Chief Apostle Schneider in Silvertown, South Africa. Sunday, 18 December 2016

Impressions from the divine service, as recorded by our social media team. Please note that these are unofficial notes.

Opening hymn: 430 – To Christ the Lord be faithful

Text: Mark 1:2-3

“Behold I send My messenger before your face, Who will prepare Your way before You, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.'”

Chief Apostle Schneider

My very dear brothers and dear sisters here and in all the connected congregations in the different countries, I am aware that it is a very special day and important day in the church because the District Apostle Barnes is going to be retired. We will create a new district church of Southern Africa. So it really is a very historical day for the church here in this part of Africa.

But, I think you will agree, that this is not the most important thing today. The most important thing for God and for us is the preparation of the bride of Christ. Because we are waiting for the return of Christ and we want to be prepared for his return. And that is what really matters, that is the most important thing.

May I add something, to God something more is important, that is you, you my brother you my sister, your concerns, your pain, your joy, your wishes, your faults. They matter for God. He is not only interested in but He wants to help you. He wants to heal you. He wants to comfort you. He wants you to be joyful and to be strong. You are very important to God. Whatever you did, God loves you because you are His beloved child.

God wanted to send the Saviour, His son, on earth and he sent John the Baptist to prepare the way or as it says here, to make the way straight for the Lord. Why? Because the faithful Jews, they waited for the Saviour, but they had their own idea about the mission of the Saviour. The faithful ones. They waited for the Saviour to be the successor of the King David. To restore the glory of the kingdom of Israel, and hence to deliver from the domination of the Romans. So that was what the faithful Jews was waiting for, that was God’s promise, David will have a successor and He will restore the kingdom of Israel and deliver them.

But that was the earthly understanding and then John the Baptist had to explain. The Saviour will come but His purpose is a different one He wants to save you from the domination of sin, to deliver you from the power of evil, that’s the mission of the Saviour. And we have to prepare his arrival, we have to prepare His coming in being repentant we have to recognize that we are sinners and we need to be saved, we need to be redeemed. We have to renounce sin, to remove sin, and to change our mind, and to come to God. That was, roughly said, the mission, of John the Baptist to explain how to receive the Saviour. That He didn’t come to save them from the domination of the Romans, and to restore the kingdom of David in the way they understood it, He wanted to deliver them from sin and evil and for that they had to do something they had to be repentant to recognize their sins, to remove from sin to come to God to change their mind

What applied for the people in that time, applies for us too, our God want to save us He wants to save us from the domination of evil from the domination and the power of sin. That is God’s will. That is what God wants to do with each and everyone of us.

But we have to prepare the way for him and to make the way straight that means we have to remove all the obstacles that could hinder God to save us, I know saying that it sounds strange. Because you think, Hey! What could hinder God to save me? He is the Almighty One. Nobody has more power than God. So what’s the matter with you? If you say we have to prepare the way of the Saviour. To remove the obstacles that can hinder Him? He is the Almighty One. Nobody can hinder him to do something when He wants to do something.

Yes and No, because God is faithful and he respects his own law, and when he created man he gave man freedom. He created man and gave him the ability to make free decisions and free choices and that’s a basic rule for God. That was His will , man is free he has the ability to do free choices. And that’s the only obstacle actually that can hinder God from saving us. Our own will. He won’t save us against our will. And the key of the thing, God wants to save us but we have to make the path straight, we have to remove all the obstacles that could hinder Him. And the only obstacle is our own will.

So to be able to be saved, we have, as John said, to be repentant. God saved us through the Holy Baptism. He delivered us from the domination of the evil from sin, in every service He wants to deliver us through forgiveness of sins. But for that we have to do something, to be baptized one need to have the will to renounce sin and to overcome evil. That’s the principle of the baptism, God saves you, but you have to be willing to say I renounce sin I renounce the evil I want to overcome evil. The same applies for forgiveness of sins that’s an ongoing process, salvation is an ongoing process, and to make sure that God can save us we have to be willing, we have to have this strong determination. We want to renounce sin and to overcome evil.

