About

The story begins in 1907 when Mr. Walker, a local potter decided to start an Interdenominational Sunday School for all English-speaking children in Kempton Park. There were no church buildings in Kempton Park at the time; even the Dutch Reformed Church was holding services in the school hall.

The Sunday School started with eight children present on the first Sunday. Soon the majority of the English speaking children in Kempton Park started attending this Sunday School. As it grew, Mr. Walker and a group of teachers decided to build a little wood and iron hall. This was Kempton Park’s very first church and became lovingly known as the ‘Little Tin Tab’ (Tabernacle) which opened at 15:00 on Saturday, 9 October 1915.

With the building completed, it was decided to arrange Sunday services for the parents. Each Sunday a different minister would be asked to speak. Thus, the Tin Tab became a truly interdenominational community church for most of the English-speaking residents of Kempton Park. As new churches were established, some of the people naturally joined up with their own denominations. However, many remained with the church and formed an Interdenominational Fellowship in 1933. A Constitution and Statement of Purpose were developed and a committee elected to run the church. The Fellowship still made use of visiting ministers from various denominations and thus maintained a very interdenominational character.

In 1953, the Tin Tab was replaced by a brick building called the WALKER MEMORIAL HALL in memory of Mr Walker. Thus the Fellowship became known as the WALKER MEMORIAL CHURCH.

In 1971 the Fellowship decided to call the Rev. Deryck Stone as their pastor. Having their own pastor, the Fellowship soon developed into a local independent church which was basically Baptist in constitution. The steady growth over the years resulted in accommodation problems in the old building and the search began for a new property.

In 1979 the congregation acquired five acres of land and began building in February 1982. Twenty months later, on 10 October 1983, phase one of the building project was completed and officially opened.

In 1999, a new 3 000-seater Auditorium, Maranatha’s current home, was opened.  It includes a chapel, book  and coffee shop. The old church buildings were put to good use and now house a Youth and Young Adult facility (including the Next Gen Coffee Shop, games area and climbing wall) as well as classrooms and offices for Maranatha Christian School.

Maranatha Community Church has grown from strength-to-strength and as God has added to our number, our facilities, which now include a Christian Counselling Centre, have also grown.