A Beautiful Square With Good Vibes
Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI
My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
It
grieves me to the quick when assemblies do away with the prayer
meeting or relegate it to a time when only the most earnest are
likely to attend it. Not only is “the prayers” one
of the parameters set out for assemblies in Acts 2:43. Prayer is
the very power by which the work of God is accomplished. Maybe
some assemblies do grow numerically without having a good weekly
prayer meeting, but what inherent spiritual strength is being built
into the people without regular prayer?
In 1967 I moved to Cape Town for my second stint of ministry there. The
first was from 1954 to 1956. Paul Lange was the minister I took over from
in 1967. He had done a fine work, having built a church seating 320 and
having filled it with earnest people. The prayer meeting at Harfield Road
was always a highly important part of the church’s life.
Marchers for Jesus
in Greenmarket Square, Cape Town.
During my time there, God
visited the congregation with a very blessed revival. I feel privileged
to have been involved in such a move of God, but I must be the first
to confess that it was not my preaching, leadership or spiritual gifts
that brought it about. Essentially it was a sovereign work of the Holy
Spirit. My greatest achievement was to fit in with what God was doing
and to cooperate by prayer and preaching and by trying to be obedient
to what I saw the Lord wanted me to do and say.
During those days there were several notable experiences in prayer; some
negative in their results, forestalling the work of the evil one. Others
were very positive, bringing about singular triumphs for the Kingdom of
God.
~
One of the first happenings in prayer came when a revivalist called David
Nunn held an Easter weekend convention in our assembly. David Nunn told
me it was his practice to pray a special blessing of some material kind
on every assembly he ministered in. In our case, he prayed we would be
able to get the house next door to the church. Sure enough, we were able
to buy it later. But I never thought of that as a great miracle. We gave
a good price for it but we said we had bought it for a song. The owner
was a Jew by race and a Christian Scientist by faith. He couldn’t
stand our singing and frequently belaboured us with complaints about noise.
When we offered him a good price for the house he was only too pleased
to sell it to us, while we were happy to get rid of him as a neighbour.
David Nunn’s real blessing to us was of a spiritual kind. Perhaps
it did not even come through his prayers, but through those of his co-worker
who travelled with him. This man was a Texan with an obviously Texan drawl.
He also had an impediment in his speech. His teaching from the Word of
God was sublime, but we could scarcely make out what it was because of
his grotesque manner of speech.
On the final night of the convention David Nunn preached a powerful message.
He brought the congregation to a point of uproar - quite unlike our normal
way of worshipping. I was on the platform holding a microphone in my hand,
not knowing how to handle the meeting with so much noise going on. Then
David Nunn’s co-worker came to me, took the microphone out of my
hand and began to pray. As he prayed, I have to confess I became increasingly
out of temper with him. His prayer, blaring over the PA system, was unintelligible
to me because of his manner of speaking. Fortunately a tape recorder was
working. The prayer was recorded. When I listened to the recording in the
quietness of my study, I found it wonderful, beautiful. The man was pouring
out his heart over the congregation with great compassion. He prayed that
the hall would be one day filled with people. He prayed that young men
and women would come to be saved and sent out into the ministry. I was
abashed at my previous critical attitude.
All his prayers were answered in the months to come. The time came when
the place was packed with people. We called it the “Hippie Revival”.
They sat in the aisles, about the platform and crowded around the doorways.
A visitor once described it as “wall to wall people”. For above
two years there was not a Sunday when there were no decisions recorded.
Sometimes there were as many as 20 or 30. Four or five were thought of
as just a few. Many hippies or pseudo-hippies became unrecognisable because
of their neat dress. Some are in the ministry today. One girl, the niece
of a Nationalist cabinet minister but an erstwhile drug-taker, took first
place in South Africa in her nursing examination. She later went on to
qualify as a medical doctor.
The whole of Cape Town was moved by the revival at Harfield Road. The blessing
passed from us to other churches as their members came to see, got saved
and were filled with the Spirit, speaking in tongues. We never tried to
proselytise or persuade the converts to stay as members of our church.
Many of them returned to their own churches full of fire. Even the University
of Cape Town was touched through our young people conducting meetings on
the campus.
The national newspaper, the Sunday Times, gave the revival banner headlines,
dubbing me, “A beautiful square with good vibes”. Eventually
we could not handle the crowds that were coming. We had to hive off, splitting
into three congregations which eventually grew into ten or more new assemblies
in Cape Town and environs. The Texan brother had prayed a prophetic prayer
into the microphone and God heard and answered it wonderfully.