New Apostolic Church Cape

Learners urged to grab the opportunities presented to them

The church hall of Tafelsig was abuzz as high school learners came through in numbers – some still in their school uniforms – to attend the career expo arranged by two diligent New Apostolic Sisters Debra Brophy and Glyniss Paulse. For this evening of Monday 2 June 2008, Bishop A Lutuli played master of ceremonies and provided some beautiful words of advice to the learners. Representatives from more than ten institutions of higher education were present and they all gave presentations on the opportunities that their institutions offered to the youngsters. The availability of study bursaries and how to go about getting them was information shared with all present. Parents and learners alike enjoyed this informative evening. Later they were all invited to the basement for a question and answer session with the representatives of the different institutions. After this year’s event the organizers report “an overwhelmingly positive response”. A total of some 800 learners together with their parents and some interested individuals attended the expo

 

 

 

Not exactly a stampede but close

(01.07.2008) The Administration Office of the New Apostolic Church Cape.

Gone are those days when people used to queue outside a clothing shop when it has advertised a “50% off on all clothing items” sale.

The current economic situation is to blame for all this and people feel the pinch in their pockets. But the outside of the Administration Office reminded me of those huge sales as I walked through before eight O’clock this morning. I couldn’t put my finger on what was the reason for this – I even directed my thoughts towards the final day for burial payments – but as we gathered for prayers our assembling area was abuzz about the people queuing outside for the New English Hymnal and then it hit me; it’s the 1st of July and the New English Hymnal is on sale for the first time!

10 year old Kyle Durant of Plumstead congregation and his father were the first in line and Kyle was all smiles as he held his new English hymnal and I quickly recognized him as one of those brothers and sisters I had walked past earlier on. A lot of those who had come to buy the hymnal had either reported at their working places that they are going to be coming in late today or they were still going home after night shift. The sales office reported of having made a sale of over 500 hymnals in less than an hour of having opened their doors and more people are expected to be making their way through by lunch time.

The price for this new Hymnal is R25 until Sunday 31 August 2008 and after that one book will sell for R35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to the heart of pursuing excellence

(27.06.2008) Dennekraal, Cape Town. The apostles and bishops of the Cape district church gathered for the winter session of their quarterly meetings in Dennekraal. The Dennekraal Conference Center hosted this two day conference session which kicked off on Thursday 26 June 2008 and wrapped up today.

The “Pursuit of Excellence” conference started off with the spiritual portion and following soon after that was the preparation for the hosting of the International Apostle’s meeting in 2010. Feedback was also given on various surveys that provided “measuring tools” of leadership qualities and the inter-relations between the various tiers of the congregation leadership.

A first for these quarterly meetings was when the delegates completed an online locally designed survey to assess various items on the agenda. This methodology yielded instant results during the meeting which gave valuable feedback on the future structure of these gatherings. Further items - amongst others on the agenda – included in-depth discussions on attendances to divine services, Bible Studies, traditional marriages, the care for youth and the planned attendance of youth to the European Youth Day 2009.

A huge part of today was taken up by the tabling of the Church’s annual financial statements for the year end 31 December 2007. Invited to address the meeting with the aforementioned was Mr. Bhebhe, an independent audit manager of Deloitte & Touche. In addressing this gathering Mr. Bhebhe said “Despite higher technical audit demands it (the management of the Church’s financial affairs) is getting better every year”. Furthermore, Mr. Bhebhe gave the Financial Report a “clean bill of health”. Attention was also given on financial matters and the care for members with their own businesses.

And then the gathering looked at the issue of HIV&AIDS to which the District Apostle NE Barnes took to the stand and with regards to this concluded with the words, “We cannot do enough to create awareness and cannot stop talking about the dangers of HIV / AIDS.”

