About Us
WHO WE ARE
The AOG Group forms part of the Assemblies of God, South Africa.
OUR LEADERSHIP
Byron Chicken
Group National Leader &
KwaZulu Natal Regional Leader
Jason Render
National Leader &
Eastern Cape Regional Leader
Sean Phillipps
National Leader &
Western Cape Regional Leader
Trevor Coleman
National Leader &
Northern Region Regional Leader
Donovan Coetzee
The Late Previous Group National Leader
Anthony Liebenberg
National Advisory Team
Dr. Elijah Mahlangu
National Advisory Team
Geoff Bond
National Advisory Team
Graham Evans
National Advisory Team
Pedro Erasmus
National Advisory Team
OUR HISTORY
The beginnings of the Assemblies of God (AOG) date back to 1908 when Charles Chawner from Canada and Henry Turney from the USA, both Pentecostal in experience, arrived in South Africa to work among the African population. Other early American missionaries who were associated with Turney was the Elliott family and a young man from Scotland, Alexander MacDonald. Chawner itinerated extensively through Zululand. William Elliott writes that three weeks after their arrival in Johannesburg – January 1910 – Chief Klein Seth Ramaube invited them to the farm Doornkop twelve miles north of Middelburg to establish a Pentecostal mission among his people. Before the end of that first year the number of people converted to Christ, baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit had increased dramatically. Turney established a Pentecostal congregation in Pretoria and then joined the Elliotts at Doorkop. After the American Assemblies of God came into being in 1914, Turney applied for recognition as an AOG missionary. This was granted, and in 1917 he registered the Assemblies of God at Home Affairs in Pretoria, thus giving the movement an official beginning.
Following these early beginnings and on to 1930 numbers of missionaries from England, Europe and North America came, concentrating their efforts in the Transvaal, Natal, Mozambique and Basutoland as they were then known. They did not come to establish a denomination, and neither did they come to work together, but because of legal necessity and dealings with Government, these missionaries began to co-operate under the name ‘Assemblies of God’. This made the AOG in South Africa an ‘experiment in Pentecostal ecumenism’. In about 1938 this arrangement was formalised.
The agreement was that each missionary body could remain answerable to its own sending body overseas and hold its own property while at the same time be part of the AOG. This established the principle that the AOG is a church consisting of groups, which at that stage were all missionary groups working among Africans, apart from F.W. Mullan who came into the AOG in 1936 with three white congregations.
One of the missionary bodies to join the AOG in 1938 was Emmanuel Mission, the work of H.C. Phillips at Nelspruit. With him came James Mullan and Nicholas Bhengu, two pioneers who greatly influenced the development and growth of the AOG.
The principle of groups having been accepted, James Mullan and Nicholas Bhengu decided to start their own groups. They moved to Port Elizabeth in 1944 and 1945 respectively, pioneering where the AOG had no congregations. Their efforts were extraordinarily successful and within two decades outgrew all the other groups in the AOG, spreading across South Africa and into neighbouring States. As has frequently been the case in the history of missions, clashes of interest and policy arose with the growth of the work leading to splits and unpleasant strife. Two serious splits occurred in 1964 and 1981 respectively, leading to the formation of new movements. However, towards the end of the 1980s a process of reconciliation was initiated and was formalised in November 2002. The AOG again functions as a single denomination on the basis of the 1938 agreement.
Over one hundred years has passed since the founding fathers of the AOG first arrived here. In spite of its difficulties, the movement has continued to thrive. Nobody really knows, but it is estimated that there are now more than two thousand churches in our fellowship spread far and wide throughout South Africa and neighbouring States.
An Executive of the Assemblies of God in the 1950’s
Back Row, from left: L. Potgieter, J. Skinner, A. Kast, L. Mjaji, F. Burke. Front Row, from left: J. Nuku, J.E. Mullan, A. Gumede, A. Chawner, N. Bhengu, H.C. Philips, W.F Mullan