A Growing, Worshipping Church Led by God
Anglican | Congregational | Methodist | Presbyterian
Our Story
During 1974 Mondeor Methodist Church started Sunday School classes in Glenanda in the garage of the O’Brien’s home. It was soon realised that parents were dropping their children at Sunday School in Glenanda and travelling through to Mondeor to attend church. This was silly and these parents then decided to start meeting for church in the Lineker’s home opposite Glenanda Primary.
During July 1979 a steering committee was appointed to organise the work and constitution of a united church.
The Church Unity Commission (CUC) had been established by the Anglican, Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian denominations. Agreement was reached in the CUC to work together where possible, especially in new areas, in order to establish united churches. A CUC constitution was adopted to help guide united churches in their establishment and ongoing operation, including the need to rotate ministers from the different denominations.
We then acquired our present property in the late 1980s and started building the administration block and classrooms in the early 1990s. Much of the materials were donated and the congregation embarked on fundraising projects such as morning markets, fetes, golf days, etc.
God really blessed us and we discovered we had enough money to build the hall as well. Indeed, by the end of the 1990s we were in a position to embark on the building of the caretaker’s cottage and the main sanctuary. A lot of the work was done by members of the congregation and a lot of fun was had on Saturday mornings at work parties. Many of the congregation converted their loans into donations and by the early 2000s we had paid off all our loans and the congregation was debt free.
Since then we have embarked on further building projects, namely the youth centre which was financed in a similar way. Looking back we can only fall to our knees and thank God for His generosity and wonderful provision for our congregation.
In 1981, Garry van der Tang from the Presbyterian Church was appointed as the first minister of St Paul’s. Since then Garry was followed by Eric Clements (1984-89, Anglican); Donald Cragg (1990-98, Methodist); Bryan Doyle (1999-2004, Presbyterian); Dean Bachelor (2003-2008, Presbyterian); Reg Gersbach (2004-09, Anglican); Dave Morgan (2010-2018, Methodist); Berryl Arends (2011-2020, Congregational). Currently Golebilwe Mathabatha (Presbyterian) has been our minister since 2021.