The Early Years (1981-1988)
In and around the late 60's early 70's, Church Unity came to the fore and with it a period of renewal which became known as the Charismatic Renewal. The Old denominational wineskins could not hold the new wine and many Christians sort less restrictive structures in Jesus Groups, Visible Church, Home Church, Christian Centres and Fellowships.
Durban was not un-affected. At this time, Fred Roberts established Durban Christian Centre, Rodney Seagar City of Life, and Charles Gordon Church of the Good Shepherd. Another such group was a Home Group led by Dave and Sandy Phillips who had left the Anglican Church. The Group met in the Phillips Garage and grew with those who wanted lively worship and praise, an opportunity for the gift of the spirit to operate and word base teaching. It took the visit of the short bald Englishman Ted Kent and his wife Ester to encourage the group to start meeting on Sunday and to establish a church.
After a holiday in the Cape where the Phillips and Coombe families met up and when the rest of the group returned from holidays. The church held its first meeting on the first Sunday in February 1982. The prophetic word of the Lord to the church was that we were to be a Cutting Edge.
The Church started with Dave as a part time Pastor and a music group consisting of three acoustic guitars in the hands of Dave and Nicole James and Lindy Phillips, Nicole and Lindy were about 12 years of age. The Church met in the Westville Gym, which was situated behind Steadmans Garage in Jan Hofmeyer Road.
Dave was attending Bible College at City of Life (five nights a week) and invited a three piece suite, pink shirted lecturer, named Peter van Niekerk to preach one Sunday morning. Obviously short of cash, he brought a three part message which necessitated his return. The love and potential of the group obviously overwhelmed him and he never left.
Growth of a group to ten core families plus others and an attendance of around 80 to 100 on a Sunday gave the Church sufficient faith for Dave to resign for what had become his part time sport shop manager's position at Kings Sports to full time Pastor. Peter van Niekerk continued to live by faith preaching and teaching. Yvonne had not came to Westville as she was maintaining some stability in the family by attending the Tabernacle in Durban with the three girls but eventually when Peter had proved that this was not a temporary job, she and the girls joined him.
The Gym was not an ideal venue and numbers necessitated a move to Westville Junior Primary Hall during 1983. The need for an office resulted in a work party putting a tongue and grove wooden ceiling into Dave and Sandy's garage. Secretarial duties such as typing were done by Brenda at home from drafts prepared by Dave or dictated over the phone.
The Church continued to grow and in 1984 began meeting in Westville Senior Primary School and an office was rented in Westville Centre (across the passage from our present offices). Brenda was now employed two mornings a week and this soon grew to a situation where Brenda and Morag Geach between them womaned the office five days a week under the English school teacher, Dave Phillips eagle eye for punctuation or spelling errors.
The Church was a buzz with activities. These included memorable new year's parties, barn dances, weddings, various social gatherings and church camps at Willowvale and Cedara.
Ted and Ester were roving Ambassadors and Apostolic team operating from England under the leadership of Bryn Jones and his brother Keri. Westville Christian Fellowship received much input from the team with visits not only from Bryn and Keri but also Alan Scotland, David Mathews, David Mansel, Ivor Hopkins, Hans Koonstra and Raymond Manahutu.
Not only were relationships forged with groups in England but with Basil Tryon, Kallie Swart at Midrand, Maritzburg Christian Fellowship under Brian Andrews, Zululand Varsity through Bonginkosi Shezi (which resulted in the birth of the church in Zululand under Collins Dlomo), and Jahoakim who was working in Swaziland. On one such team visit comprising Peter van Niekerk, Jahoakim, Andrew Law and myself resulted in us leading the Minister of Religion of the Mozambique Government, Mr Chumbal to the Lord and baptising him in the Hotel swimming pool.
Dave Phillips often aided and abetted by David James delighted in organising out reach events. We had a stall at the Westville Fair from 1983 to 1986 with various activities from games to Vegetables Stall with produce organised by Richmond farmers, Mark and Avril Bird who were part of the Church. Music, gospel handouts and an opportunity to reach the unsaved always being the focus of the out-reaches.
