Our Church Gardens

We are privileged not only to have a beautiful building, but also really beautiful gardens. We are very grateful to have Dina Harding and Lazaros Mahlafunya who put in such a huge effort to maintain and beautify our gardens.

 These photos are a tribute to them and we extend our grateful thanks to Dinah and Lazaros for the hard work they put in to make our place of worship such a signpost to the glory of God!

Click on the photos to enlarge them....
 








 








 








 

 

 

 

 












 

Global Leadership Summit

Every year we block book for the Global Leadership Summit which is run by Willow Creek Southern Africa and then we nag people to attend. This year there were over 70 people who were booked through Emmanuel and they were thoroughly blessed!


Here are some of Theo's Highlights for the Summit:

1. Bill Hybels: Why can't our next five years be our best?
2. Len Schlesinger - serial entrepenuers have a bias toward action
3. Cory Booker - If it needs to be let it start with me
4. "We dig the ditches - only God can make it rain" - Steven Furtick
5. "Because the tide is out does not mean there is less water!" - Seth Godin
6. Pastor Tadessa Asay: Twice they tried to execute him by electrocution and failed. His response: To carry on preaching.
7. Mama Maggie Gobran: Through silence we discover that the Kingdom of God is in us!
8. Michelle Rhee: Mediocrity? Not on MY watch!
9. Erwin Macmanus: Are you taking your dream to the grave?

A week later we met to reflect on the summit and agreed that we had been powerfully moved, challenged and inspired.

Robbery at the church

Here's the letter Theo wrote to the congregation....

Dear Emmanuel Family

Lazaros and Theo repairing the window...

This morning at 3h08, the church was broken into. They rolled a drum from the braai area, stood on it, broke the window above the serving hatch in the kitchen, crawled through and went into the cry-room where they grabbed the sound system and speakers there. (The cry room is not covered by the alarm) 

When they ripped the wiring of the speakers, they also ripped the cabling of the alarm which runs through there, setting off the alarm.

ADT were very quick to respond and they called me at 3h30 and I got to the church at 3h45. The Boschkop police were also quick to respond.
Both ADT and the SAPS need to be commended for rapid response, professional conduct and super helpfulness.

We haven't lost too much in terms of stuff (We estimate the sound system is worth about R3000)
The niggles are waiting for fingerprinting and cleaning the mess that leaves, repairing the window and the alarm. Please pray for the office team who have had a very busy and challenging couple of weeks and have to get everything sorted before the Global Leadership Summit tomorrow.

This is not a welcome straw on our backs, but we won't let it break us!

We'd really really welcome your prayers for energy, perseverance and wisdom!

Let's pray about the crime and those who feel that they have no other option than to rob even churches. Let's pray for those who get sucked into crime and let's pray for our economic situation that leaves people feeling that crime is their only option. Let's also not give into negativity and cynicism - As we saw in church on Sunday, God is at work in our congregation, we should not be surprised by opposition from the forces of darkness!

With much love between the yawns!

Eternity Day of Giving

Today was our Day of Giving Sunday - A day which we all work towards and strive to give an "over and above" offering to God for His goodness to us. This our "Oblation" (Solemn act of Thanksgiving)

This year we did something special in that Theo, Craig and Susan put together a very special presentation based on the story of Arthur Stace who was known by many in Sydney Australia as "Mr Eternity."

Arthur Stace's story goes like this:

• He was born in 1884, Sydney Australia.    His mother and father, his two brothers and two sisters were alcoholics.  He grew very poor, looking after himself and stealing as needed.
• At fourteen he found his first job, in a coalmine, and at fifteen he was in jail for the first of many visits.
• He had no education - couldn't write his own name
• He was in World War One. He served in France, returning partially blinded in one eye, and suffering the effects of poison gas. He was drinking methylated spirits at sixpence a bottle, and living on handouts.
• On August 6th, 1930, he attended a meeting for men at St Barnabas' Church. Noticing six tidily dressed people near the front, he asked the man sitting next to him "Who are they?"
  "I'd reckon they'd be Christians", he replied.
      Stace said: "Well look at them and look at us. I'm having a go at what they have got,"
   -- and he slipped down on his knees and prayed.
• This changed his life!!! He sobered up, got a job and was regular in church.
• Two years later he heard a sermon: by the Rev. John Ridley who said
      "I wish I could shout ETERNITY through all the streets of Sydney!"
   Stace, recalling the day, said: "He repeated himself and kept shouting 'ETERNITY, ETERNITY' and his words were ringing through my brain as I left the church. Suddenly I began crying and I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write "ETERNITY". I had a piece of chalk in my pocket and I bent down there and wrote it."
• From that moment on Arthur would get up early every morning and go to whichever part of Sydney he felt God was prompting him to go and he would write his one-word sermon wherever he could. 
• He did it in secret for 26 years before someone finally spotted him!
  It is conservatively estimated that in 37 years he wrote the word ETERNITY half a million times... (That's nearly 40 times a day!)
• He was just a simple uneducated man, but his one word message reminded everyone to think about the fact that we live for every - that God has put eternity in our hearts.
• He died in 1967 and one would have thought that that was the end. But "his word" was the grand finale of the Sydney fireworks show for the turn of the Milennium and then at the 2004 Olympics and the entire world watched one television.
• I wonder if God patted him on the back and said "Well done good and faithful servant"

In preparation for the service, which was repeated at Grace and then two weeks later at the Evening Service. We prepared a blackboard "road" for people to write on and we wrote and spraypainted the "Eternity" word all over the building. Craig put together a Powerpoint slideshow to accompany a song written by Nathan Tasker that tells Stace's Story. You can listen to it HERE.

