After the central AVT divine service on Sunday 01 January 2023, District Apostle J Kriel gave the members of NAC-SA updates on the following topics:

-Organised activities

-Sunday School

-Confirmands

-Marriage preparation & counselling

-Safeguarding policy

-Masakhe Foundation

-Burial

-Electronic offering

-Streaming of divine services

-Maintenance of church buildings

-Pentecost 2023

Dear brothers and sisters,

Firstly, I would like to use the opportunity to thank you for your labours, sacrifices and offerings made during 2022. Your efforts in continuing to ensure that the congregation remains a haven of joy are sincerely appreciated.

Furthermore, please note the following points relating to our working area:

FAMILY TIME – ORGANIZED CHURCH ACTIVITIES

As you are aware, the organized church activities closed on 13 December 2022 and will reopen on Monday 23 January 2023. Please use this time to spend quality time with your family.

SUNDAY SCHOOL

A new international curriculum for Sunday School 1 to 4 will be introduced this year and for the first time this curriculum has been translated from English into 6 additional local languages so that our children can enjoy these new lessons in their mother tongue: The workbooks are now available in:

• English
• Afrikaans
• IsiXhosa
• IsiZulu
• Silozi
• Sesotho
• Setswana

We wish to express our sincere appreciation to those who spent many hours translating the workbooks for our young children.

Reflecting on the past year’s numbers to register our children for 2023, these have been very low thus far, and this fills us all with deep concern. We appeal to all the parents to please register your children for Sunday School. Please use the additional opportunity to register your children for Sunday School on Sunday 22nd January and Sunday 29th January 2023.

Of course, your children’s attendance to Sunday School is of even greater importance. The Sunday School teachers are there to support you in your responsibilities as parents by building the gospel into the hearts of your children. Please help them by ensuring that your children are indeed present for Sunday School lessons.

CONFIRMANDS

We wish our Confirmands for 2023 much blessing in their final preparations for the great day that stands ahead of them. Confirmation services will take place on Sunday 5th February 2023 in all congregations. May the fullness of God’s blessing be experienced by each one of you on this special day where you commit yourselves to God.

MARRIAGE PREPARATION AND COUNSELLING

The church has recognised the need to help better prepare wedding couples for their natural lifelong commitment and therefore developed a marriage preparation programme. Such a preparation programme serves to support the all-important spiritual preparation usually done by a minister with the prospective couple ahead of their special day of matrimonial blessing.

This marriage preparation course deals with topics such as self-image, communication, conflict, parenthood, and finances to name a few.

Our marriage preparation counsellors have also been trained by FAMSA to assist those experiencing marital challenges.

Each Apostle area has a trained marriage counsellor to facilitate these programmes.

For further information, please contact your local Rector.

SAFEGUARDING POLICY

We have recently extended the safeguarding committee’s footprint beyond South Africa to now include Botswana and Namibia and are working to expand this to more territories across our working area soon.

It’s important to emphasize that any forms of abuse will not be tolerated within our church organization, and we strongly encourage you to report matters pertaining to this to the safeguarding committee without delay in line with our sexual misconduct policy. For further information on the safeguarding committee, please visit our NACSA website.

MASAKHE FOUNDATION

The Masakhe Foundation, which is the independent charity arm of the Church, continues to do important work within our communities, helping to alleviate the suffering of so many. They are always in need of donations and volunteers, and we want to encourage you all to please support them in this regard. For further details please visit their website.

One of the further benefits of the Church is that all members may join the NAC Burial Fund, which is independently operated. It’s important to note that the Church continues to subsidize the burial premiums of its burial members, despite the current tough economic conditions we are currently experiencing, all in an effort to limit large annual premium increases as best as possible. With that said, the premium for 2023/2024 will be increased by R50 to R600 for the year.

The due date for payment of the new premium is 30th June 2023. Payments can only be made via Easypay and burial members are encouraged to pay their premium as soon as possible, even making monthly part payments. Details can be found on the website or from your rector. A Burial information evening will be announced soon where these and other details will be discussed.

ELECTRONIC OFFERING

Thank you to the members who are already doing their offering electronically. All members are encouraged to please use this cheaper and safer form of offering via Easypay, Snapscan or EFT.

STREAMING OF DIVINE SERVICES

At our recent District Apostles’ meeting in November 2022, together with our Chief Apostle, we agreed that the streaming of Sunday morning divine services would continue for the foreseeable future.  The streaming of midweek divine services will however be discontinued in 2023.

MAINTENANCE OF OUR CHURCH BUILDINGS

Together with the Apostles, we have decided to dedicate the month of March 2023 to the upkeep of our church buildings and gathering places. Members are encouraged, where possible, to fix the smaller items within the buildings and assist in the thorough cleaning of the venue.

At the same time, we also request that the congregational asset registers be updated during March so that all our assets are correctly and accurately accounted for.

Let’s always take greater care of our buildings as they represent the offerings and sacrifices of our members over extended periods of time and belong to all of us.

PENTECOST MAY 2023

As you are aware, our Chief Apostle and all the District Apostles and District Apostle Helpers will visit Cape Town in May 2023 for their District Apostles’ meeting. A music concert has been planned for Saturday 27th May 2023 at the Silvertown auditorium and the Pentecost divine service on Sunday on 28th May 2023 at Tafelsig congregation in Cape Town. Both events will be live broadcasts worldwide.

In addition to these blessed events, all the District Apostles and District Apostle Helpers will conduct divine services across South Africa on Tuesday evening, 23 May 2023. Your local Apostle will be sharing finer details with you about these festive services shortly.

We pray that the planned visit of our Chief Apostle may indeed become a reality and that together we may look forward to the blessed moments that await us.