Tent meetings were held in the Scout Bowl/Civic Centre/Sherwood Library grounds under banners such as "Celebration of Joy" (1985), "A Miracle For You" (1986), Joy in Jesus (1987) and Church Alive (1988). Drama, clowning and music were a major part of these events and the Church music group excelled songs such as "We Will Dance", "Its Bubbling", "A Miracle For You and "When the sun comes up". At once such event in the Scout Bowl, we were joined by the then flegling Group, "Ladysmith Black Mambazo".
During 1985 in an effort to reach the unchurched, we started a Drive-In Church in the Westville Mall car park. A steel frame was constructed with wooden pallets to form a stage. We would race around from about 2.30 on Sunday afternoon, collecting the platform and equipment and assemble it at the Mall for a service. The venture lasted for probably 18 months.
Interspersed in between were Men and Ladies group camps evening meetings at Westville North at Pitlochry School and in the Sherwood Hall. Special mention must made of Kings Kids, Youth and Go Teams.
Sandy Phillips and Jill Turnham started Kings Kids which was later led by Stephanie van Wyk and Val Judd. Stephanie also ran the Children's Church, assisted by Dave Mitchell, Morag Geach and Lyn Roux. Teachers regularly attended training courses at Rhema in Johannesburg.
Youth began in the Coombe's garage with three girls, Lindy Phillips, Nicole James and Barbara Rockey and about five guys. The meetings were led by Roger Owen. Linda McLean and Tracy Wann joined soon after it started. The evenings consisted of worship, teaching and heated discussions regarding the Word. Friday afternoon prayer sessions were held and numbers grew to such an extent we moved to Westville Senior Primary School Hall. The numbers continued to grow particularly after an outbreak of the Holy Spirit following Peter van Niekerk's infamous visit to the Westville Boys and Girls High School SCA Camp in 1986 when the hall was filled with up to 400 young people.
In addition to good Bible teaching, prayers and worship the youth was characterised by social activities especially in the holidays and after youth meetings, visits to the beach, tea in each other's homes developed strong friendships. Later Trevor Richardson, Mike van der Meulen, Mike Blackbeard and Ian Howes took over leadership from Roger. We were by then drawing in folk from Chesterville too.
With the older members finishing matric a new venture was birthed in 1988, when the first "Go Team" consisting of Lindy Phillips, Linda McLean, Avril Vaughan, Kate Bowen-Jones, Yvonne Anger, Alpheus Ndlovu and Tracy Wann began. At times they were joined by Johnny Green, and also by Trevor who helped Peter with driving the Combi on visits away.
When at home, there was bible study in the morning with Peter and Dave on Old Testament and New Testament surveys, on issues facing the church and School of the Word programmes, etc. The afternoons were spent serving people in the church. The team travelled to churches in Midrand (Kallie), Cape Town, (Kobus Swart), White River, Soshanguve outside Pretoria, Lesotho, Pietermaritzburg, Red Hill and Zululand. They stayed with people in the churches and helped them with out-reach meetings, in schools, drama at assemblies and in shopping malls. They also stayed at the Birds farm and will forever remember picking the marrow crop with Mark Bird threatening to cut fingernails. The church also went up to the Birds farm to assist with harvesting the tomato crop.
Another important aspect was the Zulu Group which began in 1985 and met on Wednesdays from 1 to 2 in the afternoon in the Phillips' garage led by Sipho and Greta Ngobese. Dave took over leadership of the Group in 1987 and in 1988 it was merged in with the main body of the church. Gladys, Triphina and Nora were all members of that group. We must at this point remember Alpheus Ndlovu who lived with Peter and Yvonne as their adopted son for several years - and also Cindy Zungu who lived with Brenda and Colin for four years.
The predominantly white church was now six years old. 1988 loomed and the winds of much change were blowing. I have pleasure in handing over to the youngster Peter Watt who will handle this Epic period. For those of you who don't know, Peter actually lived in Chesterville from 1993 to 1996 in a Imijondolo (a shack).
from Garage Homegroup to Church by Colin Coombe
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