'People rarely come to church first'

. . . At Ekhaya Worship Festival, a quiet stand offered what many were really searching for

By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka

HARARE — While thousands lifted their hands in worship at the main stage of the Ekhaya Worship Festival on May 25 at Hartsfield Rugby Stadium, a modest stand on the sidelines of the concurrent Business Expo was drawing a different kind of crowd.

Not for merchandise. Not for networking. But for healing.

The Centre of Hope, a ministry of the Harare City Centre Seventh-day Adventist Church, had set up a small space offering free services that, by midday, had created a queue stretching longer than some of the exhibitor booths nearby.

Couples Counselling. Personal Counselling. Mental Health Counselling. Bible Study. Prayer.

All free. All confidential. All administered by volunteers who asked nothing in return but the privilege of listening.

“People came broken,” said Pastor Gift Gate, who led the stand and personally counselled dozens of visitors throughout the day.

“They came with marriages that are hanging by a thread. They came with minds overwhelmed by anxiety they could no longer name. They came with questions about God that they have been too afraid to ask in church.”

Pastor Gate, soft-spoken but with eyes that miss nothing, has seen this before. Since the Centre of Hope was established in 2017 under the Personal Ministries Department of Harare City Centre Seventh-day Adventist Church, the organisation has operated on a simple but profound understanding.

“People rarely come to church first,” Pastor Gate explained. “They come with needs. They come with pain. They come with confusion and questions.

The church building can be intimidating. A stand at a festival, a quiet corner in the CBD, a room that looks more like a counselling centre than a sanctuary — that is where people feel safe enough to say, ‘I am not okay.'”

The Centre of Hope, which serves the Harare CBD, the Avenues community, and surrounding urban catchment areas, describes itself as a “Centre of Influence” — a safe, credible, Christ-centred, and community-facing space that integrates faith, wellness, relationships, and practical empowerment.

But at the Ekhaya Business Expo, the organisation distilled its entire philosophy into a folding table, a few chairs, and an open ear.

The demand was overwhelming.

One couple, married for over a decade, sat with Pastor Gate for nearly an hour. They had arrived at the festival separately, barely speaking.

They left holding hands — not because the counsellor had solved their problems, but because, for the first time in months, someone had helped them hear each other.

A young woman in her twenties approached the stand with tears already forming. She asked for mental health counselling.

She did not want to say more. A volunteer led her to a quieter corner. They prayed together. She left without explaining what had brought her to that moment. She did not need to.

An elderly man asked for Bible study. Not a lecture, he said. A conversation. He had questions about suffering that his local congregation had brushed aside. Pastor Gate opened a Bible. They read. They talked. The man stayed for over an hour.

“People are hungry,” Pastor Gate said. “But not always for the things we think. Yes, they want spiritual answers. But they also want someone to validate their pain, to sit with them in their confusion, to tell them that struggling does not mean their faith has failed.”

The Centre of Hope operates on a holistic model that addresses four interconnected dimensions of human need: spirituality, health, social relationships, and life skills.

Under spirituality, the organisation offers prayer and reflection spaces, contextual Bible study programmes, and spiritual wellness conversations — addressing what Pastor Gate calls “spiritual emptiness, moral confusion, and loss of meaning.”

Under health, the Centre provides mental health counselling, fitness and wellness programmes, and stress management training, recognising that “mental strain, lifestyle disease, trauma, and emotional fatigue” are epidemic in urban Zimbabwe.

Under social services, the Centre runs couples counselling and enrichment programmes, youth engagement and mentoring initiatives, and women’s empowerment groups, working to strengthen “families and relationships as a foundation for community stability.”

And under life skills, the Centre offers career guidance and mentorship, personal branding and grooming workshops, and business and entrepreneurship forums, equipping individuals with “practical skills for survival, growth, and dignity in a challenging economy.”

It is an ambitious mandate. But the Centre of Hope does not work alone.

The organisation operates as a ministry arm of the Harare City Centre SDA Church, which provides “moral authority, spiritual guidance, and community foundation” for all services.

Implementation is supported by the Bridging Gaps Foundation, which provides operational support, systems development, funding coordination, and institutional oversight.

At the Ekhaya Worship Festival stand, however, none of these structures were visible to the people queuing for help. What they saw was a table, a chair, and a person willing to listen.

Pastor Gift described the Centre’s approach using language drawn from the life of Jesus Christ.

“We embrace Christ’s method of ministry: mingling, compassion, meeting needs, winning confidence, then inviting,” he said.

“We do not drag people to church. We do not condemn them for their struggles. We meet them where they are. We listen. We help. And only then, if they want, we invite.”

That philosophy — “preventive rather than crisis-only interventions, community trust before institutional growth, relevance without compromise, and faith expressed through service” — has guided the Centre of Hope since its founding.

But on May 25, at a stand on the sidelines of a worship festival, the philosophy became flesh.

Pastor Gate recalled one woman who approached the stand late in the afternoon, after most of the crowds had thinned. S

he did not want counselling. She did not want Bible study. She wanted to know if someone could pray for her.

“Just pray,” she said. “I do not have the words anymore.”

A volunteer took her hands. They prayed. The woman wept. When she opened her eyes, she smiled — genuinely smiled — for what may have been the first time that day.

“She did not need a sermon,” Pastor Gate said. “She needed to know that God had not forgotten her. That is what the Centre of Hope is for. To remind people that hope has not abandoned them.”

As the sun set over the festival grounds, the Centre of Hope packed up its folding table and chairs.

The queue had finally disappeared. Every volunteer was exhausted. Every volunteer was also quietly, deeply moved.

One of them, a young man who had spent the afternoon praying with strangers, turned to Pastor Gate and asked a question that summed up the entire day.

“Pastor, why do we only do this at festivals?”

Pastor Gate smiled.

“Maybe,” he said, “that is a question for all of us.”