A meeting of this nature will again take place during August of 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new era in the music of the New Apostolic Church

Following years of extensive work by our brothers in the music department, Tuesday 20 May 2008 saw the launch of the new English Hymnal. Invited to this launch were all the district ministries and rectors who upon entry to the Silvertown auditorium were each given a complimentary copy of the Hymnal.

 

This new hymnal is published for use in all English speaking congregations all over the world and is focused on providing the hymns of different eras and styles. The Church has for over 21 years been using the hymnal that is currently in use and this hymnal was composed and compiled more that 75 years ago.

 

In the time when Chief Apostle R Fehr was still in office the idea of a new hymnal for English speaking New Apostolic Christians was presented to him. The Chief Apostle gave it the thumbs up and at the same time authorized District Apostle N Barnes to be the chairperson of this project group. Over the years, music conferences – of which 2 were international – took place to reach consensus on parameters and content.

 

This new baby will be on the shelves at the beginning of July and will be in use starting from the first Sunday of September. All I can say is; it’s bigger and better.

 

 

 

 

A helping hand to the SA Red Cross

On Friday 30 May 2008, Bishop Nathan Warner on behalf of the New Apostolic Church Cape presented a donation of R50 000 to the Provincial Manager of the South African Red Cross Society, Mrs. Maletsatsi Maceba-Wotini.

 

Accompanied by District Elder G De Vries, the bishop arrived at the very busy SA Red Cross Offices in Broad Road, Claremont. It was heart warming to see all the people who had come to volunteer their services busy sorting through donated food and clothing. But the day – although drizzly – felt warmer as Bishop Warner, with the help of District Elder De Vries, unfolded the big cheque with the figures R50 000 written on it.

 

In accepting this donation Mrs. Wotini expressed her gratefulness on behalf of the society and expressed the wish that she could to come to the church in person and thank each and every one who made the donation possible. She mentioned that the money would go towards petrol which is a priority in delivering the food to the 43 refugee camps around the Western Cape. She mentioned that most of the money will buy meat, which is often not part of the donated food stuffs and which the society feels is essential since it is the winter season.

 

In a letter entitled “Recent Xenophobic unrest in our country”, District Apostle NE Barnes mentioned the donation made on behalf of the church to the SA Red Cross and encouraged the members to live in line with our Christian faith and according to the guide word given by Chief Apostle Leber on Pentecost 2008, namely, 1 John 4:11. The district apostle furthermore urged all to assist and support local organizations in the affected areas as much as possible. The closing line in the letter read a follows: “May our conversation and deeds bring the assurance of peace and inspiration to our neighbours.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Save-a-Tree-for-me goes corporate

As part of their commitment to the environment, the company Indo Jet Travel arranged a tree planting community project at one of the local schools on Saturday 19 April 2008. After hearing from a colleague about the New Apostolic Church’s Save-a-Tree-for-me project in preparation for Thanksgiving 2008, the company members decided to use the opportunity to promote the Church’s project. They purchased the green Save-a-Tree-for-me t-shirts, braved the bitterly cold weather at the time and planted a number of trees at the Uitsig Primary school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grade 8-12’s Career Expo in Tafelsig

Membership List

And this award goes to . . .

During the past year the New Apostolic Church in the Ocean View district was approached by the Ocean View Community Forum to participate in several community events. This was received with a warm heart by District Elder De Stadler, who accepted the invitations and relayed them to the congregations. From the congregations in the district approximately 40 members volunteered to form a choir that would represent the Church. This choir then performed musical pieces at all the events arranged by the community. Occasionally this choir would also be invited to sing at Old Age homes and retirement villages for the entertainment of the seniors living there. During the Ocean View Community Forum’s award ceremony in December last year a representative of the Church was invited to attend. Sister Lucille Constant who attends the Ocean View 2 congregation accepted the Community Builder Award on behalf of the Church. The award was for “Dedication and commitment to ensure a peaceful, safe and crime free community for all”.

