+CSW AGM 2025
We held our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 4 June. The following people were unanimously elected onto our Church Council: People’s Warden - Stephen Quirke; Council members - Lindsay Visser, Nikki Klaasen, Bharn Burgers, and Annette Klopper. Dale Barrow, Jacques Scholtz, and Andrew Morton are currently serving as Council members and all have one more year. Gavin has elected Jerry Gilbert as his Rector’s Warden.
Below is Gavin’s Rector’s Report which he presented at the meeting, followed by drop-downs for reports from our other Staff members, our Treasurer, and Missions co-ordinator.
The Rector’s Report
1. Staff Changes:
Let me begin with staff changes. With respect to the +CSW staff team, this past year has been a story of God’s provision given the most terrible circumstances. Sadly, we lost both Sean Savides and Hakeem Smith (although Hakeem was not on staff at the time) to ministry failure resulting in their disqualification to serve as minister’s here and in REACH-SA at large.
The details around Sean’s transgression were made public in a letter to members and adherents which don’t need repeating. Sean resigned from his position as Assistant Minister on 1 January and has subsequently made a public apology which we as a congregation accepted. Sean and Kirsty have recently written to the Council to say that they have left +CSW indicating the reasons and believing that they will better be able to heal elsewhere. Their children however will remain involved here. The Council is in the process of responding. Please continue to reach out to the Savides and pray for the family.
As for Hakeem, he decided to leave when confronted with sensitive but serious matters. I can’t give details except to say it involved lies and deception. I would caution anyone who still has dealings with Hakeem. The Smith’s left at the end of March.
Needless to say, it has been very challenging for myself and the Church Council to navigate these “choppy waters”. We believe that the Lord has brought these sins to light for his good purposes. We have constantly prayed for wisdom to do what is best for the name of Christ, his church and the individuals concerned, fully aware of our own failings.
For much happier reasons, Lesley-Ann Markham resigned after 20-something years of serving +CSW in an administrative role. She left Somerset West at the end of August to be near to her family in Tableview.
So much for the loss, now to God’s provision. You have already heard from them this evening but all except Lindo, have joined the Staff Team full-time in the last year. Just to reiterate Lindo Nyide is our Children’s Ministry Director, Sigrid Holscher the Ministry Operations Manager (M.O.M.), Matthew Courtney and Johan Walters are Assistant Ministers. Michael Lord and Kaylin Klaasen are Ministry Apprentices. Amy Clover is serving a GAP year with us.
2. Upcoming Ordinations: Presbyters and a Deaconess:
Matthew and Johan are presently Deacons and will be ordained Presbyters later this year. REACH-SA has in recent times opened the office of Deacon (and not Presbyter) to women. Sigrid qualifies and her application to be made a deacon is in process. I am fully aware that this change is open to misunderstanding. A position paper has been written clarifying the biblical basis and the rationale for the decision. It is available for anyone who wants to read it. Perhaps I’ll just mention the two denials: “We deny that the recognition of women in ministry is a move towards liberalism and a rejection of the authority of Scripture. We deny that the office of the female deacon is a stepping stone to being a presbyter”.
3. George Whitefield College Student:
Grace Millard (my daughter) is studying at GWC for the Higher Certificate in Theology. She is in residence at the College and serves at Tokai Community Church during term. Her plan for next year is to continue studying towards a Bachelor of Theology.
4. Sunday Services:
Both our 8:30 and 10:30am services are growing steadily. Average attendance is 200plus at each service. Parking will be a challenge going forward as we continue to grow. We have a plan ready to be implemented as soon as the need arises. I’m pleased to report that the municipality has given permission for us to park on the strip of open land on the other side of Helderberg College road.
Our 6:30pm evening service is still on pause - perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we have discontinued it for now. We will need good reasons to revive it but are open to suggestions.
