The Revival in Norwood

Foreword by MICHAEL CASSIDY

Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI

JOHN BOND by Peter Watt

Prologue

Some Personal Notes

My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God

H. C. Phillips

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

- Mylet Bhengu

Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden of His Heart

President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana

Early Days in Durban

The Glad Tidings Assembly

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

John and Yvonne Stegman

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

Letting Go of the Reins

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 might seem somewhat at variance with Fred Mullan’s philosophy of not planting churches on the Rand that he did take steps to pioneer a new assembly, at a suburb called Norwood. A young man named Douggie Fischer joined the Fairview Assembly. Fred Mullan soon recognised Douggie Fischer’s talents as an outstanding organiser and businessman. Together with Douggie Fischer he pitched a marquee at Norwood to conduct evangelistic meetings. Fred Mullan was the evangelist. Out of these meetings an assembly was born. Douggie Fischer was left as the minister in charge.

A church hall was built. At some stage Douggie Fischer teamed up with a young man from the Full Gospel Church named Carl Cronje. Revival followed. The church became crowded. Among the many converts in those days was a young bodybuilder named Ray McCauley.
The circumstances of his conversion were quite amusing. Carl Cronje visited Ray McCauley’s gymnasium to pump iron a little. Ray asked him, “What is your job?” Cronje said, “I am a minister of the Gospel.” McCauley said, “I don’t believe you; you’re too normal.” Cronje said something like this - “Normal or not, I’m preaching on Sunday; come and listen to me.” On Sunday Ray McCauley was there to listen to Carl Cronje and he was converted in that meeting. He joined the Norwood assembly where I believe his main distinction was that he became the fast bowler in the assembly cricket team.
Soon afterwards Douggie Fischer sold the building at Norwood to the Full Gospel Church of God because his congregation had outgrown the facility. The intention was to build something larger but this was never done. Some sort of dispute arose, first between Carl Cronje and Douggie Fischer, and later, between Douggie himself and the elders of the Norwood congregation. The consequence was that Carl Cronje moved off to form his own congregation which continued for a few years but never really prospered. The Norwood Church, on the other hand, continued to enjoy revival, but without Douggie Fischer as minister. The elders appealed to a brother in Jim Mullan’s Group, Reg Bendixon, to be their minister.
Having sold their church home, they moved about from one venue to another. So often did this happen that they eventually took to themselves the name, “The Church on the Move”.

All this was in about the year 1970. Not long after that period, Reg Bendixon appealed to me to link with him in leading the work he was caring for on the Rand. This included the Church on the Move. At that time I was busy in Cape Town where the Group Assemblies in the Western Cape were growing in a quite spectacular manner. It was a time of revival.
The Church on the Move began to hold meetings in a large hall in what was known as the German School in Hillbrow, a rather old but serviceable premises earmarked for demolition.
Once a month, Reg Bendixon used to organise what he called a “shepherd’s meeting” in the German School Hall. About 500 Christians, mainly from Assemblies belonging to Jim Mullan’s Group would pack out the hall for a united time of worship, preaching, teaching and fellowship. The meetings were vibrant. I used to fly from Cape Town to attend them and give the help in leadership which Reg Bendixon had appealed for. All seemed promising for a well-founded group of Assemblies to take shape on the Rand.
Unhappily at the same time there was an undercurrent of what one can term “church politics” manifesting itself particularly among the assemblies on the Rand. Tensions led me to withdraw from the leadership I was sharing with Reg Bendixon. I left the meeting in the German School for him to manage on his own.
He bought an old cinema in Orange Grove which served the assembly as a permanent meeting place. Things did not go on happily. At length Reg Bendixon introduced a New Zealander named John Beaumont into the leadership. The end of the story is that the cinema was sold, the congregation left scattered without a place of worship, and the financial assets of the assembly were donated to a charismatic group who used the money to start a christian school.

In 1981, the young bodybuilder, Ray McCauley, burst onto the Johannesburg scene. Fresh from Kenneth Hagin’s Bible College in America where he had gone to study, he started his “Rhema Bible Church”. Scores of displaced Assemblies of God members from the German School days rallied to join the church. Many from other sources as well joined when Ray McCauley started services in the Constantia Theatre in Rosebank. He soon outgrew the few hundred adherents that he started with. He now heads up the largest and most dynamic Pentecostal congregation we have ever seen in South Africa.