People found the service very very moving and challenging. The good news is that over R80,000 was raised by the Day of Giving and God's People were encouraged to serve God faithfully like Arthur Stace did.












 

Confirmation Service

 On Sunday Evening we had the teens confirmation service. Twelve wonderful young people came to confirm their faith in Christ and vow to take their stand for Him. They are Kelsey Anderson; Joshua Campbell; Alex de Koning; Richard Finlayson; Theodore Gray; Reder Joubert; Taryn Kotze; Nicole Malcomson; Christopher Sotiralis; Gareth Tyler; Louis van Zyl; and Pierre Volschenk.

It was a moving and meaningful service with our young people making their vows together and Gavin Tucker reading a verse that had be pre-selected for each teen. After they had been confirmed, their parents came and stood with them and blessed them as the congregation sang a blessing over them.

There were few dry eyes in church!

Theo preached about "Stunted Growth" and contrasted King Saul who hid in the baggage and never grew to his potential with King David who was a man after God's heart. Then the newly confirmed teens helped with serving communion.

We took a moment to thank all those who taught our teens through the year:  Ryan Karusseit, Jean Lamont, Ben Gouws, Brenda Groeneveld, Marieta Gray, Gavin Tucker, Martin van Zyl, Louis Scheepers, Tara-Lynn Smith. Craig Smith was especially thanked for going above-and-beyond in all that he had done in co-ordinating the course this year.

Then the Benediction was pronounced and sung and a wonderful service came to an end.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Web Team Hack-a-thon

Some of our web and social media committee members met at Theo's home tonight to do some updating of the church's web pages and to learn new skills. We were fortunate to have Shawn Fouche there to teach us some of the basics and although the learning curve was steep, we were able to get some good work done!

Thanks websters (Shawn, Martin, Ryan, Barbara and Erika) for your hard work and Brenda for all the coffee!

The Ladies

The Gents

Junior Confirmation Camp

At the beginning of September our Teen Confirmation program came to a high-point as we had our Confirmation Camp. We have twelve stunning confirmation candidates this year (four from Grace and eight from Emmanuel) They are Kelsey Anderson; Joshua Campbell; Alex de Koning; Richard Finlayson; Theodore Gray; Reder Joubert; Taryn Kotze; Nicole Malcomson; Christopher Sotiralis; Gareth Tyler; Louis van Zyl; and Pierre Volschenk. 

FRONT: Alex, Kelsey, Taryn, Christopher, Nicole
MIDDLE: Pierre, Theodore, Theo
BACK: Joshua, Gareth, Craig, Louis

The camp is always held at the church and we started on Friday night with a braai followed by the "Flywheel" movie which raises some very important discussion points. On Saturday we explored membership and some ethical challenges.

We were very impressed by the very high level of engagement that we have seen in our young people. They asked challenging questions and were eager to learn. In the individual discussions we had with them, we sensed that they had grappled with the issues of faith and had were ready to make real commitments.

After the camp, parents and siblings joined in and we had a super braai together.

A very special vote of thanks must go to Craig who worked really hard to put the logistics together so that we were well-looked after and that the camp was organised with excellence.

Holiday Club Day FIVE

Making a flag

(Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them...)
The security colour of the last day of Holiday Club was "snot green" much to the girl's horror and the boy's delight. But the everyone came wearing luminous shades of green!

Capture the Flag

The last day was loads of fun with colour catchers and rubber band shooting for the memory verse "The Lord is my strength and my song - He has become my salvation. He is my God and I will praise Him" (Exodus 15:2)

Always time for a snuggle!

Then there was the semi-final instalment of "Who's the Mole" featuring the laser security and the capture of Agent Z. Then it was tea and the groups made flags and which depicted all the activities of the week and we played Bingo, followed by "Capture the Flag" which was loads of fun and then group Quiet Times followed by the final session where we saw how God delivered the Israelites through the Red Sea.

After the last praise and worship we closed for the day having being told that the security code for the evening session was "Sunset Amber".

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SpyChief welcomes parents

The evening session started at 7pm and kids arrived in "Sunset Amber" with their parents and grandparents. We had great fun singing and going through all the memories of the week. We saw the last instalment of "Who's the Mole?" which showed how Agent Z had started to read the "Moses Documents" and was thinking about joining Team Mosez!

Everyone singing

We said a big thankyou to everyone who helped - especially the group leaders and Agents X&Y (aka Brenda and Diana) and then finished by singing "If I were a butterfly" and having tea and donuts.

What an awesome Holiday Club!

All praise and Glory to God!

More photos on FaceBook - click here

Parents did the actions too

Wearing Sunset Amber

Memory Verse

Awesome Leaders

For you gave me a heart...

Leaders