What about our determination today brothers and sisters? Are we still really willing to overcome evil and to renounce sin? It may happen that we change a little bit our mind and thinking, oh that sin isn’t that serious especially when I consider my situation and the environment I live in, you have to admit that sin considering all these things. That sin is not that serious. And look we are close to make an arrangement with evil, we are close to compromise, and that doesn’t work. Then there is an obstacle in our salvation. Please brothers and sisters. Let us be firm in our determination. We do want to overcome evil and we do want to renounce sin. All sin, not just the big visible ones. All sin. Jesus wants to save us in leading us into his kingdom. And when we are in His kingdom, we will be definitely delivered from all pain and suffering and injustice, all the things we have to deal with today. That’s the ultimate salvation. Jesus wants to lead us into his kingdom, but again we have to make the way straight we have to remove the obstacles. But that kind of obstacle that’s the old Adam, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, we have to overcome him and to become a new creature in Christ, to become the image of Christ and for that we have to denounce all our thoughts and all our opinions that do not match with those of Jesus, and all of us we know by experience that is not always easy.

We have our thoughts our opinions and then we are told, Yes, but Jesus sees the thing in another way and then we have to denounce our own opinion our own idea to match with the ones of Jesus. It’s not that easy but it’s necessary, the old Adam is an obstacle on our way to salvation, let us make the way straight for our salvation. Let us be willing to renounce sin, to overcome evil and to overcome the old Adam. That’s the main part of the salvation, but, Ok, Jesus also wants to come to us to serve us in the divine service. And in the divine service, He needs us also to prepare His way, and to remove all the obstacles that could hinder him to serve us during the service.

The first thing we need to do to prepare for the service, you know that, we have to sanctify ourselves and to tidy our heart. To put all things in their place and to respect the priorities. For sure and all of us we do that we can come to our Heavenly Father and telling him all our concerns, our pains, our wishes, related to our life, related to our family, our children, grandchildren, our wife, our husband and that’s absolutely normal ok, and our Father wants us to do that. Nevertheless it’s important that we sanctify ourselves before coming to service, setting our priorities, and telling God, You know what my concerns my wishes, but you know the most important for me, I do want to remain faithful until the end, I do want to enter Your kingdom, that’s priority number one. All the other things are very important to me, but that’s the most important thing. That’s our job, no one will do it for us. We have to do it. We have to prepare the way and to do the cleaning in our hearts and set our priorities, to make the way straight.

Another point, oh we know God wants to serve us in the divine service, but he will use human beings for that.

We have to prepare the way removing all the obstacles that could hinder this experience. What should we do? We should gather together in Jesus name. We have to be aware now I am with my brother, with my sister, with the members of our congregation and as Jesus died for me He died for my neighbor this is really something very important to me and I would like to be sure that everytime  the congregation gathers everyone is aware of that. You see you brother you see your sister, they are very different. They are what they are. To make it short, they are just what they are, but never forget that Jesus died for them. That’s the value that they have in Jesus eyes, He died for them, they were so important to Him. And if we are aware of that, then we gather together in a very special manner. Being aware of the value of this gathering ‘he is so important to Jesus that he died for him’ then I cannot see him just as a sinner, just as a strange person. We have to remove all obstacles so that we can experience the presence of Jesus in our fellowship. We have to solve our problems and to reconcile. God won’t do that for us. It would be nice every time there is a problem in the congregation we call on God, oh! Dear Heavenly Father, can you come and solve this. It would be nice, but I tell you it doesn’t work, He doesn’t come. He wants us to solve our problems together and to reconcile. That’s our task that’s the obstacles we make, and he wants us to remove these obstacles, and when it is solved then He will come. So let us be aware of that. We want to experience the presence of Jesus in our meetings, when the congregation gathers for whatever purpose, but we He cannot do it if we don’t gather in the name of Jesus Christ, being aware, he (my brother) has been saved by Jesus as I have been saved by Jesus, and we have to do the step to reconciliation for solving our problems.

