Johannesburg Reformed Church (NGK)

All the congregations on the Witwatersrand stem from it, but by the 2010s, the NGK yearbook recorded only 90 in its ward which had long ceased to operate independently.

Stephanus Jacobus du Toit, the Superintendent of Education of the South African Republic, led the first NGK service in Johannesburg.

At the open-air service, held on a Sunday in mid-1886 in the shadow of a willow tree near where the later Langlaagte Reformed Church and Abraham Kriel Orphanage would later stand.

Du Toit sermonized on Genesis 2:12, “and the gold of that land is good.” The NGK contingent among the new settlers of the Rand largely settled in the western portion of what is now downtown, in what was then known as the “Dip.” This included the poorer neighborhoods of Langlaagte, Fordsburg, and Vrededorp, the only portions of the area then that were majority-Afrikaner.

The wealthier northern (Parktown, Houghton) and northeastern (Observatory, Orange Grove) neighborhoods were almost exclusively English.

Upwardly mobile Afrikaners later settled in large numbers in the northwestern areas such as Melville, Westdene, Auckland Park, Northcliff, Linden, and Randburg, among others.

On August 14, 1887 the congregation opened with the first church there made from wood and corrugated galvanised iron.

At first there in a temporary capacity, Martins was proclaimed local pastor on November 21 and officially invested as such in May 1888.

The 1952 retrospective Ons gemeentelike feesalbum writes the following: The congregation never, in fact, had the chance to grow peacefully.

Martins had to contend with every struggle the people and Church endured over the past three-quarters of a century, and he was constantly exposed to the dangers posed by the instability of a fast-growing, cosmopolitan community.

Case in point, only three years after the 1887 construction of the first church, a larger one on the same Von Brandis Square was needed.

The church served many purposes over its lifetime, including as a bakery, a lecture hall, an election polling place, and the office of the Rand Aids Association.

The South Gauteng High Court continues to operate today where the NGK’s first church in Johannesburg once stood.

The Second Boer War delayed construction of a more permanent church, the fourth and penultimate, which opened on April 13, 1904.

Ons gemeente feesalbum reported in 1952 that “this building is due to be demolished soon so that the congregation can open the fifth church in its short history in 1953.

These had been merged into Deo Gloria, Parkkruin (formerly Parksig and first absorbing Parkhurst), Vergesig, Kensington, and a reformed Johannesburg North-Andrew Murray, along with the one completely new congregation active today, Weltevreden.

Coetzee’s inaugural Sunday morning sermon drew from the Apostles, namely the passage “for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” from 1 Corinthians 2:2.

Smit, “unmistakable signs of a blessed flourishing in congregation life.” Attendance at services spiked to the point where another gallery needed to be added to the church building.

Coetzee’s tenure, the financial committee revealed the clearing of congregation debt – a longtime goal of Rev.

For example, the Transvaal Teachers’ Association invited “a large number of members, pastors, and other dignitaries to welcome the arrival of the Afrikaans Bible” at Rusoord School in Johannesburg.

William Nicol of Johannesburg East started a popular newsletter in his congregation, the Irenenuus, leading Rev.

Cillié to suggest “writing a leaflet to be published monthly for the congregation to read” at the March 1931 meeting.

Coetzee saw the need for curates to help minister to the burgeoning congregation as soon as he arrived, and the council thus hired a proponent named Botha in August 1935 to serve as such.

Ben Marais on the Transvaal staff, but he opted to serve at Pretoria East, leading the council to hire the young pastor of Vrededorp (later Cottesloe), the Rev.

The Reverend and his wife were bid farewell at a warm ceremony in the Selborne hall on April 5, 1945.

Martins’ widow also attended, and would die soon after in July 1948, at her home on Richmond Avenue, Auckland Park.

Post-apartheid migration after 1990 drained the Afrikaner population from downtown and surrounding neighborhoods (some of which had long been deemed multiracial “grey areas”).

The headquarters was moved to Auckland Park, with services continuing to be held in Braamfontein and the Irene Church.

Eene beknopte geschiedenis van deze Gemeente onder Gods trouwe leiding gedurende den tijd van 20 jaren (“NGK Johannesburg Congregation, Twentieth Anniversary, August 14, 1887 – August 14, 1907: A brief history of this Church under God’s faithful guidance during a period of 20 years.”) The 12-page pamphlet (with two columns a page) is in the church archives in Pretoria and celebrates the congregation’s recovery after the Second Boer War.

The church was located on 117 De Korte Street in Braamfontein,[2] next to the old Highveld Synod headquarters.