Category: Reflection

Remembering Buitenkant Street Methodist Church

CMM, Cape Town / / Easter, Reflection, Sermons, Special Services

Central Methodist Mission, in partnership with the District Six Museum, hosted a deeply moving Freedom Day service on Sunday, 27 April 2025 retracing sacred memories and reclaiming the story of faith and resilience rooted in District Six.

The service began at 09h30 at the District Six Museum. The museum is housed in the heart of what was once a thriving and diverse community. The service proceeded with a commemorative walk to Central Methodist Mission in the city centre. This walk symbolically echoed the walk taken by the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church in 1988.

Families with deep roots in District Six, some up to five generations strong, gathered to honour their shared heritage. The program featured reflections by notable figures whose lives are intricately woven into the story of District Six and Buitenkant Street Methodist Church. They participated in a panel facilitated by Chrischene Julius, the Director of the District Six Museum. In the panel was:

Rev. Prof. Peter Storey (1966-1970), who witnessed first-hand the devastation as bulldozers demolished homes and ministered to a grieving community during those painful years.

Mrs Jane Lawrence (née Abrahams), who grew up in District Six and was a child of the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church. She became Pastoral Assistant to Rev. Peter Storey during his time as a minister at the church. Her family’s home was among those destroyed.

Mr David Newby, who as a minister (1990-2000) helped guide the painful amalgamation of Buitenkant Street and Metropolitan Methodist congregations and was a founding force behind the creation of the District Six Museum — preserving memory as an act of resistance.

The program also included contributions from Travis Johnson and Rose-Anne Reynolds, both of whom grew up attending Buitenkant Street Methodist Church and Sunday School, bearing witness to the resilience of faith through generations.

The sermon was delivered by Rev. Sikawu Makubalo, who preached from John 20:21, challenging the gathered community to be agents of courageous memory, healing justice, and enduring peace in a still-fractured world.

A special display commemorating the life and witness of the closed Buitenkant Street Methodist Church was launched at Central Methodist Mission as part of the service, a lasting testament to the faith, community, and hope that apartheid could never destroy.

The gathering was not only a time of remembering and lament, but also a call to recommit; across generations; to walk in the spirit of those who came before, to tell the truth of the past, and to build a future rooted in justice, dignity, and the radical peace of Christ.

In his sermon, Rev. Makubalo stated that “Apartheid was not just political; it was spiritual violence. The Group Areas Act was not just about geography; it was about desecrating the image of God, segregating God’s people.

Forced removals were not just relocation; they were acts of defiance against the Creator who gathers and does not scatter. They were an act of disobedience to the Creator.

Freedom Day is not just a public holiday; it is a summons to remember whose freedom was stolen, whose dreams were buried, and whose faith calls us still to the unfinished work of justice and healing.”

The service left all who attended with a searching question: What does freedom truly mean for South Africans today?

It laid down a challenge that this generation, and the generations to come, should not rest until freedom, peace, and justice are made real for all people in every place, without exception.

Peace Among Thorns

CMM, Cape Town / / Easter, Holy Week, Reflection

Join us this Holy Week to walk with Jesus the path of peace.

 


Christ’s journey through suffering teaches us that peace is a courageous, sacrificial, and transformative force.
It does not ignore conflict but confronts injustice, division, and fear.
It confronts them with love,humility, and truth.

Please click on this link to download the Reflections for Holy Week: Peace Among Thorns.

Women in Prayer

CMM, Cape Town / / Ordinary Days of the Spirit, Prayer, Reflection

As we enter Women’s Month, a time dedicated to honouring and celebrating the incredible contributions and sacrifices of women in our society, we are called to join women in prayer. This month provides us with a special opportunity to recognise and support the women in our communities and beyond.

Mary’s Song found in Luke 1:46-56 is a profound declaration of hope, reflecting Mary’s deep faith and understanding of God’s promises. It is for this reason that the prayer below is offered for use during this Women’s Month.

 

Our lives sing praises to the Lord our God, who is setting us free.

The Lord remembers us in our humiliation, victimisation, abuse and distress.

A time will come when those who abuse and victimise will see us and call us blessed, because of the great things the Lord is doing in our humble lives.