5. Pastoral Care:
With the loss of Sean we have had to re-think our approach to caring for the congregation. Fellowship Groups are an integral part but we have also fixed an item on our Monday staff meeting agenda where needs are shared and assigned to a minister or staff member depending, to take action. Sigrid is the channel through which needs can be make known either by messaging her directly or using the link on the website.
6. Gospel Social Work:
We remain involved and committed to Christ Church Strand but believe we need to provide more avenues for our congregation to get involved in gospel based social upliftment causes. We had a report prepared detailing the work that churches, and others are doing in the hope finding potential partners. The great and obvious need is the poor on our streets. At present U-Turn Homeless Ministries based in the Strand is the most promising of these.
7. The School on our Premises:
We have Manah Private Academy, a Christian based school using 3 of our classrooms Monday to Friday. There is a month-to-month contract in place with the rent equating to around 30K/month. We have no formal partnership with the school, it is strictly a business arrangement. Apart from the grass taking a hammering - which we are addressing - the children are polite, well-mannered and there is minimal disruption to the staff and other regular meetings. It is however early days!
8. A Few Last Things- My Other Responsibilities:
Here at +CSW I lead the Staff Team, Chair the Church Council meetings, preach most Sundays and lead 3 weekly Fellowship Groups: Retired Men, Students, and an early morning men’s meeting. Also, pastoral care ranging from pre-marriage counselling, weddings and funerals including pastoral visitation of the sick and grieving.
Outside responsibilities include: continuing to lecture The Pentateuch to first years at GWC. It is a half year course which is now complete except for assignments and exams to mark! I am still on the Cape Area’s Regional Executive and as of last year now the Leader/Co-ordinator of the Boland Regional Partnership which…
AND lastly, news from home: both my daughters are getting married at the end of the year within a month of each other - after which I’ll be broke …but financially free!
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I am presenting to you for the first time as Treasurer.
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to CCSW, both financially and through acts of service. It’s because of this sacrificial giving that we are able to support and further God’s ministry here at CCSW.
The draft annual financial statements for the year ended 28 February 2025 were circulated and are up on the screen behind me. Points to note:
· Total income is down by R323632 from the previous year and total expenditure was up by R129635. The net deficit for the year, including depreciation was (R76360). However, when depreciation is excluded, there was an actual surplus of R214 888.
· The bond accrued interest of R829 996 for the year ended 28 February 2025. Repayments amounting to R1235000 were made during the year, reducing the overall balance of this liability by R405 004 (R190 116 more than surplus – cashflow demand). I try and pay as much as cashflow will all to reduce the monthly interest cost.
· Expenditure pie chart:
o Salaries 52%
o Operating expenses 17%
o Bond Interest 15%
o CESA Levy 7%, Missionary Support 4%, CCS Support 4% (Combined 15%)
o Ministry Areas 1%
For interest, see the bar graph comparing income & expenditure excluding depreciation.
Unfortunately we are unable to insert the graph image here in this blog post. The information on the bar graph is as follows:
Income vs Expenditure at the time of the last year’s AGM (2024)
INCOME: R5 974 327
EXPENDITURE: R5 332 741Income vs Expenditure at the time of this year’s AGM (2025)
INCOME: R5 650 695
EXPENDITURE: R5 435 806 -
Along with supporting Gavin through leading and preaching on Sundays, as Assistant Minister I also oversee the general communication here at +CSW, head up the Fellowship Groups and I am involved in caring for our apprentices.
Communication:
Good communication is more than just sharing information, it helps people feel like they belong. We want to prioritize fewer communication channels but use them as effectively as possible.
Our primary outward channel is our website. For internal communication we rely on our weekly mailer and a number of ministry specific WhatsApp groups.
Some analytics from the past year:
Our +CSW Website has had 7K visits which is a 22% increase year to date
Of the 7K visits 4.5K were unique visitors, which is a 12% increase year to date.
We have 542 subscribers to our Weekly Mailer, which has increased by 35% year to date. Our open rate remains at a steady 65% which is quite hight by Mail Chimp standards.
