The Move of the Spirit (1994-1997)
I am reminded of the South African Graca advert when I think of this time. The laughing, snorting, roaring, tweeting, barking, screeching, shaking, drinking wine of the Spirit.
To recount the events from the beginning. It was a cool, calm, peaceful morning on that Sunday the 10th of July, until Gareth and Sandra Duffty came to town and then all heaven broke loose.
Gareth, visiting us from the UK, introduced us to the move of the Holy Spirit with a record of what had been happening in Toronto Canada, the USA and the UK in particular. After a short teaching he began to minister and the anointing was passed by touch, blowing, passing his bible, waving etc. That was the beginning of some radical touches for some, some inner healing for others, some deep laughter and some very different manifestations of the Spirit for plenty more.
To get another personal account of some events in those early days I would like to share some extracts from the diary of Sir Simon Barff.
Tues. 12th July p.m. WSPS G&S. Testimonies:- Yvonne determined to be first "won't be hanging back any more!" General laughter- Des, Trish Pete Watt writhing, kicking, groaning (some thought demons- not so!), eventually joy & laughter, totally incapacitated so had to spend night at vN's. Malcolm really got it- swaying around laughing on all 4's.
Sunday 17th July p.m. WSPS Slow start; later plenty laughter from Ulla, Ingrid. Mal v. drunk. Dave P out on floor "here we go again!!". Great gales of laughter from Ken, Angela, Lindy M- also Heidi, Sandy, Helen, Nancy Whiteley. Meanwhile down at Isiswe, Nigel totally incapacitated- had to be helped down May's steps- the first of many times this happened!
Sunday 24th July a.m. WSPS Callie & Ina with us- all new to them. Dave & Peter led a bit, but mostly HS. Callie never got to preach.. Sandy & Ina falling about together- laughter & joy. Joe & Barbara similar. Pete Watt shaking much better. Mal & Nigel like 2 drunks- hopeless! Tom & Nicole were prayed for & then prayed for each other- N overcome stupendously with laughter; ministered v. effectively to Lindy van, Barbara R- just one touch on the stomach and off they went. Heidi too- seems to have elastic that makes her touch her toes (or beyond) in a kind of estatic convulsion. Grant P & Morag major laughter on board. Grant & I simultaneously 'saw ' that PvN should be prayed for- OUT face down. Sandy, Willa, Trish hooting as usual; Dave doing his semi doubled-up squats. Shaun made redundant at mixer desk! Sue made friends with floor- happy! Sad to see some who had received, now hanging back.
Sun 7 Aug p.m. F. P. Dave Phillips starts to read and share from Gen. 15- Isaac the true son, not Ishmael. Israel means laughter etc.- quite along dissertation. LaurenY (Coombe) pipes up " Are you going to read the whole book?" All pack up laughing. Then we start to pray. L suddenly takes off, spinning around and gliding; pops up under Craig's arms. Her ears must be burning; they seem to worry her; lots of rubbing, and pushing back of hair. She keeps going over to window to cool her ears against the glass (all in a 'trance'). She spins around some more, then off to pray with a number of girls in turn- throwing her arms around them, and smothering them to the floor..Then more moving around as if in a trance; then massaged Daryl's feet; laid her head on Dave Mitchell's feet as he was being prayed for by others. Total freedom, abandonment in God, and anointed - amazing, wonderful.
Sun 14 Aug a.m. WGHS. Dave Tomlinson read Ted Kent's letter on happenings in UK- visitations of angels; 6 incidents of people picking up hitch-hikers who turned out to be angels, and simply disappeared out of the back seat. Lindy van related how she had told Sandy last Sunday evening that she thought she had had enough of this; 'really it wasn't for her'. She got a bad dose of shakes and cramps that kept her awake most of last night - Holy Spirit is sovereign!
Sun 19 Sept a.m. Heather the statue! First of all she stood straight and very immobile, when rest of us sat down. Then seemed to be stuck to her chair with legs stuck straight out in front. She had to be moved to side still in rigid form, legs supported by another chair. Peter tried to preach, but went down, clutching the lectern- oh how he held on to that thing!
