Our House Is In Order

No, not our new home, but rather our church house...

Late in 2019 I felt God give me a word for The Gathering about putting our house in order, so in Jan 2020 we kicked off the New Year with a couple of sermons on this subject drawing from 2 Kings 4:1-7 and Haggai 1:1-15.

I'll not bore you with the details of those sermons, but suffice to say that although at that time we had registered as an NPO, we were far from compliant with the Dept of Social Development's requirements. Also, we were using songs in our worship without the proper licences from CCLI, as well as being a bit lax in a few other areas.

The long and the short of it is that we rectified all of this, we put our house in order, had our accounts audited, submitted full reports to the Dept, paid for our music licences etc. and committed to keeping things in order. After all, our God is a God of order.

Fast forward to the verge of 2023 and having our house in order has & is paying dividends in ways we could never have expected. Also, were the church's affairs not in order, life would be very complicated and quite messy right now!

As part of The Gathering's purchase of the building we gather in, we needed to register as a Public Benefit Organisation in the short term and register as a Non Profit Company in the long term. Thanks to our diligence in responding to God's word, we have been able to respond instantly to all the requests from our accountants for documents for the South African Revenue Service and The Gathering is now registered as a Non Profit Company.

The upshot of this is that The Gathering is now tax exempt and when buy the building we won't be liable for Transfer Duty which will save the church in the region of R400k.

When God first lay this word on my heart I had no idea how significant it would prove to be, but it goes to show just how important it is to listen to God's voice and respond appropriately to his leading.

Thank you LORD!