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Acting on faith and inspiration, after a week of inspiring Pentecost Sermons held in the Dutch reform church in 1995, Michael Neumann was inspired with the thought of beginning an English church service, but still within the Dutch Reform Church. The idea was not to follow the Dutch reform Church order of service, but to have one with it
Acting on faith and inspiration, after a week of inspiring Pentecost Sermons held in the Dutch reform church in 1995, Michael Neumann was inspired with the thought of beginning an English church service, but still within the Dutch Reform Church. The idea was not to follow the Dutch reform Church order of service, but to have one with it’s own identity. A service dedicated to the worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The presiding ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church at that time were Ds Dawie van Vuuren and Ds N.J. van As.
Together with Jack White, Rudolf Malherbe, and Terry Louw, we approached the leaders of the Dutch Reform Church and discussed with them, the possibility of having such a service within the Dutch reform Church, with the hope of eventually having a combined Afrikaans/English service under one roof.
Ds van Vuuren thought that such an idea was or might be a bit before its time, but he said “if you build a new wall next to an old wall in time the two might integrate and become one”.
By God’s grace, permission was granted by the leadership of the church to hold two services per month in the church after the Afrikaans morning service, The time of these services would be from 10h30 – 11h30. Permission was also granted for us to use the church hall after the service for tea.
We were very grateful to our Lord and the Dutch Reform Church for allowing us this wonderful opportunity to worship the Lord. We had no permanent Pastor or Minister to lead this new born child, yet the Holy Spirit provided Pastors, Ministers and lay-preachers to bring Gods word to us. Ds van Vuuren also held a service for us, although he had never done so in English before, yet he saw this as an opportunity to learn – and he did!
Music was organized by Jack White who formed a three man band consisting of Drums, piano and trumpet. They played well together and formed an important part of our worship. The ladies all helped in various ways and assisted in planning the hymns and choruses used in the services.
These services went on for several years and we were eventually granted permission for a service every Sunday. A permanent pastor was eventually appointed and as the church had grown to a fair size, it was decided to move the meeting place to the library hall where we decided to form a name for the group which was then called “Gansbaai Family church”
The church continued to grow while in the library although the minister who had been appointed eventually left due to personal reasons. Again worship was conducted by various ministers on an ad-hoc basis. The time came for another pastor to be appointed and this was done in the early 2000’s. He was a retired minister and remained with us for about 6-8 months, after which we appointed a new Pastor. When the new info centre was built, the Sunday services were moved to this venue. We met at this venue for about four years during which time we again found ourselves appointing a new pastor after the previous one resigned. In 2010 we were granted permission to use the old PPK church building for services each Sunday. This was a great advance in our church life and we at last fealt that we were heading in a direction we were required to go according to God’s will. In 2012 we were given the opportunity to buy the PPK building and after much prayer and debate it was agreed to do so. Again this gave us a sense of being at home and having a place where we could welcome visitors. In 2014, due to financial restraints we were forced to retrench our Pastor and revert to the system of inviting various Pastors, Ministers and Lay-preachers to lead our weekly Sunday worship. The last few months operating on this basis has been very rewarding for all our members as the messages given to us by the various people have been extremely inspiring and thought provoking. The English population in Gansbaai is not a large one and our present membership consists of 47 full time members and a number of adherents who attend weekly services. The members come from all walks of life and from various denominations including, Dutch reform, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and others.
We know that it is God’s will that we have been provided with the building that we have and that our congregation will grow as He sees fit and that we will be able to be more active within the Gansbaai area.
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