Research and resources
Start here if you want language, research, stories, and tools to help your church think more clearly about land, buildings, justice, belonging, and faithful use.
Some resources are academic. Some are practical. Some are useful for church leaders preparing a conversation with a committee, council, parish, synod, or leadership team.
You do not need to read everything. Choose the path that meets the question you are carrying now.
Browse by what you need
The library
These resources are here to support the conversation, not overwhelm it. Start with the resource closest to your current question. You can return for more depth as the conversation grows.
Showing 18 of 18 resources
Caroline Powell's MTh thesis — the foundational research behind Sacred Foundations.
Examines how suburban congregations can move from spatial amnesia to spatial justice through a structured praxis of seeing, judging and acting.
Tracks how South African churches have engaged the land question over thirty years and what their declarations have produced in practice.
A peer-reviewed introduction to the theology of spatial justice, written for both academic and church audiences.
Traces the Dutch Reformed Church's land holdings from the colony to the present — a case study in how church property carries political history.
The DRC's 1998 internal inventory recorded over 600 properties and 14,000 hectares of land — and was acknowledged as incomplete.
A 64-year case study of one Cape Town parish's quiet, sustained acts of spatial justice through apartheid and beyond.
Spatial justice is rarely a single decision. It is decades of small acts that change what a parish becomes.
A 2024 case study of how one Khayelitsha pastor responded to the pandemic — repurposing an abandoned church building for community aid when the original quarantine-site plan ran out of resources.
A practical demonstration of inclusive spatial planning at the level of a single congregation, in one of South Africa's largest townships.
How the Pietermaritzburg-based Church Land Programme reshaped its methodology — from working on behalf of the poor to working with them.
The shift from solidarity-as-advocacy to solidarity-as-presence is the methodological move at the heart of this work.
Stephan de Beer's reflection on four sites of struggle in Tshwane — and what the church's silence on land has cost.
Drawing on Frantz Fanon and Abahlali baseMjondolo, de Beer locates the unfinished task of liberation in the church's relationship to urban land.
Caroline Powell's research presentation — the thesis distilled into a slide deck for talks and workshops.
A useful primer if you don't have time for the full thesis. Suitable for sharing with a church council.
Reflections from 2020 on how South African churches adapted their spaces during crisis — and what those adaptations revealed about what was already possible.
When churches had to respond quickly, they did. The capacity to change church space was already there. What changed was the question being asked of it.
A Warehouse Podcast conversation on what spatial justice looks like for the suburban church.
An accessible entry point if a council or congregation member has never encountered this work before.
A second Warehouse Podcast episode on church land — opening the imagination of what congregational property might become.
Pairs well with the suburban-churches episode. Together they form a useful introduction for a church council.
A Level Ground article on how congregations can read — and respond to — the gentrification of the neighbourhoods they sit in.
The neighbourhood the church was planted in is rarely the neighbourhood it now sits in. Reading that change is the first move.
Caroline Powell presenting her research on spatial justice and the suburban church.
A short video introduction for those who prefer to watch rather than read.
A video presentation from Caroline and Ntando on church land and the discernment journey.
Useful for sharing with a church council ahead of a discernment session.
The Pietermaritzburg-based organisation working on church land, rural restitution and solidarity with the landless poor.
Decades of methodological work on solidarity, listening and church-land partnership. A primary reference for this field in South Africa.
Yeast City Housing's Thusanang project in Tshwane — one of South Africa's longest-running church-land social housing partnerships.
Concrete proof that ground-leased church land can deliver inner-city affordable housing while keeping the title deed in the church's name.
The University of Pretoria research group hosting much of the academic work behind Sacred Foundations.
If you want the wider academic conversation Sacred Foundations sits inside, start here.
A guided 25-question reflection for church leaders, drawn from Caroline Powell's research.
Designed to be used three times — privately by a leader, then with the council, then with the wider congregation. Each pass reveals something different.
If you are trying to choose the right resource for your church, start with the discernment tool or send us a short note about your context. We can help you find the most useful starting point.
