30/09/2026
Where Are You Positioned?
What location strategy taught me about where we live, work, serve and make an impact
By Pastor M (Esihle Mboyana)
Lead Pastor | Liberty Church
As I continue working on Beyond the Press, the business book I’m developing from my 2024 MBA research, I’ve found myself thinking about some of the concepts in the manuscript well beyond the world of printing, manufacturing and business. That’s one of the interesting things about studying business — you start with a business problem, and if you’re paying attention, you sometimes discover the principle applies much more broadly to life.
Recently, I found myself thinking about location strategy.
In operations management, location isn’t treated casually. A business doesn’t simply wake up one morning and say, “I like this building, let’s move here.” Location decisions involve real capital commitments with consequences for years — access to customers, labour, suppliers, infrastructure, transport, costs, risk, regulations, and the opportunities created by being in one place rather than another.
And then I started thinking about where we position our own lives. I found myself looking at the question through several lenses at once — my experience in business, my work as a pastor, my conviction that Scripture genuinely liberates people, and the way I’ve come to think about culture through Christ Above Culture. And, perhaps inevitably, I started thinking about the township.
THE REALITY OF THE TOWNSHIP
I love my township. I know its people, its resilience, humour, creativity, faith, entrepreneurship and sense of community. But love should never require us to pretend difficult realities don’t exist.
South Africa’s townships still carry the consequences of deep spatial and economic inequality. Apartheid-era planning placed townships far from economic centres, and many post-apartheid developments have continued to leave communities with limited access to economic opportunity. South Africa’s official unemployment rate was 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026, while broader measures of labour underutilisation paint an even more difficult picture. And we cannot speak honestly about township life without acknowledging the crime and violence that many communities experience.
So when people say, “Phuma eKasi” — get out of the township — I understand where that thinking comes from. I don’t think it’s entirely wrong. But I also don’t think it’s the whole conversation.
LOCATION STRATEGY IS NOT ABOUT EMOTION
This is where my operations-management brain kicks in.
If a business is struggling because its location makes everything unnecessarily expensive, difficult or risky, management has to be willing to ask whether the location still makes strategic sense. That isn’t betrayal — it’s strategy. A manufacturer may move closer to suppliers. A retailer may move closer to customers. Nobody looks at a business relocating and says, “You abandoned your old building.” They ask, “Why did you move?”
In operations management, we learn to look beyond the obvious cost. A location may have lower rent but higher transport costs. It may have cheaper premises but poorer access to customers. It may save money in one part of the operation while creating inefficiency somewhere else. Our lives can work the same way. We calculate the rent, but rarely the petrol. We calculate the bond repayment, but rarely the hours lost in traffic.
So the question isn’t simply “Do I love where I come from?” It’s “Does my current location support what I’m trying to accomplish in this season of my life — and what is it actually costing me to stay here?”
WHAT ARE WE POSITIONING OURSELVES FOR?
This is where my thinking as a Christian starts to challenge my thinking as a businessperson. Because Christians don’t simply ask, “Where can I make the most money?” We have a greater question: “Where can my life be most faithful and fruitful for Christ in this season?”
That doesn’t mean deliberately choosing poverty or disadvantage to prove our faith. Neither does it mean prosperity or moving into a better suburb is somehow unspiritual. Scripture gives us something bigger than either extreme. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19–20 (NLT):
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”
That commission doesn’t specify a postal code. It specifies a mission — and that mission travels wherever we’re positioned.
There’s also a question of access. Businesses locate themselves where they can reach customers, suppliers, skills and networks. My own manuscript keeps returning to the idea that businesses don’t need to own every capability themselves — the right partnerships can give a smaller business access to what it couldn’t build alone. The same is true of our lives. Sometimes the question isn’t “What do I have?” but “What can I access from where I’m positioned?” What networks, skills, mentors and opportunities are actually within reach from here? What can my children access? What can my family realistically build from this position?
None of this means everyone must move to a city or leave their community. It’s simply an invitation to think deliberately. There are people who may need to leave. There are people who may need to stay. There are people who may need to move temporarily, gain skills and capital, and return. There are people who may be called to remain precisely because their presence matters. Location should serve purpose — not the other way around.