Jesus wants also to save our neighbor and he would like us to prepare the way, also to remove the obstacles that can hinder the neighbor to be saved by Jesus, that’s also our task. We can prepare the way for our neighbor to be saved by Jesus, in preaching the gospel, not just by words but also by our conduct. “Let our conduct be worthy of the gospel” said the Apostle Paul. We want our conduct to be worthy of the gospel. That’s a wonderful way to prepare the way of Jesus. Today many people pretend that it’s no longer possible to act according to the gospel. We have prepare the way of the Saviour just showing them it’s absolutely possible, it’s not easy but with God’s help we can do it. And we can live according to the gospel and have a conduct that is worthy of the gospel. That is the way we can remove this obstacle of all this people saying it’s no longer possible in our world or if you would know the situation in our region in our country. It is possible, we will show you that with God’s help we can do it. We apply the gospel.

We want the people to recognize that here is the work of God where living  apostles are preparing the bride to be saved. How can we convince people that here, it is the work of God? Where living apostles are preparing that? We can try to convince them showing them how big our churches are, how many members we have. I’m not sure that that is very convincing. Jesus gave us one solution, if you love each other they will know that you are really my disciples, that is the solution, if you love each other they will see at you are really my disciples. The unity of God’s people, we don’t pretend that the New Apostolic Christians are perfect, and we do not want to lie and say oh in our church everything is perfect. But, the way we forgive each other, the way we love each other the way we overcome our differences, that’s the sign that here it is God’s work. And I urge God’s children also in this country, let us prove that here it is the work of God, in forgiving each other, in loving each other, in overcoming all our differences. Doing that we are blessed by Jesus and we will be a blessing for our neighbour, because we have prepared the way for the savior to save him and we will be a blessing for this country. Let us prepare the way for the Saviour.

And the last point, a very practical one. Jesus had his disciples and he wanted them to prepare the way even in a very simple manner. He asked them’ go and buy some food because we need to eat’ He wanted to celebrate the feast of the Passover He said to them ‘OK go and prepare the place so that we can have the feast of the Passover’ so they had to do something very practical, that is also preparing the way of the Saviour and removing all the obstacles, making the way straight.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, and that’s the fifth and the last point. Let us make the way straight for the Savior so that he can work his work of salvation in helping in a practical manner. That concerns our offerings, that concerns our commitment in the congregations, all we can do to help the savior to save in His work of salvation. It is very practical but it is needed too. That is the way we want to prepare the way of our Saviour and doing that we will be saved and it’s our wish that as many as possible, our neighbors, are saved.

Amen.

So I was announcing the retirement of your District Apostle, and Ja I think it will be nice if he is the first one that is called up and we listen to harp and flute.

District Apostle Noel Barnes

My Dear Brothers and Dear Sisters dear friends, our Chief apostle has again as always made what sounded complicated when he read it out the text word he has made it very simple and put in our everyday language and explained exactly what is  required to keep it straight, that is for us a task, not only as a servant but as a child of God.

The Lord God has always had a wonderful relationship with the crown of His creation and that is us, human beings. It was always His objective to have this absolute direct connection, and as time went by and we know from history, things happened that disturbed this connection and then he brought in other interventions. He sent us His son, Jesus. In order to fix up, if I may use that term, what went wrong in his direct connection with Adam and Eve in the beginning. And Jesus He was so great in His example and his life that it almost seems impossible for us to do as He did. And it is a high standard that He set and He did make allowance for us, and the allowance we find in His grace that He gave us.

Through the grace of our Saviour and we can add through the grace of God, we can do what has been explained to us here today. To resist temptation to do the will of the Father dear brothers and sisters in theory it sounds as if it’s impossible, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, with the worthy partaking of Holy Communion, through the forgiveness of sins, we can do this. And when we do fail, and when we do make mistakes, the Lords grace is there to cover us, always has been in the past and always will be. And today I again thought of how loving the Lord is for us that He provides the right word at the right time. That we do not have any reason to doubt Him and even if circumstances appear so, and even as we heard, we are served by human beings who are not perfect, who strive for perfection, certainly. Who sanctify themselves, but remain imperfect, and through this we have to battle.