The WhatsApp group we have for general +CSW updates currently has 235 members. We hope that this number will increase to match the number of subscribers for our Weekly Mailer.
Our Church News Blog is the most visited page on our website and has had more than 7K visits the last year, which is an amazing 138% increase year to date. What this means is that our Church News page is working extremely well as a means of reporting back on ministry events and sharing important announcements.
447 sermons were watched this month on our +CSW Youtube Channel, and the average monthly views remains similar to last year.
Lastly, we are excited to tell you that our sermons will now be uploaded as Podcasts to both Apple and Spotify.
Fellowship Groups:
I met with the Fellowship Group Leaders earlier this term to share our vision of multiplying new groups and developing new leaders. In order to achieve this, we will need to prioritize three things:
Fellowship Group Leaders
Having strong, faithful leader increase our ability as a church to care for people. As such, Leaders can and should play a pastoral care role within their Fellowship Groups.
Fellowship Group Structure
As the Fellowship Groups increase in numbers, we hope to implement a structure where group coordinators will manage 3 to 5 groups of their own. They will intern fall under my care and support.
Fellowship Group Material
In terms of Fellowship Group material, we feel that there is value in generating our own material. We’re still working out the ideal format and structure, and plan to improve the material based on the feedback we receive.
Apprentices:
We are very grateful to have Kaylin and Michael serving as apprentices on our staff team this year. We don’t have a formal apprentice program or curriculum, but we are very intentional in exposing them to the various dimensions of ministry. Training really happens on the job and being part of our meetings and discussion. We also aim to give them as much opportunity to preach and lead Bible studies.
The privilege of having them serve for a year also comes with a responsibility and that is to prayerfully assess their readiness for formal theological training at GWC and become trained and equipped for full time Ministry!
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Good evening! As many of you will know, my name is Matthew Courtney, and I’m married to Kendra. For the past three years I’ve been on loan to the Stadtmission in Cape Town, and since February I’ve been part of the team here again, this time as one of the assistant ministers. I really want to thank you all for the warmth of the welcome that you’ve given Kendra and I, it’s been lovely to settle back into the congregation here. Apart from leading and preaching from time to time, I’m responsible for a few different things. I might be a familiar face, but as I’m still relatively new I’m going to focus more on where we’re going than where we are.
YOUTH MINISTRY
The mission of our youth ministry is to be a welcoming, word-based community where teens can encounter the Gospel for the first time and be encouraged to live gospel-shaped lives. We aim to help young people come to know and enjoy authentic relationship with God; to love and serve Christ, his church, and the world in real and practical ways; and to grow through the means of grace.
When I say that I have oversight of “youth ministry” I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking about Friday nights. It’s helpful to start at the beginning, though: at baptism services, as a church we commit to “help and encourage” our children to “keep the faith,” and of course that means throughout their lives as they become teenagers and students and young adults and so on. So the picture of youth ministry at our church is both Friday nights and Sunday mornings and even a little larger than that.
- Teen Church
Michael, Ryan, and I share the preaching at teen church each week. We usually have around fifteen teenagers between grades 6-10 with us, and the goal is really to be a bridge between children’s church and the main church service. All of our youth gatherings are word-based, but this is the main teaching slot for our teens where they’re hearing the word read and preached.
- Friday Nights
We also have around ten to fifteen teenagers on a Friday night, but we find that week to week the teens are a bit different — there’s lots of sports on Friday evenings and so we find that our numbers are a bit like the tides, up and down!
Stephen heads up our youth team along with Kaylin, Megan, and Kim for the ladies and myself, Jachin, Jurgen, and Matt (Hale) for the men.
Sam has served with us for some time as a leader for the ladies and stepped back at the beginning of this term; and Elri’s taken a break this term but will be back with us in the second half of the year.
What Next?
To think through where we’re aiming with our youth ministry here, the two words in the front of my mind are community and discipleship. The mission of our youth ministry is to be a welcoming, word-based community where teens can encounter the Gospel for the first time and be encouraged to live gospel-shaped lives.
