New Year’s musing, Tuesday pm, 10 January 2012.
Dear KVC,
Happy New Year to you all. We pray that this year will be one of supreme blessing to us all. Come Lord Jesus, Come Holy Spirit! Give us a taste of heaven on this side of eternity.
Today sees us start the working year with two new staff members. Sisa (thanks to the generosity of Ikhaya and Oslo Vineyard) starts at Imizamo Yethu today. Sisa is currently staying in the flat attached to our home, but will probably (in time) need to find accommodation within the community at Imizamo. Welcome aboard Sisa, we wish you a long and blessed stay with KVC and Imizamo Yethu.
Rebecca has taken up her post as Church secretary / administrator and has, in a few short hours, already made inroads into making this inhospitable space more hospitable (: As with Sisa we wish her every success and blessing on staff, as well as fulfillment in her further studies.
2011 in hindsight
2011 Was, from a personal space, a very difficult one for me emotionally, with the death of two close friends in Simon van Niekerk and Malcolm Bates. I guess one of the realities of one’s mates going to be with Jesus is that it reminds you of your own mortality. At 49 I’m only now starting to realize that I won’t be running out on Newlands next Saturday, or indeed in this life time again! I’ve realized it, but now I have to make peace with it, which is a bit different. Please don’t expect me to be more serious though, because that will not be happening anytime soon! Please bear with me (:
On the family front things have stabilized for us substantially since March 2011. Anida is very happy in her career, and the kids are at various stages of their studies. Simone goes into her second year at Stellenbosch University, Marie’ has finished a certificate course at City Varsity and is now enrolling to do a B. Ed in foundational phase, and Emma goes into her final (Grade 7) year at Sweet Valley primary.
From a KVC perspective 2011, was a mixed bag with much more good than bad and no ugly.
Our church has grown steadily over the past 23 months, with a total of 46 regulars being added to our ranks and around 17 (as I count it) who have moved on from KVC. Some have moved due to transfer or relocation and some have moved because their season at KVC has come to a close.
The church is in steady growth phase. It is heart- warming to see some who had moved away for a time, back in the community. We have long felt that KVC will be a place where ‘exiles’ (not just from our movement, but from the church collectively) will find a home.
Points of significant growth during 2011
1. Worship under Rebecca’s leadership
2. The Men’s camp under Andy’s guidance
3. Ladies Camp, organized by Thy, Lecia and Marike
4. Ministry time in church
5. The continuation and stabilizing of ‘Healing on the Streets.’ We are chuffed that Rebecca and team have seen this ministry through and continue to push into it
6. Counselling, under Lindi’s guidance
7. The growth of relationship between Ikhaya and KVC, seen most visibly at the Ikhaya Sunday in Imizamo
8. Continued Vineyard visiting teams from abroad with SW London coming in 2011
9. Continued outward ministry trips – in 2011 the J. Bay trip was a highlight
10. Stabilizing of the small groups in the church under Barbara and Brian’s guidance
11. The great attendance of both Pat’s gifting workshop and the Healing Rooms seminar
12. The two ‘prayer and fasting’ weeks, although, to be honest, we lost momentum with the second one. It wasn’t as well advertised, or pushed as hard as the first one and it showed! We need to continue to encourage Urshi and the Gowie’s for the intercession that has gone on quietly (and not so quietly) over the past few years. It is your faithfulness that has seen the prayer temperature rise at KVC
13. The beginnings of a Conspiracy of kindness initiative
14. The ongoing benevolent ministry of ‘sharing love’ which Ken and Jan have so ably taken over from Kees and Henny
15. Two New Member’s Orientation courses
16. The new – and now with Rebecca on board – regularly to be updated Website!
17. The three great social / fundraising events in the two Barnyard evenings and the inaugural golf day. Thanks to Bev and Pat and Arlene for their involvement
Areas we need to look to in terms of improvement and focus
1. I would like to see some movement in the social justice initiative during 2012. Yolanda started this initiative in 2011, which turned out to be a year in which she was heavily snowed under workwise. It’s the kind of ministry that will involve a lot of talking and brainstorming before anything concrete necessarily takes shape. I urge those of you with a heart for transformation to come alongside Yolanda and Sean in 2012. This forum is the heartbeat of our outward mission.
2. Income, finances and fund raising. We will be setting up a fund raising team, separate from LT and ST.
3. The forming of a separate finance team (separate from leadership but with representation on it) in order to bring us in line with Vineyard praxis.
4. Our constitution needs to be revisited. It is old and dated. I am beginning to make work of this. Obviously the principles and praxis, and Vineyard values remain the same and all changes need to be brought to the church; but I will be making work of ‘reworking’ the constitution for open discussion. Fortunately quite a lot of this work has already been done in the merger between City Vineyard and CBUC
5. The office and administration – starting with a bang!
6. The fine tuning of Sundays, particularly in the absence of myself and Andy.
7. Inventory and upgrade of church house in the uncertainty surrounding any kind of move for us.
Things we need to diarize for the first quarter of 2012 – please check out the attached Year Planner for 2012
i. Alpha – starting in Feb!!!
ii. New Member’s Orientation
iii. Catalyst camp
iv. LT/ST Meeting
To end this opening salvo…some education for us all:
With Rebecca now being on staff, as well as continuing to hold her current portfolios on leadership, worship and HOTS, please don’t inundate her with requests for appointments, complaints, suggestions or anything else on Sundays. We would like her to be able to have a worship experience on a Sunday.
As a request, it would be well appreciated if Tuesdays and Wednesday afternoons could be specifically ‘office phoning slots’ to set up appointments and so on. Wednesday mornings will be taken up by staff meetings (now that we have a staff!) and prayer. The prayer slot will move from 10.00 till 11.00 so that anyone who wants to and is free to can join the staff after their weekly meeting for prayer.
This is all very exciting!
Agape
Melt
Socialize with Us