Mission Statement
- Providing spiritual services for street girls
- Providing Inter-faith and nondenominational worship services
- Reaching out to young people rejected by society
The St. Magdalene Chapel is most probably one of a few in the world whose congregation consists mainly of child prostitutes, young women in prostitution and drug-addicted youth. The church services are contextualized for the drug and prostitution subculture of Hillbrow and surrounding areas.
The need for this service arose when we came to learn and understood:
1st - that the girl-children and women on the street are in desperate need of a relationship with God, and,
2nd - they feel very unwelcome in a church where 'normal' people worship.
St. Magdalene has become their church, speaking their language, speaking of a Christ not condemning them for what or who they are. Speaking of a compassionate Christ that once walked the streets with society's outcasts, reaching out in love.
How does one measure the effect of unconditional acceptance of another human being as part of God's creation? How does one measure the impact, or emotional gain, or self-worth on one of society's outcast when one loves her, regardless of what and who she is?
Following are quotes from the girls that may explain the above difficulty in measuring or evaluating the services offered by St. Magdalene Chapel:
"... here we can come if we want to. Here I understand the sermons and most the people we associate with on a weekly basis also come to church ... with ... us ... so we're not going into a straight church or ... well ... I was from a Catholic church first, it's not like going in there and you know ... well ... you're the only prostitute in church. God! Who's going to forgive my sins for me?"
[Tracey age 20 The House, Mary Magdalene Chapel: Koinonia, TV1, March '95]
"I tried to go ... and I felt like ... because I new I was a hooker and men were after me at that time ... I mean guys ... I used to pick up guys and I was scared to go into a normal church ... meet some good peoples in the church and like maybe be an influence on them peoples ... like making them go wrong of something ... but I do want to believe in God!'
[Sandy age 25 The House, Mary Magdalene Chapel: Koinonia, TV1, March '95]