Kraaifontein Baptist Church will celebrate its fortieth birthday this year being constituted on 28 June 1972 in Kraaifontein, on the northern outskirts of the greater Cape Town area. The church consists of about forty members with a number of regular adherents. The church has been a middle-of-the-road Baptist church for most of its existence but accepted the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith more than ten years ago and has been reforming ever since. In characterizing the church, one can say that we earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the apostles, striving to walk in holiness and love to our Lord, while preserving the mutual love in the church family. This translates into regular times of corporate worship, midweek Bible studies and fellowship in homes and once a month at church lunches after a Lord’s Day service.
At the end of August 2011, our pastor of eight and a half years, Mark Powell, accepted a call to a church in the USA and we have been without a pastor/elder since. It has been a challenging, but also a blessed time, with the subsequent leadership of the church consisting of the diaconate and the pastoral intern, Gary Isaacs, with Roland Eskinazi of Goodwood Baptist Church acting as an advisory elder in the absence of a pastor. Though we did lose about five members during this time, the Lord kept us safe and has preserved us as a fully functional church while blessing our pulpit with excellent men from the area. A number of men from the Bible Institute have ably supplemented our pulpit, relieving the burden on our pastoral intern and the ministers from the area, which has increased our gratitude and thanksgiving to the Lord.
In addressing the absence of a pastor, a call committee has been formed, which consists of the deacons and three church members. The call committee has been labouring at considering different candidates for the position of pastor and we have experienced our share of disappointments, long hours of reasoning with each other, and searching the will of the Lord on who he wants us to call to pastor our church. We remain ever confident that, in his time, the great Shepherd of the sheep will provide an undershepherd for his flock in Kraaifontein.
FUTURE MINISTRY PLANS
With the focus currently on calling a fulltime pastor, ministry to the lost has suffered, but the Lord has at the same time opened doors in the community. During 2011 two primary schools in the area invited Gary Isaacs to share in a ministry of counselling and assisting some teachers. This gives excellent opportunity to minister to the children and a number of these have been seen at the youth meetings on a Friday evening. The work is currently run solely by Gary and his wife, Ruth, but the desire is for the congregation to own the work and start labouring alongside Gary.
Once a month a couple of volunteers from the church minister to the Shelter, an overnight place of refuge for homeless people. A sermon is preached by any of a number of brothers while the rest give support. This has met with more responses during the last few months and though no confirmed conversions were recorded, a number of “almost there” cases resulted in much thanksgiving.
Recently, one of our dear and respected adherents challenged the church to reach out to the lost men waiting nearby the church for work. We are currently praying that the Lord will show us how to initiate this ministry.
The midweek Bible study is turning out to be a time where the men of the church that so desire, exercise their gifts at leading the Bible study going through the Gospel of Mark. This is something new in the church and is considered a time of training while serving the need in the absence of an elder/pastor.
KEY POINTS FOR PRAYER
Please pray:
- That God will provide us with a pastor, a man after his own heart.
- That he will mould us to be the people of God, fit for the new pastor of God’s choice and fit for Christ’s coming again.
- That our unity and mutual love will be a witness to all that “by this all people will know that [we] are [his] disciples.”
- Thanking and praising the Lord for his faithfulness to KBC and in maintaining a Baptist witness in the Kraaifontein area for forty years.
- For an outward focus while remaining God-centred and Christ-focused.
- That we will fulfil the work that the Lord has ordained for us in reaching the lost of Kraaifontein for him.
Jimmy Meyer
Church Secretary