ABOUT BRENTWOOD

In 2003 the community of Howick Methodist Church some of whom came from Mpophomeni had a vision of starting a Methodist Church in the then developing community of Tumbleweed. They shared this vision with the Rev. Simangaliso Kumalo who at the time was an assistant minister at Howick Methodist Church. Three women who were members of this church namely Kesseth Mkhize, Zandile Ntoyi and Alzinah Mabaso had contributed an amount of money and bought a Church site in Tumbleweed.

This was made easy by the fact that the inkosi (chief) of the area Inkosi Selby Makhosonke Mkhize was a member of the Methodist Church, so he helped with the attainment of the church site. Rev Kumalo discussed the matter with the Rev Bill Whitehead who was the Senior Minister and they agreed to support the initiative of building a church at Tumbleweed, which would be an extension of the work at Howick under the Metropolitan Circuit. It also happened that the same year Rev Kumalo would go to the United States of America to continue with his PhD studies at Duke University.
It was whilst he was in the US that he was introduced to Brentwood Methodist Church by the Rev Janet Wolf, another Methodist minister. Brentwood Methodist Church, Nashville Tennessee is one of the largest and respected United Methodist Church in the US. In this church Rev Kumalo proposed a partnership between the two churches to the Senior Pastor the Rev Dr Howard Olds who embraced the idea.