Here’s to maintaining the highest standards of soul-care

Apostle J Kriel requested the now retired District Elder C Loubser to institute a more organized and effective soul-care programme for the inmates at the Pollsmoor Correctional Facility in 2003. The result of this effort was that over the years the church has baptized 39, sealed 35 and confirmed 14 souls in prison. On a social level, another initiative driven by the church is the provision of a toiletry pack to the members in prison every second month. These initiatives it seems did not go unnoticed as on Sunday 24 February 2008 an Award of Excellence and Commitment was granted to the New Apostolic Church. This award was granted to the Church by the Department of Correctional Services “for their outstanding performance and conscientiously maintaining the highest standards of spiritual care to those in custody.”

The makeover for Dennekraal

In the months preceding the visit of Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber to Cape Town for the Youth Convention, the Dennekraal Recreation Center’s Conference Room was getting a stunning make over.

 

Since Dennekraal’s dedication in September 1994 by District Apostle E H Graf the use of this facility increased over the years and with the constant growth in the leadership of the church the old conference center was getting too small to accommodate them for their training sessions. November 2007 saw the commencement of turning the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan; from putting up own projector screens for training and important meetings and doing all the presentations manually, to the establishment of the new state of the art facility which only requires a push of a button for all these functions.

 

The evening of Friday 15 February 2008, saw Chief Apostle Leber rededicating Dennekraal’s new conference center. After a presentation of the history of Dennekraal by Bishop A Witten and a short sketch depicting the youth activities of Youth on the Move, the chief apostle said a dedication prayer. This marked a new era in the future training of the leadership of the church.

 

On this evening the Chief Apostle also planted a tree at Dennekraal to mark the theme of the new Sunday school year: “Save a tree for me”.

 

 

 

 

 

Assistance for the fire stricken Red Hill community

This picture was taken from the Cape Argus of Friday 8 February 2008

Bishop N Warner this morning reported to us of the “unbelievable experience” he had when seeing the response of the brethren in his care to the plight of those Red Hill residents who were left desolate after the most recent fires. After Apostle J Kriel appealed to the members in his area of responsibility to assist this community, there was an overwhelming response during the morning of Monday 11 February 2008. The Claremont rectory had no space to even walk in as members brought clothing, bedding and most importantly food to be distributed to the residents of Red Hill informal settlement. Bakkies and cars came in numbers to deliver these donations and most touching of all was a young boy donating his favourite teddy bear to “comfort the homeless children”. District Elder De Stadler – with the help of some brothers – arranged for the transportation and distribution of the donations. Last night already these brothers were helping the destitute residents with clearing the area and rebuilding their homes. Together with all the donations from the different welfare organisations, this group handed over some of the collected goods. The rest will be handed over on the weekend when everybody is expected to have settled down. The residents of Red Hill on the mountain near Kommetjie are victims of fires that ravaged this informal settlement in the past week. Approximately 600 people – among them some of our members – were left destitute, some with just the clothes on their back. A small number managed to salvage a few valuable items before helplessly watching their homes go up in smoke. Hundreds of firefighters were at the scene battling the flames. Newspaper reports tell of how scores of members from this community fled before the flames.

 

 

 

 

Crunch time: 18 days and counting down

Leading the agenda of the first apostles’ meeting for 2008 was the visit of Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber for the Youth Convention during February 2008. As may well be expected at this time before the arrival of the Chief Apostle, the apostles were intensely occupied in reviewing all the planned activities for his visit to Cape Town. For the whole day on Thursday 31 January 2008, District Apostle Noel Barnes chaired a meeting with all the apostles, the first of their quarterly meetings. The meeting commenced with a prayer and the sharing of some thoughts on a spiritual level. Besides the preparations for the visit of the Chief Apostle, a new slogan which will be complementing the one in place “Leading a Happy Bride Home” was created. Everyone will hear much more about this later on in the year. A series of other interesting and blessing activities that will follow the Youth Convention 2008 were also discussed for implementation. Watch this space! ;