That means that we want to be growing both numerically and spiritually. We want new teens to be joining us at youth and at teen church; so that they can hear the pure gospel and live lives authentic to it. We’ve made a few changes to our programme on Friday nights to facilitate that kind of relational growth — we really want to be a community that’s both welcoming to newcomers but also deep and rich in terms of relationships.
And those newcomers include teens who are moving up from Junior Youth — it can be tough to settle into youth when you’re the youngest there and having a relationally strong youth that can pull you in and welcome you is a key part of strengthening that transition for our younger teens.
But it’s important to say that we’re not trying to win teens with gimmicks. We want a pure, simple, and authentic gospel community amongst our teens. That’s our aim and so of course the word is at the heart of all of our youth gatherings. And then of course, on Sunday mornings we’re working to disciple our teens and so we’ve been working through a catechism in preparation for confirmation in our teen church services and that’s led to some great discussions as well.
A key goal for me is to get us all thinking of youth ministry holistically — it’ll help all of our ministry to reach balance and also for us to get a sense of its scope and the fact that we all have committed to be part of it in some way, shape, or form. It includes you.
THURSDAY NIGHTS
I’m also responsible for the various ministries that happen here at the church on a Thursday evening.
- Students:
Perhaps the first group to mention are the students. Gavin teaches while Kaylin looks after this group, which has around ten students. They’ve recently finished Jeremiah and are on to Timothy and Titus.
- Young Adults:
We’ve got around twenty young adults split across two groups each Thursday evening, and it’s been. One of the benefits of meeting centrally is that we have the chance to have a bit of social time before we get started (which we share with the students as well). This has really helped us to get to know one another across the groups. We’ve just finished Philippians together and are kicking off Timothy and Titus tomorrow!
What next?
My focus has really been on strengthening our existing structures — particularly with the young adults group. e goal is to build structure that helps us with get depth in terms of our relationship with God and friendship with others, but we’re aiming to be open at the same time to newcomers.
To help with this, at the start of the second term we “set” our two fellowship groups (up until that point we’d split ourselves depending on the week). Now we split out into two smaller groups each week for study and prayer, and it’s been going well so far! It’s been good to see a regular stream of newcomers come through our groups and even more encouraging to see them settle in.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES
If those are my primary ministry areas, there are a number of things I also do behind the scenes.
Churches always have a number of different maintenance needs. Some of the things I’ve been responsible for in the past two weeks have been getting the top gate rolling again, stopping our audio cables from crackling, and stopping our jungle gym slide from sliding off!
There’s also an administrative component to maintenance — I’ve also been the point of contact with our insurance and have been helping organise all the documents they’ve needed to renew our annual policy.
What’s the spiritual significance of all this?
God has given us the most incredible infrastructure for ministry here and that’s why it’s so significant to look after it: this building and the resources in it are tools for ministry and ensuring that they’re well-looked after actually helps us to facilitate the ministry of the gospel. That’s why it matters.
REGIONAL PARTNERSHIP
Before I end — one more thing about my involvement on a wider basis than +CSW. Last year, REACH arranged churches into “regional partnerships” throughout the Western Cape — we are a member of the Boland regional partnership and meet together quarterly with the staff teams of:
• Christ Church Hermanus
• Christ Church Waterkloof
• Christ Church Strand
• Christ Church Stellenbosch
• Christ Church Khayelitsha
• Crossword Church
• Christ Church Paarl
The goal of these partnerships is really to facilitate closer relationships and collaboration between our churches. Gavin’s been appointed as the leader of our partnership and I’ve been supporting him with the administration that goes along with that. Our next meeting is later this month so do be praying for us.
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I have been part of the staff team here at Christ church for a year and a half now.
I thought a good way of giving you a look into our kids ministry is to share the good, the hard, and… I want to say the ugly… but it will be my heart for our kids.
