The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) Botswana is a place for believers to encounter Jesus Christ, experience a reawakening of their relationship with God, fellowship, study the bible, receive healing, deliverance and strengthening of faith, as well as empowerment for living the new life in the Spirit. This is achieved through regular prayer meetings at the level of Prayer Groups in Parishes and works of the various ministries.
CCR Botswana is a loose but structured organ of the Catholic Church. Membership is free and is not limited to Catholics; all are welcome, Christians and non-Christians, believers and non-believers.
The history of the CCR in Botswana dates back to a Workshop on understanding the renewal held at Kanamo Centre in Mahalapye in 1980. At that Workshop, Father Julian Black, a Passionist Priest from Ireland, introduced the reality that was elsewhere in the world of the Charismatic Renewal Movement. Two local workshop participants, Mr Joseph Mosenye and Ms Ellena Rankgomo, who subsequently went to Uganda in 1996 for experiential learning, spearheaded the establishment of the Movement in Botswana. Efforts to expand the Movement's outreach were boosted when, in 1988, the church granted Sister Maria Prockesh authority to coordinate the orderly development and growth of the Movement in Botswana. From the humble beginnings of leading prayers from the Sisters of Calvary Convent in Gaborone, to Forest Hill, the first formal Prayer Group was commissioned/launched at a Pentecost Vigil at Christ The King Cathedral in 1994 by Mr Steven Turkson.
The country’s first National Service Team (NST) was formed in 1999 to prepare for both the Anglophone Africa Leaders Conference Botswana planned for the following year was to host and the first ever Botswana National Conference planned for the following year 2000. Since then, CCR Botswana has continued to grow in terms of the number of individual members and the number of prayer groups being established across the country.
In the year 2000, the country had only one diocese. Therefore, CCR activities were run by NST from Gaborone. The NST later formed Diocesan Service teams from the Diocese of Gaborone and Vicariate of Francistown (upgraded to a diocese in 2017) to decentralise functions and activities. These structures have continued to this day and have played a paramount role in both the qualitative and quantitative growth of the renewal in both dioceses, as evidenced by the number (17 in the Diocese of Gaborone and 13 in the Diocese of Francistown) of prayer groups established across the country. (link to organogram).
