Indaba Groups

Daily Programme for Bishops at Lambeth Conference

Monday July 21, 2008
Bishops - Celebrating Common Ground
Celebrating Common Ground: the bishop and Anglican Identity

06:30Morning Prayer with the Chaplaincy Team
07:15Morning Worship – Eucharist Korea Exodus 3:7-15 John 6:15-24
08:15Breakfast
09:15Bible Study Groups John 6:15-24 I am, do not be afraid
10:30Tea
11:00Indaba Groups : Celebrating Common Ground: the bishop & Anglican identity [part one]
13:00Lunch
14:00Time allocated for Provincial Meetings as required
15:30Afternoon tea
16:00Indaba Groups : Celebrating Common Ground: the bishop & Anglican identity [part one]
17:45Evening worship
19:00Evening Meal
20:15Plenary Session - Brian McLaren
21:45Night Prayer

Indaba - The term comes from a Zulu language word, meaning “business” or “matter”.

Current usage
The term has found widespread use throughout Southern Africa and often simply means gathering or meeting.

It is also used in the scout movement. The World Scout Indaba is a gathering of Scout Leaders.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, used the expression when he announced, in in April 2008, a move away from plenary meetings voting on formal resolutions for bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference. He introduced “middle sized groups for discussion of larger issues”, saying:-
“We have given these the African name of indaba groups, groups where in traditional African culture, people get together to sort out the problems that affect them all, where everyone has a voice and where there is an attempt to find a common mind or a common story that everyone is able to tell when they go away from it. This is how we approached it. This is what we heard. This is where we arrived as we prayed and thought and talked together.”

More on Indaba and Lambeth planning:
The Primate of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba, proposed to the Lambeth Design Group (LDG) and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the concept of Indaba, which was readily adopted by the Archbishop Williams and will form the way the bishops will work together during their time in Canterbury.

Indaba is a Zulu word for a gathering for purposeful discussion and is both a process and method of engagement, and offers a way of listening to one another concerning challenges that face the Anglican Communion.

Each Indaba group will nominate one of their group whom they believe to be most capable of carrying their views and the fruit of their discussion into the reflections process. Their ‘Listener’ joins a Listening Group under the chairmanship of Archbishop Roger Herft of Perth, in Western Australia.

Canon Kearon states, “Working with the summaries of the fruit of Indaba arising from each group, it will be their duty to generate a common text which reflects authentically the Indaba.” The text must reflect the mind of the bishops attending the 2008 Conference.

The intention is that the Listening Group will meet in four open sessions. Here all bishops can comment on the developing text. It is envisaged that in this way every bishop attending the conference will be given the opportunity to “shape the Reflections” from what emerges.

The letter concludes, “The hope of the Lambeth Design Group is that this process will permit the development of a Reflections Document which will meet the objectives set out for it, and be available on the last day of the conference to be received as an authentic account of the engagement of the bishops together in the service of Christ.”