In 1972, God began a work that He would bless and use to touch the lives of many people. Marlene and Jason van den Heuvel moved to the Brackenhurst area and began a Sunday School and Bible study in their home at 21 Chrissie Street.

The work soon developed into a home church and services were first held in their living room and later in the double garage. It was at this time that the first Pastor, Jack Moorman was called. Jack was an American Missionary to South Africa.

In 1976 a piece of land on the corner of Hennie Alberts Street and Roy Campbell Street was bought from the Baptist Union of South Africa for the purpose of building a church. Work on the church building commenced soon after the purchase and the building was dedicated and the church constituted in 1978.

In the mid-1980s Jack Moorman began printing tracts and made preparations to print KJV Scofield Study Bibles. Eventually two runs of Scofield Bibles were printed under the name of Fundamental Bible Press. These Bibles were sold at cost to the church members and the general public.

In 1988 Jack Moorman was called to the UK and the church called John Grant to the pastorate. John had been a deacon in the church for some years and was also the architect and building supervisor of the church building.

In 1993 John Grant resigned and the church called Doug Van Meter, an American Missionary to be the pastor-teacher. The church had been growing slowly over the years, and under an expositional ministry of the Word the church now began to grow at a faster pace. Though Doug only agreed to come on a temporary basis, the Lord led him after two years to immigrate to South Africa, thus dropping his American financial support, as BBC assumed the financial responsibility.

In 1994 Steve Miller, an American missionary from Kansas City Baptist Temple, was led to join the church. Steve brought with him a discipleship ministry that has become one of the cornerstones of the growth here at Brackenhurst Baptist Church. Steve served as a missionary pastor and teacher here until he was called back to his home sending church in 1997.

In 1995 Gary van den Heuvel, the son of Jason van den Heuvel, returned from Bible College in the USA and was called to the church as the second pastor.

In 1996 the church began a Bible printing ministry under the name of Word to the World Publishers. This ministry had its roots in the church’s past history of Bible printing as well as Doug Van Meter’s experience with Bearing Precious Seed, a ministry of First Baptist Church of Milford. Equipment was purchased through the giving of the church’s own members and printing was begun on various language portions of the Bible. The printing ministry is currently funded through giving from the within the church and donations from other like-minded churches.

Also in 1996 the church began training its own members in the Shepherd’s School. Shepherd’s School consists of five years of intensive higher level theological education. Five of the men of our church have already graduated from the Shepherd’s School. Three of these have since been sent by the church as missionaries.

In 1997 Dan Crichton, joined the church as a missionary pastor and served on our pastoral staff for two years until the Lord led him in 1999 to make the move, with his family, to Rustenburg to plant a new Baptist Church—Central Baptist Church. (In 2006 Dan was called back to the United States to take up the pastorate of his sending church, the Greater Rhode Island Baptist Temple. Chris Lee, another American missionary, was called to replace Dan at Central Baptist.)

In 1999 the church purchased the house diagonally behind the existing church building and the printing ministry and church administration offices were moved over there before the end of the year.

In 2001 the church called Francois Koch, one of the first graduates of our Shepherd’s School to be an elder. Francois would later take up the call to leave South Africa as a missionary with his family. Another Shepherd’s School graduate, Gareth Franks, has served the Lord as a missionary since 2003.

In 2003 the church called Jason van den Heuvel onto the pastoral staff as an elder. In 2004 Pieter Swanepoel, another Shepherds School graduate, was also ordained as an elder of the church. In 2006, Pieter became the third missionary trained by and sent from the church.

In January 2006, Christo Beetge, who had been pastoring at Springs Baptist Church for the past ten years, moved to Alberton and joined our team of elders.

At the church’s 2007 AGM, Jason announced to the church that he would be stepping aside from the pastorate of the church at the end of June 2007. Plans to sell his business and pursue retirement had seen considerable time restraints in Jason’s life, and he had shown an eagerness to step aside and allow a new generation of men to serve in the office of eldership.

Mark MacKaiser and Neil Cable, both long standing members of the church, began working with the elders in 2007 in an elder-training program. Two more me, Zander Viljoen and Barry Jamie, later joined the elder intern program. Mark would serve as an elder intern for some two years before being ordained as an elder (in a non-vocational capacity) in February 2009.

In January 2008, Gary stepped down from the eldership. Meanwhile, Francois, who had formerly ministered as an elder of the church, returned from the mission field. While he waited for God’s direction in his life regarding future ministry, Francois temporarily resumed ministry as an elder, albeit in a non-vocational capacity. Francois was eventually called to pastor the Swakopmund Baptist Church in Namibia.

The church currently has three elders—Doug Van Meter, Christo Beetge and Mark MacKaiser—as well as three elder-interns: Neil Cable, Zander Viljoen and Barry Jamie.