THE GOOD
There have been a few highlights over the last year. The 3 that really stand out are holiday club 2024 where we had about 80 kids join us to hear how God has made a way for them to be saved. We shared a version of 2 ways to live with them, and it has been great to hear stories over the year of how kids have used that to share their faith with those who visit their homes. It was also so cool to see how so many people in our church family came together, giving up their time, skills and energy to make holiday club a reality.
The second big thing that has been a real high light has been using the biggest story curriculum. Most of you will have heard and seen that I our first service. It has been so great to have the chance to show kids how the whole bible points to Jesus and share some stories with them that are unfamiliar. It’s been great to see how the kids are really engaging with God’s word.
And the third thing have been the leaders who work with the kids. It’s been one of the best things to see our kids ministry leaders take real ownership of the groups that they are involved in. Of Fridays we have Kaylin who has been running kids club with a team of teen leaders and Michael running jnr youth with a team of mostly students. And Sunday mornings we have 9 classes each with their own leaders. Working hard at understanding each lesson and thinking about the best way to share that with their kids.
THE HARD
There are 2 things that I want to share with you about what has been hard, like I shared with you, there are 9 classes each Sunday, and with the growth we continue to see soon we will need more. With our current set up we have each teacher commit for a term at a time because it’s so good for our kids to know their teachers and for our teachers to know the kids in their classes. This means that every year we need 36 leaders and ideally we’d want to have a training leader in each of those classes. This is a big big need that is ever growing and feels so unending because we need faithful bible teachers who will love our kids because, unlike adults, kids are not discerning and will generally believe you because you’re an adult.
Hard number 2 has been finding time to do one of the most important aspects of my job. I am completely convinced that the best way to disciple our kids is by supporting parents as they disciple their kids and although I have made a start down that road I have not been able to devote as much time to it as I had hoped, so that is something that I need to work much harder at over the next year.
MY HEART FOR KIDS
The question I’m always asking is where I want to see our kids in 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years and what are we doing now to help them get there. We want to see our kids not just know Jesus but to really love him and out of their love for Jesus to love his people. This means that they would want to know more about who Jesus is and serve his church. That means that we want to shape the work that we do with kids here to encourage not only head-knowledge but real-life changing heart knowledge and then giving kids the chance to work that out in opportunities to serve and sacrifice because that’s what they are called to.
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This June marks my first anniversary since joining the staff team as the Ministry Operations Manager, or simply “MOM”. As this was a newly-created role, it’s perhaps helpful to reiterate here that my key areas of responsibility are:
1. To create an efficient, effective and smooth working environment for ministry - ensuring that our staffing and resources are applied efficiently and effectively in line with our theological vision at +CSW.
2. To provide the various organisational support structures to facilitate gospel growth in line with our theological vision at +CSW.
The details of what my role entails is heavily task-orientated and administrative behind the scenes, and I won’t go into much detail in this report. I hope, though, that many people in our church have in some form or other already experienced at least something of the outworking of my role as MOM here at church in the past months. It’s a role that I continue to shape and mould to best serve our church.
Since I don’t have much time this evening, I want to perhaps just share with you one thing that’s been a highlight for me this past year in my role, and one thing that I am planning:
Firstly, soon after I joined the staff, I realised that since +CSW has grown significantly in number over the past few years, and continues to grow, we needed a well-structured, centralised database system of our church. With the help of Michael Lord (one of our Ministry Apprentices, who happens to run a business that creates database systems) we created a custom-built system for our particular needs here at +CSW. We requested everyone to submit their details afresh for this system, and to date have 365 entries. The system is also set up to help us filter and pull up specific information, such as a list of all our Fellowship Group leaders, or formal members of our church, or those serving in a particular ministry – all at the click of a button. This system is not only efficient from an operational perspective, but gives us information to enable us to know how to better serve our people. The system is also linked to various serving schedules/rosters, and is set up to automatically send a reminder-whatsapp message to individuals who are part of the serving teams for that upcoming Sunday. This has already proven to be a much-appreciated reminder for folk during a busy week.
