28 1971 – 1991: A synopsis of my 20-years involvement with the Assemblies of God in Cape Town
28 <> 1971 – 1991: A synopsis of my 20-years involvement with the Assemblies of God in Cape Town
We were members of the Harfield Road congregation of the Assemblies Of God from December 1971 through to sometime in 1974. In 1972 I was asked to lead Bible Studies at a venue in Cape Town where the Hippie fraternity, who en bloc were part of the Harfield Road Assembly, met for Christian fellowship every Thursday night. This continued for the whole of that year until the members of the fellowship decided to form themselves into a full Assembly Of God church in Cape Town. They later moved to premises in Sea Point.
In 1974, DorothyAnne and I, and three other families were ‘sent out’ from Harfield Road in a team led by Faans and Elizabeth Klopper to start an Assembly in Meadowridge. That (at the time) was the approach according to which new Assemblies would be constantly founded.
From Meadowridge, toward the end of 1977, DorothyAnne and I and another three families were sent out to start a new congregation in Muizenberg. We saw that congregation grow until in the middle of May 1979 Elders were appointed and blessed and the congregation was recognised as a full member Assembly of God in the denomination. We continued there until I and the other Elders agreed under some pressure to stand down and let the Pastor run the church as sole Minister. It was time to move on and we returned to the Meadowridge Assembly (by then known as the Constantia Assembly of God). By that time the ways there had changed dramatically and the Open Ministry as we had known it was simply no longer operating. I didn’t resume my place there as an Elder. Completely disillusioned, DorothyAnne and I then left and spent that year “hiding away” at St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Plumstead in 1983/84.
In October 1984, when we moved to live in Marina da Gama in Muizenberg, we returned to the Muizenberg Assembly where I had no active role apart from speaking occasionally in the Open Ministry. We stayed there until July 1987 when we moved again, this time to the cottage in Wynberg. From there, the Harfield Road congregation was more accessible so we went there until our final break from the Assemblies in November 1991.
