His People Cape Town

[philiprosenthal]

His People Cape Town is the mother church of the His People family, which eventually merged with MorningStar to form EveryNation. It was founded by Paul Daniel in 1988 on the University of Cape Town campus at a time of revival on that campus. It quickly grew to be the largest of the Christian societies. As non-students joined, it developed into a mega-church, with about 12000 members. Paul Daniel resigned in 2003 having confessed to adultery with two women in the church and he was succeeded by Gareth Stead as senior pastor. Many from His People Cape Town went to plant churches in various other parts of the world, which now carry the name His People or EveryNation.

Unfortunately, however the church, while growing in numbers did not retain its former revival spiritual fervour - and developed problems almost identical to those plaguing Maranatha-MorningStar- EveryNation, discussed elsewhere on this web site. I was a member of this church for 13 years.

[philiprosenthal]

I have written some proposals for the reform of the governance of His People Cape Town to prevent more scandals reoccuring - as I believe the scandals only got as serious as they did as a result of the hyper-autocratic system of church government - which I believe Paul Daniel developed in order to cover-up his misbehaviour. While Paul Daniel has gone, the hyper-autocratic, elitist, secretive system of church government is mostly still there and leaves the church open to the risk of more of the same problems. I am told however that there have been some reforms with regard to financial administration.

I would be very interested to listen to others comments.
http://everynation.proboards102.com/index.cgi?board=abusive&action=display&thread=1145 953642

[40days40years]

Philip God bless you, perhaps you need to contact Paul Daniel and find out what he was doing in 1988 and copy it. Why on earth did that ministry merge with MorningStar? 12,000 members in one church, brought in by the spirit of God? And then members said lets take some stupid pills and join Maranatha? Please explain Philip or Speak - enquiring minds want to know.

[40days40years]

This whole south african EN thing is so American, except for "soccer" but I may still believe in that game (hey, America can still get to another round and we have not scored even one goal, Glory to God sounds like EN Bonasso shenanigans) Indonesia like a quiet church mouse flew the coup, every one of their churches, the phillipinos seem to be holier than Mother Theresa. The boys in South Africa are the only ones in this kingdom that seem to be half as bad as the American apostles. Congrats on that my south african friends, when my aquarium goes bad can I email you for tips?

[philiprosenthal]

I joined in 1989 so I was part of the initial revival - that is why it is heartbreaking for me to see the church go off the rails like this. When we were only 200 people we would pray and we would see the mega-church and the churches planted all over the world, because we prayed for it - it was no surprise when that happened. The early years of the movement were characterised by a lot of sincere prayer, bold one-on-one evangelism, brotherly love, uncompromising confrontation of sin, repentance etc. I would love the church to go back to that.

When Paul Daniel backslid, his sin was covered up a long long time, so he used the time to create a personality cult around him to protect him and help cover up his wickedness. That personality cult is what has messed up the church. Most of the members never joined the personality cult, but Paul Daniel rewarded those who did with promotion and power. When Paul Daniel left, the loyalty of the personality cult did not return to Jesus, but rather to Rice Broocks.

No. The members did not take some stupid pills and decided to join Marantha- EveryNation- MorningStar. That decision was taken completely undemocratically without consulting anyone by Paul Daniel in his backslidden state. When Paul Daniel was thrown out, the senior leadership was so dependent on an authoritarian leader - they needed some to maintain order. Morningstar-EveryNation provided that, and most people including me were very grateful to them for doing so. Nevertheless, the problem was that once they had sorted out the fallout from the scandal confession, they didn't allow the church to return to health. They wanted more and more hyper-authoritarian control. When leaders resisted, they just got suspended or pushed out of the organisation altogether. Then they introduced their brand of discipleship to increase their hyper-control. Everything in His People had to be converted to MorningStar-EveryNation style operation as if it was a McDonalds franchise. Most of these changes I think were for the worse.

So we have three streams of influence in His People:
i. Revival and the work of the holy spirit in the initial launch.
ii. The corrupting influence of a later backslidden Paul Daniel and his personality cult
iii. The corrupting influence of MorningStar-EveryNation apostolic/ discipleship nonsense etc.

I argue for an purge of the practices introduced under ii. and iii. above and a return to the Holy Spirit honesty and power that there was before.

[philiprosenthal]

The evidence tends to suggest although it does not prove, that Paul Daniel decided to join MorningStar-EveryNation as part of his manipulation to cover-up his misbehaviour. i.e. He could tell South Africans who knew about his misbehaviour that he was accountable to American leadership, and American leadership didn't know about his misbehaviour. There wasn't much communication at that time, so it helped him cover up. Thus His People joining EveryNation was for completely illegitimate reasons.

Something I would appreciate if someone could research. I was told that at a certain point long before the 2003 announcement, Paul Daniel was demoted off the apostolic board. But we weren't told about it at the time. Why? And why, as the former leader of half the membership of EveryNation didn't he fight to keep his status? What did the EN board know about him and why didn't they tell us?