Let us remember one thing, let us never ever find anything wrong with God. We may be able to find something wrong with our bearer of blessing, not maybe, I’m sure we will but, with God we will never find anything wrong because God’s love is perfect and He’s love is perfect because He cares for all of us and if he cares for all of us, and cares for me, and cared for me, and will care for me in the future, then we are all eligible and able to lay claim to His care and to His love and should have no fear of the future. But we may simply come to a conclusion, by being thankful for what he has done what he does for us today. And I think the greatest of all lies in our thankfulness for what He will do for us, what He will do for us in His Kingdom.

Dear brothers and dear sisters we have often heard in the divine service, the eternity will be too short to thank him for what he has done for us, when we find ourselves in His kingdom. But before we reach that kingdom, Let it also be so that the time is too short to thank Him for what He will do for us through the guidance of his sprit, through the leadership in His church, and that at the end, and this is what is decisive , when the Saviour comes as certainly as he came after the paths were made straight for him, as certainly as He appeared so he will appear again.

Amen!

So we are thankful for these thoughts out of the heart of a senior District Apostle, today I can say it. Now I also invited for this special service, all the District Apostles and helpers from Africa. And which one can I call up, oh Ja I make it easy. Let’s call the youngest one. That’s the District Apostle Tshisekedi from Congo, and we could sing together, to prepare his way.

District Apostle Tshisekedi from Congo

My Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am really thankful to our Chief Apostle at the beginning of this divine service. He puts in our hearts the peace and the most important things for us like the children of God. Because I know change can also bring stress, and we need to be consecrated to the work of the bride of Christ and at a central point of this work is our salvation. Sometimes, when I have the time to discuss with the people in my country about the change. I ask them why are you afraid of that? What’s wrong? What’s happened? They say oh I don’t know how it will be in the future, with the new man, we don’t know what happened with the old or former one. Then I have just one answer, I say man can change but the Christ remains the same. I will be afraid if the Chief Apostle can say this morning we had an older Christ, now we need to have a new one or a younger one. But if it is the same Christ in the past and will be the same one in the future for me, nothing change. Then I will remain the same, prepare my salvation, and grow stronger to my Jesus Christ.  

Now when I listen to my Chief Apostle this morning, I’m really a lazy man, I can say oh Chief, it’s really difficult for me, remove the obstacle? I’m tired, it’s so heavy, it is very high, it is so difficult I can’t do it. But I remember what I learnt from my driver, when we went far in the bush of Congo, sometimes when we go back after the divine service, there is no road because after raining all the sands from the hills comes down and just near you is river and on the other side, there isn’t another way. What we need to do? One of the first things I can say is, I prefer to go back, no it’s not a good decision to go back, we need to go to go and complete your work and complete your task. Then my driver told me, oh don’t worry, we will find how to create a small way. But where? There, in the obstacle we need to find a way then we try to find the way and go , this means you have to overcome, we need to say. Oh Chief Apostle can you show us the short cuts? Which one will be easy? Which one will be better? Or is it just impossible for us to do it. No we need to overcome, just find a small road within this big obstacle so we can go on the other side. For me to create this small one, is just to put away my own opinion, I need to put away my own knowledge I would like to put away my own will, I would like to put away my own position, and accept what Jesus Christ ask me to do to be really a Bride of  Him. Then our Lord Bless us.

Amen!

Chief Apostle Schneider

So that was Congo, now we talked about the new man, and I’m sure he was inspired by the spirit, and the spirit told me you should call up the new man now. Don’t you think so? I think so. And we can listen to the male choir and the baritone please.

Male Choir: “Like men that wait”

District Apostle Helper John Kriel

My Dear Brothers and Dear Sisters what a powerful message we receive today and it is so good that after every divine service Chief Apostle makes it so clear, we have work to do. So we have to go and do that.

