Every Sunday evening a steady stream of young adults heads toward Victoria Girls’ High School on the corner of Beaufort and Somerset streets. As they pass through the open gate of the wrought-iron fence, each person is greeted by three smiling youths and the sounds of rock music, accompanied by hundreds of voices.
Every Sunday evening a steady stream of young adults heads toward Victoria Girls’ High School on the corner of Beaufort and Somerset streets. As they pass through the open gate of the wrought-iron fence, each person is greeted by three smiling youths and the sounds of rock music, accompanied by hundreds of voices.
Inside the school hall are some 250 people representing all the colours of South Africa’s rainbow. This is the His People Christian Church Sunday youth service.
The congregation joyously sings along to words projected onto the sloping ceiling of the hall. On the stage, the church band accompanied by five back-up singers plays a fairly catchy, if repetitive, tune. Some dance, others jubilantly call out ‘amens’ or ‘hallelujahs’.
Around 15 minutes later the tempo slows and the music comes to an end. A man in his 30s, surely the oldest person in the hall, stands in front and shouts: “Let’s give God a standing ovation.” Everyone claps.
After the blessing, everyone greets and introduces themselves to the people around them. Even I, trying to be inconspicuous in the back am not immune: a young man named Tim shakes my hand and introduces himself. A thought enters my mind: “Maybe God’s grace really is present.”
Then comes the announcement of ‘tithes and offerings’ and a listing of future church camps, meetings and conferences. The price of each is listed on the overhead projector. The ‘Engage 2020’ programme, for example, costs R500 and “What’s R500?” asks church Elder Lester Bhana.
The collection is for the day to day operations of the church and its few community outreach programmes.
But the primary use is to the spread the church itself–planting new churches and converting people. The church’s website states that it has a “divine mandate” to transform societies by converting people to Christianity.
Our God is the sovereign ruler of the universe and His Kingdom is destined to invade every nation, every people, group and every redeemable institution on Earth,” it states. Therefore our primary activity is to transform society by making disciples.”
And who better to spearhead this ‘invasion’ than university students, some of whom will be the future leaders of our country?
To this end, the church encourages members to bring friends to pizza evenings for games and religious discussions. It also runs “mini-missions” twice weekly where members go on campus to engage students in spiritual conversations.
Their tactics seem to work. Founded in 1988 by Paul and Jenny Daniel at the University of Cape Town, His People spread like wildfire throughout South Africa, coming to Grahamstown in 1992 and now boasting 500 members. In late 2000, it fell under the umbrella of the Every Nation Church organisation which has over 400 churches worldwide and is growing.
Back at the Sunday Youth service, four young people bear witness to the how church camps changed their lives. They tell tales of a lack of direction, of floating on the currents of life. And then new-found purpose. One talks of the love and acceptance he felt from the people on the camp and attributes this goodwill to the mysterious “grace of God”. Two other speakers echo this sentiment: at the camp they felt secure, they found “direction”.
But one formerly lost soul stood out. A short woman in her mid 20s who was a successful Rhodes Honours student, suddenly failed. She was devastated. Her pain was clear. Then she explained that in her despair she realised she had failed because she had not put God first.
“If you don’t put God first he will break everything you have until you have only him,” she said.
“Amen!” said the voices in the crowd.
The God, who loves her and whom she loves, had destroyed everything she had dreamed of becoming. And she was grateful.
Asking Tim what he made of this, he explained, “God is a jealous God, He is jealous for our love.
