Archives for January 25, 2013

Victoria (on right)

On Saturday morning, I spent two hours speaking with two godly young men who had been at the address the previous evening at Zion Free Reformed Church, Fenwick, Ontario. One of them wanted to speak with me about his sense of calling to the ministry. This was time well spent. In the afternoon, I spent some time visiting with relatives who came for my older brother John’s 66^th birthday. John and his wife Miekie had an open house all day long for their family. By late evening most of their thirteen children and forty-three grandchildren had stopped by. What a wonderful family God has blessed them with! I got to see Victoria again as well. She is doing quite a bit better. After I prayed with her, she wanted to show me her injured legs. I then had a great talk with her. She said to me, “I am so glad that all these owies happened to me and not to my baby sister.” That was a tear-jerker.

On Saturday evening, we drove back to the Keunings. I preached in their church, the Hamilton Free Reformed Church, on Sunday morning and evening, and for the St. George Free Reformed Church in the afternoon. Both congregations, which each number about 400 people, listen attentively. I felt particularly helped during the evening service, preaching on how believers wrestle for inward holiness.

St. George Free Reformed Church Building

We arrived home on Monday morning, in time to attend the funeral of Henry Roelofs, a former elder in our church who died at the age of 64 from cancer, leaving behind a large family. He had been orphaned at the age of 18, and had to shoulder the responsibility of caring for all his younger brothers and sisters. At that age, he got a trucking job, and later said, “The cab of that truck became my prayer closet.” He will be sorely missed by many. After the funeral, I rushed to our biannual Board of Trustees seminary meeting, which again went very well under the able chairmanship of our president, Kevin Ash. The following day (yesterday) our seminary semester started. This semester we have several new students, including one from Egypt and one from England. This semester I am teaching Puritan Theology and co-teaching Homiletics I with Dr. David Murray. My Puritan Theology class has 44 students—the largest I’ve ever had—from thirteen countries. Yesterday I left with my wife Mary to speak at a conference in Georgia, and to preach in two churches there on Sunday, D.V. Your prayers are coveted.

Most of My Puritan Theology Students

On Thursday, January 17, my daughter Esther (who works in our bookstore), her boyfriend James Engelsma, and I headed for Ontario for a weekend of ministry, with 30 boxes of books on board, weighing down the back end of the van. Included among the books was a brand new title, Encouragement for Today’s Pastors: Help from the Puritans, which I coauthored with Terry Slachter. We got off to a late start due to van problems, but made it on time that evening to the Covenant Christian Church of Wyoming, Ontario, where I gave an address on “The Biblical Model of Marriage and Child-rearing.” About 200 people attended from several URC churches in the area. Esther and James helped me sell about seven boxes of books after the meeting.

Early Attenders, Wyoming, Canada

We then drove on to Hamilton, Ontario, late that night, but ran into a white-out blizzard near Brantford. For twenty minutes I could not see the highway, nor the traffic in front of us or behind us. I crawled along at 15 miles per hour, relying primarily on signs on either side of the highway. It was very scary; earnest prayer went up from our vehicle during those minutes, as well as much thanksgiving after we made it through the worst part of the blizzard. We finally arrived at the home of our friends Connor and Susan Keuning at 1:00 a.m.

That morning we left an hour early for a conference commemorating the 450^th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism, being put on by the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary. Somehow all three of us missed a turn-off on the highway, and we ended up getting lost. By the time we arrived at the conference venue (9:25 a.m.), we had not only lost the half hour we thought we would have to set up the book table, but I was also ten minutes late for the opening session of the conference. When we arrived, the 300 attendees were singing, waiting for me, so I went straight to the pulpit. Despite feeling frazzled by the embarrassingly late arrival, I felt helped in delivering my lecture on “Catechism Preaching.”  Other major addresses included “The Doctrine of the Covenant in the Heidelberg Catechism” (Dr. Lyle Bierma), “The Heidelberg Catechism: The Secret of its Success” (Dr. Herman Selderhuis), and “The Comforted I in the Catechism” (Dr. Jason VanVliet). Workshops included studies of the catechism in relation to evangelism, the pulpit, future generations, and the church-home-school.

Late Friday afternoon, James, Esther, and I packed up most of the remaining books (the rest stayed behind with Michael Dewalt, a PRTS alumni, who looked after the book table for the remainder of the conference), and drove on to Zion Free Reformed Church, Fenwick, Ontario, where I spoke that evening to 250 young people on following God fully. The young people were great; seldom have I spoken to such an attentive audience. There seemed to be an unusual amount of conviction; I pray that divine benediction will follow this talk and bear eternal fruit. Afterward, the young people surrounded the book table, buying up all thirty of the remaining copies of A Puritan Theology, and scores of additional books. We didn’t even have time to write up invoices, as the crowd around the table was just too intense. Between the three venues, we sold close to $7,000 worth of books, and returned home with only three boxes of the thirty boxes of books we had brought with us. Pray that these books will be read, and that God will bless them richly to many.

Young People at Fenwick