “5 chair” strategy that we seek to follow in order to grow as a base church. Please click on the link below to watch a helpful video which outlines this strategy.
Visit Us
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Sunday Services
If you’re looking for a church in Amanzimtoti and are considering visiting us — as we hope you will — then here’s what you can expect when you attend our Sunday morning service. (By the way, if you’re not a follower of Jesus, you are most welcome to attend and you won’t be forced to “do anything” in the service!)
Upon arriving, you should receive a warm welcome and be made to feel right at home in our church. We usually begin with a time of passionate praise and sincere worship of God. Corporate worship is very important to us. As we’re worshipping Him, the Lord so often meets with His people through His own beautiful, powerful ministry. Once again, we encourage you not to feel under any “pressure” during this time: be free in how you participate in worship. (We regularly sing songs written by some of our own musicians — some of whom released an album in 2015.)
After worship we will have someone share the Sunday message. This message is based on the Bible, God’s Word, and will have practical applications to help you to grow as a follower of Jesus. After the service, most of our people usually stay to chat and catch-up (usually over coffee and tea — when we aren’t experiencing a global pandemic!) There’s always an invitation for anyone wanting prayer to come forward after the service.
Our Kidzone is ready to welcome your younger children. Jesus makes it clear that children are not to be prevented from coming to Him and that they are greatly valued in His Kingdom. In Kidzone we believe that God has given us the privilege of introducing these precious young people to His love and His Word. Teams of dedicated and passionate teachers share the Word of God with our young people through age appropriate Bible studies and activities, encouraging them to see that God is real and that His Word is relevant for us today. We also have a mom’s room available, where moms with infants and toddlers can listen to the service while supervising their little ones. (We do livestream our Sunday Services. So, if you aren’t close enough to attend KCi, then please click on the “Useful Links” tab to find the links to our Facebook and YouTube channels.)
Home Groups
Our home group meetings play a vital role in our growth as disciples of Jesus and in building authentic relationships and a sense of family in KCi. We have small groups of people meeting in homes all over
Amanzimtoti on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. An evening will usually consist of discussing relevant topics, encouraging one another, prayer and enjoying friendship. (There’s usually a tasty treat to enjoy with tea and coffee too!)
We strongly encourage all of our members to join a home group. If you would like to find out more about home groups and/or visit one, then you can make your enquiry via the “Contact Us” tab on this site or you can have a look at the Home Groups section on our notice board (in the main auditorium) on a Sunday.
Other Ministries
There are numerous ministries running in the life of our church, including ministries aimed at men, women and youth. Some of these ministries are more seasonal, others feature more regularly on our church calendar. You’ll be able to get a better idea of what ministries are currently running in our church when you visit KCi.
A Question
Here’s a great question for every local church to ask itself: if our church suddenly ceased to exist, for whatever reason, would the surrounding community even miss us? In other words, would they even notice that we were gone?
We are blessed to have many great churches in Amanzimtoti which would undoubtedly be missed if they were no longer here. First and foremost, a local church should be missed because it is no longer proclaiming the Good News about Jesus and ministering His Kingdom to their city. We believe that a local church should also be missed if it is no longer demonstrating the love of Christ through social justice and mercy ministries.
For many years, KCi tended to engage in project-based or seasonal mercy ministry initiatives. Whilst these initiatives did make a difference in the lives of people in our greater community, we nevertheless longed to have or to be part of a permanent ministry which would have a sustained impact in our community.
By God’s grace, this longing has been realised through our partnership with the Domino Foundation. The Domino Foundation are doing a wide range of truly outstanding work across the greater Durban area and beyond. To learn more about the Domino Foundation and their work, please visit www.dominofoundation.org.za
We firstly partner with the Domino Foundation in their Durban South Nutrition Project — which we run for the Southern Durban area. In the first half of 2021, we were supplying approximately 6 500 sandwiches per month to learners in primary and high schools. Through a further partnership with JAM South Africa, we oversee the supply of more than 2 000 bowls of porridge per day to over 50 crèches in the Southern Durban area. For some children, these sandwiches and bowls of porridge could be their most nutritious meal of the day — which highlights the importance of this ministry. We also supply relief hampers to provide short-term relief to folk in need in our greater Amanzimtoti community.
We have recently begun partnering with the Domino Foundation in their Early Childhood Development program and are excited at the opportunity to make a difference in many young lives.
To find out more about partnering through serving (for example, in volunteering to make sandwiches) and/or through giving to Domino, please contact Cheryl Dann at nutritionsouth@domino.org.za