While he served us our thought when Lazarus was raised from the dead, that was a big job which Jesus did, but before he did that he asked, “Who will roll away the stone?” Somebody had to do that. And I think it would’ve been easier to roll away the stone than to bring him back to life. But somebody had to do that, so that Jesus could do what He needed to do. And while Chief Apostle served us I thought how often are we busy with the work that is actually God’s work? We want to change our neighbour, we want to change all the things that has happened. We want to change decisions here and there, that is God’s work. Leave that to God. And He will not hesitate to do that.

What is our work? and that became clear, our work is to make the path straight, our work is to remove the obstacles, and the obstacles often was made by ourselves anyway. You know often God didn’t put it there. It’s our own. We put it there, so come let’s remove it and under the serving, I thought, I don’t think any of us can say I’ve got nothing to do, we all have work to do, We all have to do that so that we can have the maximum blessing. Chief Apostle spoke about our sanctification for divine service. And I remembered and old priest that told us, when we were still in Sunday school, that we must bring our lamps to the Lord. But if it’s filled with a lot of dirt, you’re not going to get a lot of oil and the lamp won’t but for very long. So the sanctification process is the emptying out of that which does not belong within our heart and when we do that, there is so much more capacity for the Lord to do and for this wonderful work that He has begun.

Amen!

Chief Apostle Schneider

Dear brothers and sisters, today also we have the grace to celebrate Holy Communion. Communion, Jesus wants to have fellowship with us. Or, to give an image, He wants to enter our heart. To have fellowship with us, but here also, we have to make the way straight and to prepare this way. And one part of this preparation is we have to forgive our neighbor. That’s our task as the Apostles, to always tell people, please forgive your neighbour.

Brothers and Sisters, we are also human beings and during soul care, we are aware that in many cases it’s not easy at all to forgive. When one has to go through awful situations, it is easy to say “you have to forgive ” But to forgive, seems just to be impossible. So it’s not a threat, Jesus doesn’t threaten us. ‘If you don’t forgive!’ But He wants us to be willing to forgive. Remember the will, the free decision, the rest God will help. But we have to be willing. And how can we strengthen this will to forgive our neighbor? Just becoming aware that we want to be saved.

You know sometimes when someone is in very difficult situations, ‘oh please help me, I will do whatever you ask me to do, but please save me’ That is exactly the case when it comes to forgiveness of sins. Only Jesus can forgive and when we are aware of that without forgiveness we cannot be saved. We need to be forgiven then we say to Jesus ‘ save me, and will do what you want,’ and He says ‘Ok, I would like you to forgive your neighbour’. The apostle says, we are thankful for what God has done and what He will do for us, that was the message of the District Apostle. And my dear Brothers and Sisters, that’s also motivation to forgive, knowing that it’s really the wish of Jesus that, to forgive our neighbour. And out of thankfulness we are ready to do that. And don’t forget out purpose our goal is to become like Jesus, and for me that’s the main point. It is very difficult for us, don’t you think so? To have our idea our opinion about our neighbor knowing that Jesus thinks quite the contrary, if we have this wish, ‘I would like to have fellowship with Jesus, I want to be one with him, So I have to change my mind and to renounce my faults also about my neighbor and to adopt the thoughts and opinions of Jesus about my neighbour’

I tell you, that is my motivation, because we suffer so often, because I realize, my thoughts, are not yet the thoughts of Jesus, and I would like to be one with Him. Oh for sure it costs something, but when I consider my neighbour, I know exactly what Jesus thinks about him, and I realize I do not agree with Jesus. If we love Jesus, if we want to become like Him, it’s a suffering when we realize our thoughts are not Jesus thoughts and then we want to change our minds about our neighbor, and that is very helpful to forgive him.

To prepare ourselves for Holy Communion, let us sing together verse one of the hymn 281.

We want to stand up and pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Holy communion:

1. Hymnal 365 – Come Everyone and Join our song
2. Hymnal 561 – The first Nowell

Preparation for serving of the departed. 