All in all, this new database system is still a work in progress, as we continue to tweak and streamline it to be as helpful as possible in light of our theological vision and mission at +CSW.
Secondly, I currently manage all the logistics of a number of Sunday serving teams, including hospitality teams, the LED Screen Operating team, and the sermon-recording team. It’s wonderful to see so many people serving so faithfully in these areas. Now I plan to slightly restructure oversight of the teams, in that I will create a team-leader for each of those ministry teams who will run with their respective team logistics. Those team-leaders together form a group whom I lead and look after as M.O.M. I hope to have this set up in the next couple of months.
Lastly, as I close, I want to mention two more items:
Music Ministry:
We are very blessed here at +CSW with talented and servant-hearted musicians. Earlier this year, Gavin invited Jo Anderson, who has been part of our music ministry team for years, to take on the role of our Music Ministry Leader. She accepted this role and now leads our Music team. We are very grateful to God for providing Jo, and encouraged that she has taken on this role. I have stepped back into the music ministry to support Jo and the rest of the team.
Bloom:
Bloom - our quarterly women’s ministry get-togethers - has been on pause since December last year, when Kirsty took a ministry sabbatical. Since she informed us recently that she is moving to another church, Gavin has invited me to step into the role of heading up our Women’s Ministry, including Bloom, which I will indeed take on with the help of an already-existing committee of women. We plan to relaunch Bloom in the near future, and I will be working out how best to balance this ministry with my role as MOM.
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Our Ministry apprentices experience what it’s like as full-time ministry staff at our church and are given many opportunities to serve in order to use and test their gifts, so they can come to a better understanding of whether to pursue full-time ministry in the long-term.
Michael Lord (Ministry Apprentice)
Michael is involved with Young Adults, Junior Youth and Teen Church, as well as assisting Sigrid with setting up a centralized church database to assist with ministry operations.Kaylin Klaasen (Ministry Apprentice)
Kaylin is involved primarily with Children’s Ministry – both Kids Club on Fridays and Children’s Church on Sundays. She is also involved with the Student Bible Study on Thursday evenings.Amy Clover (Gap Student)
Amy is serving on our staff this year to assist where she is able to. She is a big help to Sigrid by assisting in compiling and printing our Sunday service leaflets each week for both services here at +CSW, as well as our service at Helderberg Retirement Village. Amy is involved in our Music team, and also with our Children’s Ministry. -
Before we talk about “missions” we have to understand the practical scope of activity within our congregation.
What is Missions?
Theologically (easy) - The church is God’s mission on earth, the manifestation of his Kingdom.
Organisationally/Practically (more difficult) - How to best organise ourselves to fulfil our calling to participate in God’s mission.
Extract from our +CSW Missions Manifesto - Our organisational definition of Missions:
We know from Scripture that every person in our congregation is being equipped for the work of ministry: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” (Eph 3:11-12).
We recognize that most will be equipped and led to work within the existing church, serving those who come to us. Some however will be called and prepared by God to go out, and to establish and build up the body of Christ in new and unfamiliar places. We endeavour to cultivate broad and heartfelt support for this work outside the boundaries of our congregation, while remaining fully committed to gospel ministry within.
The role of the Missions Actions Team is not to do missions, but to help create the environment in our congregation from which gospel work outside the congregation can thrive.
Summary of the areas of support we focus on:
1) Regular Financial Support:
+CSW financially supports 10 missions partners in total. Our Missions Action Team (MAT) presented their annual budget to our Church Council for approval earlier this year. For 2025/26: the Council approved a 32% increase, with two new partners added - Kairos: R1000, and Churches for Namibia (Pastor Kambauh): R5000.
Our total monthly giving R47 850 (10.96% of regular giving).