In addition to Simon's account, for those who attended the infamous Wednesday night meetings, we'll never forget the absolutely packed WSPS hall with people battling to get inside and the likes of Nigel Branken, Jeff Unwin from the Bluff, Peter Watt, Trish Lazenby (don't mention the word RIVER) etc. etc. etc. all radically touched by the Holy Spirit. Many an hour was spent either studying the school floor or school roof as we bathed in the Spirit or for others like myself had lovely stomach spasms which felt like labour pains. (Ya sure, I can hear Sally Falkson and you other mothers say) Ginny Lemmon has also been radically touched by the Spirit and she entertained us all with her unique mid air drum playing ability.
Another noteworthy event was the performance by AG van der Meulen at the Great Adventure Young Adults camp. AG entertained and ministered to us all through an amazing God inspired, Elvis impersonating, tamborine throwing dance, coupled with dynamic prophesy. It was incredible. God worked amazingly among the Young Adults during this period, both in the Young Adult Homegroup and in spending many fun times away together.
Thank goodness for you Ric, in 1995 also saw the introduction of a very important person to the church, Michelle Moffat - Later to become Mrs Michelle PARSONS. Her first meeting with us was in the midst of the move of the Spirit, with Trish and the likes making a racket in the front. The only and easiest way to explain what was happening was to tell her that all the noise was from those people that came from the Sherwood Home. She amazingly came back.
In 1995 we also learnt about the importance of loving your neighbour, Ralph Neighbour that is, and the cell concept. Now we couldn't just learn about the cells until Peter van Niekerk had taught us about the 5 P's - paradigms, paradigms, paradigms, paradigms and paradigms. The leaders and interns had extensive teaching on the cell concept and many a Saturday morning golf, I mean prayer and fasting, was substituted with teachings on why there are cell churches, edification in the cell, worship in the cell, stages in cell life, evangelism in cell life, prayer in the cell, sponsor and sponsee relationships and my favourite, apart from the 5 P's, the type A and type B unbelievers and our OIKOSES (sphere of influences).
One of our first church camps to re-inforce the cell concept was held at Natalia on the South coast and some of the non cell or non spiritual related highlights came from the opening evening. For those who were there, we'll never forget Dave and Sandy's Akuna Matata rendition, Luke Tomlinson's Peter van Niekerk, paradigm, paradigm, paradigm impersonation, Graham Luceys new designer outfit and Ian Edwards' tomato sauce covered head, being hit with a plastic bucket, by I think Linda Coombe. (The detail building up to that story will have to be obtained from Ian himself, needless to say, Ian still hasn't been able to grow hair on his head after that evening. I'm not sure if it was the tomato sauce or the bucket belting which caused it.
Unfortunately, the goals and vision that we set a few years ago for WCF with respect to growth in the cells hasn't materialised as we would have liked. We have as a result changed the growth strategy from Each one win one to Each one breed one and this is proving to be a lot more successful ... and fun!
One area where the introduction of the cells has proven to be very successful is with Collins and the church in Esikaweni. Peter van Niekerk and others from this church used to travel weekly up to Esikaweni and the fruit of these sacrifices is evidenced by the fact that today Collins has planted 8 new churches with in excess of 1000 people.
In January 1996 Joachim Mahlalela from Mozambique visited WCF and left the church in an uproar having said that Peter had left behind many children in his country! In response we sent a team up to Mozambique in February to get to the bottom of these rumours - thank God this turned out not to be true - Peter having in fact fathered many spiritual children. As you can see, the church also upgraded from the Peugeot 504 to a Combi V6.
Some other events during the 1994 to 1997 period worth mentioning was the purchase of the church offices at the Westville centre, various high profile marriages, Peter van Niekerk starting a church in Albert Park at the Sizwe Centre and SA winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup. YAY (I'm glad that I'm not talking about 1999)
A Holy [rolling] Moment in History by Grant Parsons
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