So far in our series on the sacraments in the church of Christ we have explored Holy Baptism. Now we are moving on to take a closer look at Holy Communion. What is the position of the New Apostolic Church?

In the northern hemisphere, the month of October is often described as a “golden” month: it still brings quite a bit of sunshine, boasts some beautiful sunsets, and paints the leaves of the trees in fabulous hues. This only serves to reinforce the realisation that God’s creation is wonderful!

Proclaiming the gospel—that is where Christians enthusiastically do their part. After all, they have been commissioned to do so! Everyone is to know that God is near to all people and that He loves them! This can be preached, explained, and lived in practice.

Thousands of pictures, GPS coordinates, addresses, phone numbers. Bishop Alvin Witten and his wife, Jean, are gathering enormous amounts of data. What is going to happen with all the data and who will have access to it?

A hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable: divine services via phone-in, on television, via satellite, or the internet. Today divine services are just a click away. Quite a lot of work goes into this to make it possible.

Alvin Witten and his wife, Jean, now live in Mozambique. They travel across the country, visiting hundreds of congregations, recording GPS coordinates, taking pictures of rectors and churches. Their to-do list has 1,326 congregations on it.

In 2014 the congregation in Somerset in Cape Town (South Africa) moved into a different place of worship. The congregation’s new home is an old Dutch Reformed Church that was taken over by the New Apostolic Church and renovated. The building is over 200 years old.

COVID-19 has even had an influence on the liturgical sequence of the divine services: where choirs used to sing, voices must often be silent now. What remains is the search for creative solutions…

In mid-March, the first churches begin closing in response to the corona pandemic. The Church responds immediately: from then on, members are able to participate in divine services live-streamed on YouTube.

“We are happy to finally ‘get on the map,’” explains Apostle Robert Worship enthusiastically. The administrative director of the District Church of Southern Africa is supervising an extraordinary project: the very first mapping of the New Apostolic congregations in Mozambique.

Miracles are not the solution—they are merely a reference to it. Rather, it is more about performing miracles of our own and sending a signal—or showing a kind of sign—in the process. How, why, and to what end? Following are some points from a divine service with the Chief Apostle.

Esther Kompare is the new president of the New Apostolic Church Slovenia. This is the first time that a woman has taken on this responsibility in this country.

Fluctuating case numbers and adapting to changing Covid19 measures are challenging people everywhere. But there is a comforting constant in all of this—our online and dial-in services.

Jesus drank wine and John the Baptist was an ascetic. In that case neither of them could have been sent by God, could they?! Nevertheless, Jesus’ actions prove that He was indeed sent by God. And whoever follows the path that Jesus established has grounds for true joy.

Naturally the churches acknowledge each other’s baptisms, even though this step has taken centuries to achieve. After all, the question of sacraments is intimately linked to the respective understanding each one has of what constitutes church. And yet they have all managed to approve sound papers on the subject.

The Lord’s Prayer is 2,000 years old and is considered the central prayer of all Christians. It has maintained its place in Holy Scripture and in Christian churches around the world to this day. So what does it express?

It all began with a woman who became New Apostolic while on a trip to Denmark fifty years ago. Upon returning to India, she did not keep her faith to herself, but rather told many others about Jesus and living Apostles. And against all odds, there are around 45,000 New Apostolic Christians living in India today.

Lockdown, bans on assembly, no divine services—in many places, believers cannot gather together in the church. For them the offer of divine service by video continues.