New Zion Christian Fellowship, a multi-cultural, charismatic congregation, was begun in 1984 by Hilton and Rhoda Toohey in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. They began planting churches from this base in the early 1990s and eventually shifted to Cape Town to plant a church there in 1998. New Zion Ministries International (NZMI) was formalized and launched in 1998 – a network of likeminded churches existing to fulfill the Great Commission through global church planting.