Holy is the Lord’s name.

From one generation to another the Lord is constantly on the side of the oppressed.

As on the day of the Exodus, the Lord stretches out with a mighty arm to scatter the abusers and victimisers with all their evil plans.

The Lord brings down the arrogant power-hungry abusers from their loftiness.

The Lord lifts up the despised daily.

The Lord fills the exploited with good things and sends the exploiters away with empty hands.

The Lord’s promises remain new and fresh to this day.

Therefore, the hope of liberation burning in us will not be extinguished.

The Lord will remember us, today, tomorrow and beyond. Great is the Lord’s faithfulness. Amen.

(Adapted from Luke 1:46-56 and from prayer by Zephania Kameeta Namibia)

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Almighty God, who sent messengers at different times to announce liberation in Jesus Christ, and to denounce injustice, oppression and the exploitation of your people, give us the sensitivity to hear prophetic voices today, that we may turn from unjust deeds to wait in happiness and penitence for Christ our Liberator. Amen.

(Anesia Nascimento, Brazil)

 

Thank you…

CMM, Cape Town / / Reflection, The Reign of Christ


Friends,

I have always found it a strange and wonderful gift arriving at a new congregation, not completely dissimilar to the transformation of “water into wine”. I would arrive as a stranger but instantly be welcomed as family. So, what was I, stranger or family? Water or wine? It might be the difference between fact and truth. The fact was, we were strangers (we simply didn’t know each other when we met) but the deeper truth was that we were family. Family, not only because of the tradition we share but as in the deepest sense of our shared humanity. Church at its best recognises the stranger as family. Living out the truth of our human family-ness is what I would call true enlightenment. Welcoming the stranger and discovering a sister, brother, mother or father. Drawing water … and … tasting wine. For this reason, I always pray before each sermon: “Water within each of us the desire to be your faithful family forever”. Thank you for allowing me into your homes and hearts as family.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the agony of being called to speak a word – an uncomfortable word to the world – only to have a greater agony trying to hold it in: “If I say, I will not speak any more in his name, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jer. 20:9). I know this damned if you do, damned if you don’t agony. To speak with one’s feeble voice or not. I have experienced it almost every Saturday night for 33 years. Maya Angelo wrote: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Up until now I have chosen the lesser agony. I will now no doubt experience the greater agony as I seek out silence and solitude.

I am grateful to the Methodist Church who trusted me to tell “the old, old story … of Jesus and his love.” I am also grateful for the responsibility and accountability that came with it. Truth be told I would not have chosen many of the places that the church sent me to, but each turned out to be unforgettably enriching as I met family across the rich diversity of this country: From the streets of Johannesburg city to Rustenburg and Mooinooi (1991), then Welkom (1995), then Midrand (1998) and finally CMM (2008).

I was 21 when I started. Looking back, I think it was quite crazy to let me loose on a congregation at that age. Yet, the other day I asked a barber how they learnt how to cut hair. I wondered if they started out practicing on wigs. The barber laughed and said – “I was thrown in the deep-end and simply told to cut a client’s hair … a real live human being. No wigs!” So, I guess this is how we learn. We learn with real live human beings. We learn by being trusted. Trusted to start. Trusted with an opportunity. Trusted to learn through doing. It’s crazy! And of course, we learn by sitting multiple classes with the great teacher called Failure, who hopefully gives us a degree in humility.

Thank you CMM for the last 15 years. It has been a tremendous joy and privilege to share life with you. Thank you for your love and care for me and for allowing me to love and care for you. A relationship of 15 years can only last with large amounts of grace and truth. Grace frees us to explore ever greater depths of truth, and truth inevitably exposes us to our need for grace. One without the other is either meaningless or mean. You have gifted me with both.

Thank you for allowing me to grow and change with you. I say this specifically in relation to preaching Sunday after Sunday. I will forever be grateful for the freedom to wrestle with the ancient texts in explorative and questioning ways in the hope to work out what it means to take Jesus’ teaching and example seriously in the world today.

Finally, a special thank you to Adrienne, Oscar and Sharon as well as all those in the Donkey Teams over the years – I am grateful to each of you.

In grace,
Alan and Jubilee