2) Ad Hoc Financial and Material Support:
We have been able to assist the following missions partners ad hoc:
- Noel Livesey - trip to Malawi – Ministry: Celebrate Recovery (from addiction)
- Tracy Elliot - unforeseen medical expenses
- Kenny and Rose Lloyd - church plant in Airport Valley township in PE.
- Pastor Kambauh – a mobile phone
We are very encouraged by the generosity of our congregation and the priority given by our Council.
3) Sending:
(Long-term Missionaries)We have not officially sent any full-time missionaries recently.
In the past we sent Jim and Mariana Nesbitt, Angela Roberts, Peter and Mpumi Makaphela, David and Adele Hill.
In 2023 we adopted Stuart and Adele Barrow (Lighthouse, Villiersdorp) - we are their sending church.
We keep praying for more workers. We would like to see +CSW sending more long-term workers out, and making the congregation part of a sending ceremony.
4) Going:
(Members of +CSW serving in missions but not specifically sent by +CSW)- Rob Pompe - Covenant College, Zambia
- Anita Steele - 4THE1
- Marie Schoeman - runs CEF in our area
- Jonathan Griffiths - Kairos Prison Ministry
- Lindsay Shifflet - Butterfly, ministering to women caught up in prostitution
- Deon Visser - Bible distribution
- Dale Barrow - Vukukanye ministry with Jung and Helen Lee
- Namibia mission (no-one this year)
This list is not exhaustive.
We use missions Whatsapp group to make our church aware of their work, needs, and opportunities to help. We want to create more opportunities for them to share their work.
5) Praying and Encouraging
We have a total of 21 missions on our support list. We make individual-contact and get feedback every month.
We run a Prayer meeting for missions at +CSW on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 18h30. Currently the attendance is low (about 6 people) and we need more regulars to join to cover the materials. Please consider being part of this prayer team. We are praying for this.
We also run a Sunday Prayer Meeting between services on the last Sunday of each month, where anyone can join to pray for a selected missions partners. These meetings are well-attended, and we desire to see this grow.
Missions updates/visits:
From time to time we are able to invite one of our missions partners to visit on Sundays and give a presentation/update between the services. These are very informative and uplifting updates, however attendance is very low.
Previous visits included 4THE1, Open Doors, Bible Society, Butterfly mission. We want more people to come and be blessed by these missions updates, and so we continue thinking and praying about ways to improve attendance.
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The HV church was started on 5 February 2012. We are thus in our 14 year as a church. The change over those years has seen a move from being majority CCSW linked people to the position today where more than 65% of the congregation have no former links to CCSW.
In addition to our weekly service and monthly fellowship lunch together we have 3 weekly Fellowship groups, a Bible study blog and a prayer meeting.
Many of our congregation have health challenges associated with growing old and thus visits by others in the congregation are an important ministry and supplement the pastoral visits from my side.
I must acknowledge the assistance of Ian du Toit, Alan Beckman and Brian McMillan in sharing the preaching load and Alan and Christo Longland for each leading one of the Fellowship groups. We are also grateful for the assistance of the CCSW office in preparing and printing our weekly service sheets. These contributions make the load of ministry at HV much lighter.
We have dedicated musicians in Wendy van Rensburg, Lisette Benson and Lindsay de Kock who ensure that we have music to accompany our singing at all our services. Penny Archibald takes a leading role in arranging the monthly fellowship lunch and hosting the monthly Golden Oldies meetings.
Kathy Smit facilitates the weekly prayer meeting.
There are many others involved in ensuring that our services run smoothly, that people are contacted and cared for and to assist those who need transport.
I am facing my own health challenges this year as I navigate 6 months of oncology treatment. I need to protect myself against infection while my immunity is low so I am grateful to God for Bev Orsmond who is running my Fellowship Group and for the preachers who are ready to step in as an emergency replacement if I am unable to preach as planned.
We thank God for the HV church and for those that He has called to be part of the congregation and who contribute to the ongoing ministry within HV.