Chief Apostle Schneider

My dear brothers and sisters we have this grace to know out of our faith that our beloved ones from the yonder world are here, they share the experience this divine service with us and they are longing as we were longing for celebrating holy communion having this communion with our Lord Jesus Christ .

We think of all those who worked before us and they prepared the way for our salvation we don’t even know them. For sure we think about the District apostles and Apostles the Rectors and the Brothers in the yonder world. We have no idea how many brothers and sisters worked and prayed to prepare the way of the savior here in South Africa in Mozambique, Madagascar, Namibia, all the countries. There were so many who worked, who brought sacrifices, who prepared the way so that the Saviour can save us. And we are so thankful for that.

Some couldn’t make it to remain faithful until the end. And it happened here as well as elsewhere on earth, that they left the church because they have been disappointed, because of human weaknesses in the church. Maybe our weaknesses the weaknesses of our forefathers, that doesn’t matter, Jesus wants to save them, they are our brothers and sisters and we want also to remove the last obstacles that hinders them to come and have fellowship with the Lord. We cannot repair the past, but we beg their pardon and we apologize for all the things that were not right that happened in the recent past or far away in the past. Because all of us are human beings and we are sinners, and from time to time it happens that somebody somewhere did something wrong. And it really comes out of the bottom of our hearts, we beg their pardon, we apologized, and we pray for them please come we welcome you at the altar of Jesus Christ. He is waiting for you. Maybe you can make it today, this last step to receive again Holy Communion through the living apostles and so enter the real fellowship with Jesus Christ. We invite them out of the bottom of our hearts.

To prepare this we sing together verse 3 of the hymn 386 – O love the golden sunshine bright.

And now listen to this godly call, Jesus Christ invites you, come all of you come and receive what I lay in the hands and the hearts of these apostles of Jesus Christ. The body and the blood of Jesus Christ is given for each one of you. For your salvation, for eternal life for the joy in Christ and for our eternal fellowship with God. Amen.

Bassoon solo

Chief Apostle Schneider

Now Ja, brothers and sisters, it was announced and now I have to act. Dear District Apostle, if you still agree to be retired, you can join me.

District Apostle Barnes runs up to the altar and says – ‘Before you change your mind’

My dear District Apostle, I must say it is not that easy for me to do this, and to be honest I stand in front of you with a deep respect, because you have such a long career. And you have been doing 30 years an Apostle, and 20 years a District Apostle. And you have been, I must say, a true servant of God and a faithful Apostle of Jesus Christ. It’s just impossible to summarize all things and we want to make it short, but I’ve always admired, and I’ not the only one, your deep faith. You believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in His gospel that’s the truth, you believe in his return and you trust and you believe that He is love. One could feel that looking at you. And you prove your faith. Also, when sometimes in your life, you couldn’t understand God’s decision. But out of your faith came this trust in God, and you followed Jesus, going on serving Him out of faith and of love.

A truly faithful man, a man of deep faith. I liked, and I’m not the only one, the way you served the Lord. Because you served the Lord with zeal and enthusiasm, and this enthusiasm was contagious. And the way you served the Lord, with joy with zeal, being enthusiastic about God’s work, that helped you to have always have more ideas. It was always your motto, we can do we should do, we have to do more and better. And you were successful in this, you had also always new thoughts to help the work of God to go forward. And I cannot quote examples all of you, all of you know him better. But this enthusiasm for Jesus Christ and his work that was something great. And then I must say, God has provided you with so many gifts and talents that one could be jealous. And you understood it to use these talents and gifts just to serve God, not your own glory, just to make God be great in our heart and in His work, and we are really thankful for it.

We thank you for your service and your work, we thank your wife and your family for their sacrifices and their willingness to help you and to support you, we don’t forget your late wife in the yonder world, we send a thought there, she has to know that we do not forget here and we are thankful for her sacrifices, may she have full joy in the yonder world. We thank you family , Miriam and the whole family, for what they did. I will tell her later.

