Dutch Reformed Church, Nieu-Bethesda

The Dutch Reformed Church in Nieu-Bethesda is a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Eastern Cape province and in the Synodal area of the NG Church in the Eastern Cape with the town of Nieu-Bethesda as its centre. By 2012, it was, after the congregations Klipplaat and Waterford, the smallest NG congregation in the Synod with only 58 professing members.

The settlement above which the graceful church building towers is situated in a tree-lined valley, 1 340 m above sea level and near the highest mountain in the Karoo, Kompasberg, the watershed between the Orange and Sundays Rivers. In 1778, the explorer Robert Jacob Gordon saw streams flowing in all directions from the summit of the mountain, hence the name. It was the highest mountain peak in the then Cape Province, but has been in the Eastern Cape Province since 1994. The name of the settlement was initially Nieuwe Bethesda, then Nu-Bethesda (the correct spelling), only to become Nieu-Bethesda in later years. (In English it sometimes appears as New Bethesda, although this is not customary.) According to the charter, the village was founded in 1875, but the congregation only three years later in 1878. About eight years later, Nieu-Bethesda obtained municipal status.