[philiprosenthal]

The official web site of HP Cape Town
http://www.capetown.hispeople.org/capetown/index.htm

[robert_unknown]

"I joined in 1989 so I was part of the initial revival - that is why it is heartbreaking for me to see the church go off the rails like this. When we were only 200 people we would pray and we would see the mega-church and the churches planted all over the world, because we prayed for it - it was no surprise when that happened. The early years of the movement were characterised by a lot of sincere prayer, bold one-on-one evangelism, brotherly love, uncompromising confrontation of sin, repentance etc. I would love the church to go back to that. "

my wife and i thank God every day, that we have seen HP Capetwon in 1996! It was the REAL thing then. the thing we was longing for and still are longing for. There was, beside the growth, such a love, an excitement, fellowship and true friendship! We have been in WOF church and bibleschool just before we came - I have never seen something positive like HP before and very seldom afterwards!

i am sure. if it was not for the time in CT i would have left the charismaic arena completely, i am sure.


phil, i heared Pst.Glen Robertson started a church in CT and Bruce Weyers in JoBurg. They seem doing well. Have you heared about or seen them lately?

[philiprosenthal]

Yes. I have heard from them. Pst Glen Robertson, the worship pastor of His People has started a new Church called Kaleidoscope. Some of the early His People leaders have moved there with him. When Pst Glen left, the public joint statement by His People was that his reason for leaving was because of differences over His People's membership of EveryNation and understanding of authority and submission.

Bruce Weyers is pastoring a Baptist church in Jo-burg.

In 1996 we were enjoying the afterglow and harvest resulting from revival. The real fire of the revival happened before that (about 1989-1993). I'm sad to tell you backsliding had already started by 1996 and the personality cultists were already at work - but they were a small secretive group at the time and most of us were not aware what they were up to.

[robert_unknown]

anyhow--- was the best time of my last 20 years ;)

[philiprosenthal]

Yes. That period was for me too. I think one of the reasons why a lot of people have gotten really hurt, is because they have experienced so much blessing through His People - and then later experience the harsh elitist authoritarian abusiveness from people inside the same denomination - and just can't understand it. The reason is we have a sociological cult (or set of personality cults) at work within the same denomination - which has imposed itself with a totally different set of beliefs and values. The personality cults never brought revival, but want to try reap the benefits of it for purposes of a lust for power and money. They try trade on the credibility of the His People Cape Town revival and also the Miracle in Manila revival - but actually, the authoritarian personality cultists have a different gospel.
See:
http://everynation.proboards102.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=doctrine&thread=115 0902903&page=1

[philiprosenthal]

Please go to the EveryNation thread on the Google Earth forum to see the place where the His People revival started and where the Cape Town mega-church is currently located.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/759374/an/0/page/0#759374

You may wish to also add the location of your old/current church and campus. You will need to download Google Earth from http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

[ulyankee]

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

When Pst Glen left, the public joint statement by His People was that his reason for leaving was because of differences over His People's membership of EveryNation and understanding of authority and submission.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Philip, I apologise for not catching this until now. Was this statement put into writing, or was it announced orally?

Based on my experience with the US branch of EN, even this is hugely transparent compared to what usually happens in the States. For example, I know that even some of the churches which have left in recent months have said little or nothing to their congregations and vice versa on EN's end, at least not since early 2006 when EN announced in a Leader Letter that MS Indonesia and MSC Lawrence, Kansas were leaving EN. Interestingly, there haven't been any new quarterly Leader Letters posted on EN's website since the second Q 2006.

[osakadan]

MS Indonesia and MSC Lawrence, Kansas were leaving EN.

Can you confirm these have left? Then I will add them to wikipedia.

[philiprosenthal]

Yes. This statement was published in the church bulletin and it was recorded on DVD of the service, which is also available from the church.

Yes it was a step forward in terms of transparency. Nevertheless, this is just a once sentence summary of a very massive disagreement. I think that FactNet had a significant influence on the situation.

[ulyankee]

osakadan, this (http://www.everynation.org/assets/files/LeaderLetter/Leader%20Letter%20Jan%202006.pdf) should give you the documentation you need - see the top left of the last page. See the other thread regarding EN churches leaving the network for discussion as well.

Philip, thanks for confirming that. BTW, this is what is on Kaleidoscope's website (http://www.kaleidoscope.org.za/index2.html):

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Dear Friends and Family,

Kaleidoscope is a ministry which was started on 3rd April 2005 under the Leadership of Glenn and Michelle Robertson, formerly of His People Christian Church Cape Town. We were released with the blessing of our Senior Pastor, Gareth Stead and the Pastoral Staff at His People on Sunday, 13th February 2005. Although we are not a His People Church plant, Pastor Gareth and I have covenanted together to establish God's Kingdom in this City and to model true Kingdom relationship, by walking in unity.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

[philiprosenthal]

I personally would prefer Kaleidoscope to take a tougher public line on the sins that His People &amp; EveryNation needs to repent of - I think statements like this whitewash sin.