PHUMA EKASI? MAYBE. BUT ASK WHY.
If leaving the township gives someone access to safety, education, employment and opportunities that were previously out of reach, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that move. But leaving should not automatically mean abandoning, and staying should not automatically mean we’re being noble. Both decisions need to be examined honestly.
For the Christian, the deeper question isn’t “Where can I make the most money?” It’s “Where has God positioned me, and how can I faithfully steward that position?” There may be seasons when God calls us to build where we are. There may be seasons when He leads us somewhere else to be equipped. There may be times when moving into another environment gives us access to resources and relationships that eventually allow us to serve others differently. We should be careful about turning either staying or leaving into a universal spiritual principle — the answer depends on the assignment, not on a formula.
CHRIST ABOVE CULTURE ALSO MEANS CHRIST ABOVE LOCATION
In Christ Above Culture, I argue that culture itself isn’t the enemy — it’s a gift from God, shaping our language, relationships, customs, creativity and communities. The problem begins when culture becomes the lens through which we interpret Christ, instead of Christ becoming the lens through which we evaluate culture.
Location works the same way. Where we come from matters — our township, suburb, city, country. But none of it should become the ultimate definition of who we are. Christ is. So I can love where I come from without pretending everything about it is good. I can acknowledge the beauty, resilience and community of the township while also acknowledging the poverty, violence and structural limitations within it. I can leave without despising where I came from. I can stay without romanticising the challenges. I can move into another environment without believing I’ve become more valuable because of my postal code — because my deepest identity isn’t determined by my location. It’s found in Christ.
There is a particular temptation worth naming here, because physical location can so easily become a proxy for social status in South Africa. We shouldn’t romanticise disadvantage, but neither should we worship proximity to wealth. We shouldn’t despise where we came from, or make where we came from our identity, and we shouldn’t confuse material advancement with spiritual advancement. That, too, is Christ above culture.
POSITIONING FOR KINGDOM IMPACT
This matters particularly for Christians in the marketplace. We often speak about the Great Commission as something that happens inside the church building. But Jesus sent His disciples into the world — which means our workplaces, businesses, schools, factories, offices and neighbourhoods all matter.
In business, positioning isn’t the end of the strategy. Once you’re positioned somewhere, you still have to decide what capabilities you need, what relationships you need, what risks you can carry and what opportunities you can reach. Perhaps our marketplace witness requires the same intentionality. We don’t simply occupy a workplace; we have to ask what God has given us access to and how faithfully we are using it.
That connects closely with what we try to live out at Liberty Church: being formed in Christ, growing together in faith and truth, living free through God’s Word, and serving by fulfilling the Great Commission. That means positioning matters. If God has given you access to a particular industry, organisation or network, there may be people there you’re uniquely positioned to influence through your character, competence, integrity and witness. This isn’t about turning every workplace conversation into a sermon — it’s about becoming the kind of person whose faith actually shapes how they work.
YOUR LIFE HAS A LOCATION STRATEGY
So perhaps this is the question I’m asking myself as much as anyone else: if I treated my life like an organisation with a God-given purpose, would I be more intentional about where I position it? Would I examine the true costs? Consider access and opportunity honestly? Think about the next five or ten years, not just the next five or ten months?
I’m still working through these thoughts myself. That’s probably why they surfaced while working on Beyond the Press — a book that began with questions about technology adoption and business sustainability has somehow pushed me into thinking about how we make decisions about our own lives. Maybe that’s one of the beautiful things about learning: you start with one question and discover it has been asking you another all along.
Whether we remain in the township, move out of it, move back into it, build a business in it, work somewhere else, or find ourselves somewhere completely unexpected, perhaps the deeper issue is not simply where we are, but what we are doing with where we are. Where we are positioned gives us a particular set of relationships, opportunities, responsibilities and limitations. As Christians, we have to learn to steward those things faithfully, knowing that our location is never our identity and our environment is never our ultimate assignment. Christ is Lord over both.
And perhaps that is what I am really learning from location strategy: where we are matters, but why we are there matters even more.
Pastor M (Esihle Mboyana)! ❣️🙏🏽
Lead Pastor | Liberty Church
Called. Equipped. Committed to His Glory.
