‘We are the people on the ground’: Small Christian Communities and Synodality in Catholic Kenya

This paper analyzes the pastoral practice and synodal ecclesiology of Catholic Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in Kenya. Initiated in the 1960s and 1970s, eastern African SCCs (known as “jumuiyas” in Kiswahili) exemplify Vatican II’s communion ecclesiology as well as the 1994 First African Synod’s vision of the “Church as the Family of God.” Building from recent ethnographic research in Nairobi, the paper considers how these communities connect the Catholic faith to daily life, empower women leaders within a patriarchal society and church, grapple with the challenge of expanding lay male and youth participation, interact with parish ecclesial structures, and struggle with clericalism especially when it comes to fundraising. I will synthesize lessons in local synodality that emerge from the lived practice of base communities in Africa that exemplify Vatican II’s People of God ecclesiology and Pope Francis’s calls for the church to become a “home to everyone in the neighborhood."