How I See It

By Stephen van Rhyn

I was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. In the summer of 1990, aged sixteen, my friend Gareth Bowley, now a Newfrontiers pastor, led me to Christ at a youth camp. Three months later I was baptised in water and on the night of that event it was announced that Simon and Lindsey Pettit were relocating to Cape Town to lead the eldership team at Jubilee.

It is hard to express the positive impact their act of obedience had on my life. My love for the Word, experience of the Spirit, concern for the poor and my understanding for the need for multi-racial churches in a post-apartheid South Africa that displays the manifold wisdom of God can be easily traced to the Pettits.

I graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1994 and then spent two years in Missouri, USA on a Frontier Year Team led by Lex Loizides at a church in which Terry Virgo was based. Both men had a significant impact on me in different ways. Lex’s passion for the lost, God-inspired boldness and doctrinal discernment have been a constant encouragement to me. Terry’s life and teaching on grace, mature example, life of prayer and unflappable pioneering leadership have provided a wonderful example to me. However, the most significant thing that happened to me in the US was that I met my beautiful wife, Anna. Anna has without question provided me with the greatest support and help in life and ministry. We were married in 1997 and since have had three children: Joshua, Benjamin and Bethany.

In 2002 I became an elder at Jubilee and a year before Simon Pettit’s tragic passing in 2005 I was invited to lead the eldership team. Since Simon’s passing and the subsequent transition I’ve been invited to serve ten churches in three different regions of South Africa. The churches that I’m working with have had great joy in seeing two new churches planted.

I’m passionate about seeing gospel-centred, Spirit-filled, evangelistically relevant, culturally engaged, ‘good-news-to-the-poor’ churches planted in South Africa and beyond that are mobilised together for world mission.

Although the work I’m involved in is small I don’t despise the day of small beginnings knowing that Jesus loves taking five loaves and two fishes and multiplying them to feed a multitude. Humble beginnings are never a problem for Jesus. It is my prayer that from Southern Africa many leaders would be raised up and churches planted that would display the wonder of Jesus and the power of the gospel to a broken world that desperately needs it.

I am so excited to be a part of the multiplying of apostolic spheres in Newfrontiers. I couldn’t think of a more exciting way to invest my life than labouring together with godly, gifted friends united in common purpose, values and prophetic promises as we seek, through genuine gospel partnership, to make Jesus famous and obey the Great Commission through planting Biblically faithful churches all around the world.

Simon had already handed over the leadership of Jubilee Community Church to Stephen van Rhyn, whose remarkable gift of preaching and other leadership skills were clearly evident. What Steve and others had never anticipated was the way in which he would suddenly be taken and leave such a huge challenge. Steve has wonderfully led Jubilee and is now taking on an increasing sphere of responsibility in the Cape Town area where, often alongside Gary and Nicky Welsh, churches are being served and encouraged to press forward in missional goals and objectives.

This is not only in the Cape Town region but across to Port Elizabeth and indeed, under Gary’s oversight, into Zambia where new outreaches are developing.
Simon’s commitment to a multi-racial church with its heart and hands wide open to the poor and disadvantaged of the area is wholly embraced by Steve and the team of guys with which he works.

With Lex Loizides, one of Newfrontiers most effective evangelists, by his side there is a constant passion to win the lost and make Jesus known, which has led to many finding their way to faith and into the church.

Other emerging ‘saplings’ under Simon’s wing included PJ Smyth, who was in Zimbabwe when we first met him, but who, together with his wife Ashleigh and their three sons, uprooted from Harare to plant a church in the hugely significant city of Johannesburg. If what had been accomplished in River of Life, Harare was impressive (and it was!) what has now happened in Johannesburg has been remarkable.

How I See It

By Stephen van Rhyn

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