We thank you also, and here I’m the spokesman of the Apostles and especially of the Chief Apostles. We thank you for your help in the leadership of the church, you were a wonderful coworker for all the Chief Apostles you worked with, helping them and bringing input in our meetings to help us to lead the church in Gods manner and in Gods way. Thank you for that, and thank you for your friendship, it’s just great to be your brother and your friend. And I really appreciate it. I make it short.

Thank you out of the bottom of our heart. My dear District Apostle, herewith I relieve you from your mandate as an active District Apostle, and from this day on as the leader of this district church. And I place you into retirement, you will remain our Apostle our District  Apostle our brother, and I do not remove all of the gifts you’ve  received, use it in another manner but please keep on serving God, I trust you. We thank you out of the bottom of our heart and we wish you and promise you God’s blessing may you be full of joy in your congregation and experience the love of God each and everyday. Thanks a lot!

As an exception you can remain besides the altar as a retired District Apostle.

I feel the need to give some explanation for what is going to happening now. You know that we are merging the two District Apostle Areas of Cape Town and Johannesburg with all the related countries. And oh I know there are questions ‘why does he do that??’ My answer is another question, ‘why not?’ We are in charge in the circle of the District Apostles and especially in the Chief Apostle, we’re in charge of the leadership of the church, of the strategy of the church and it’s very safe and healthy when from time to time we ask ourselves, why? Why in that way and not another way? For instance why are there two district churches in South Africa? Then the first reason was we can say, Ja because of the size, otherwise it’s too big, but that’s no longer relevant because in Africa we have much bigger district churches and they work retry well, I tell you. So the size is not longer relevant. Then one could say, Ja, for historical reasons, that’s always interesting, but let’s look at this reasons, and then we discover that from a New Apostolic point of view, they are no longer relevant.

Then others could say there are two district churches because there are two district apostles. We always preach and teach that we are just servants of our Lord and master Jesus Christ, and as a servant we do what Jesus tells us to do , when he says go there, we go there, when he says do this we do this. So also a District Apostle is a servant of God and he follows what the Master say and I am very thankful I tell him later again, that District Apostle Mkhwanazi, sees it that way. I am a servant of God I will do what the Lord ask me to do, so the argument that there are two district apostles cannot hinder us to change we are just servants we do whatever the lord asks us to do.

So why you do it now, because you know I have seen the costs of the administration, becomes very high, that is worldwide we are concerned with that so we have to keep an eye on it.  And that is also my job as Chief Apostle to make sure that the offerings of our members are spent in the most efficient manner and maybe it makes no sense to pay double for things that we could pay once. In the last time, for many reasons, it was two big parts of the offerings of our brothers and sisters in Johannesburg that was spent, just to cover the cost of the administration. So we had to do something. And that’s the other reason, because we want to use the offerings of our members in the best manner, and now we’ve decided that the building in Johannesburg, we can use this money for our members, that makes sense. These are a few reasons, because we do that and I want to say again, it’s not the District Church of Cape Town that absorbs the District Church of Johannesburg, that would be silly. It is not the case. We are creating something new. A new district church, it’s not one that eats the other, it is a new one that is born today and that is very important for me. Now one could say, ‘Ja this is just a speech’ You will see it, I promise you, you will see that something new. Ok that’s a few explanation, now I ask our two brothers, District Apostle Mkhwanazi and the District Apostle Helper Kriel to join me.

So my dear brothers, everything was said and we had enough discussion I can make it short again, and I just want to wish you and to promise you God’s blessing in this special task you get today I know that you will be supported by your brothers and sisters and I got many may signs of our brothers and sisters they will support you and the most important thing, God is with you. Don’t fear just do what your masters tell you to do in oneness with the chief apostle and you will be blessed and you will be a source of blessing for all the children of God here in South Africa but also in all the countries who are served from here. The blessing will increase.

Ordination of District Apostle John Kriel

Closing Prayer

Choir: After divine service hymn – “A Happy Bride”

End

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