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Covenant
Protestant Reformed Fellowship Ballymena, NI |
To the saints
of the Protestant Reformed
Churches,
May the Lord be with you. You will be glad to hear that the Covenant Protestant Reformed Fellowship (CPRF) is prospering spiritually and numerically. One young man hopes soon to make confession of faith, another is now engaged, and two ladies just started membership classes. This is especially encouraging, for we hope to bring a proposal to Synod 2006 regarding reorganisation. By God’s grace, our attendance is now larger than at any point in my ministry, including the days before the disbanding of the CPRC. The hall in which we meet is filling up, which makes us think and pray more about a building of our own.
Our lecture on “The 1000 Years of Revelation 20” (8
April) was the best-attended lecture we’ve had in Ballymena. The editor of the English Churchman was in Northern Ireland at the time and he
attended, and a number of people saw the short article on the lecture in the Ballymena Guardian and came along. A friend of the CPRF who was present for the
lecture has arranged a building in Omagh to deliver the same speech on 29
April.
I spoke on “The Lord’s Day” in South Wales (4
March). Attendance was low but we sold
a good number of books and tapes. We
have also gained the addresses of a few more people in South Wales and have
heard that there are other people who are interested. We speak next in South Wales on 22 April.
Our last lecture in Limerick, on “Total Depravity”
(24 March), was especially well received.
One man who has been receiving the CDs of our Sunday services brought
his recently converted father to the speech.
Two other men, one originally from Holland, made the 3-hour journey from
Dublin to attend.
“Is Pope John Paul II in Heaven?” is the most
popular article on the CPRF website of late (www.cprf.co.uk). With the recent “marriage” between Prince
Charles and the (now) Duchess of Cornwall, a radio interview I gave about their
relationship and the biblical teaching of marriage as a lifelong bond has also
been receiving a lot of hits. A man
from Kazakhstan, whose friend was on our website, wrote to me recently asking
about the Reformed faith. He saw
problems with Eastern Orthodoxy and baptist dispensationalism, and he wanted to
know more about Reformed predestination, amillennialism, etc. In his last letter—would you believe it—he
wanted to know about Harold Camping and his weird notion of 1994 as the end of
the church age! Family Radio is even
spreading heresy in Kazakhstan of all places!
The CPRF bookstore continues to send out RFPA
material. A young man who is soon to
move to Ballymena to join the CPRF wrote a book review of Rev. Hanko’s Doctrine According to Godliness for the English Churchman (18 & 25 March,
2005). Recently we sent out the new
CPRF book and pamphlet catalogue with the Covenant
Reformed News.
We probably received about 30-35 orders for two
sermon series on “The Most Avoided Chapter in the Bible” (7 sermons) and “Jehoshaphat,
the Ecumenical King” (8 sermons), through advertising in the British Church Newspaper and the English Churchman. Some of these people have ordered other
tapes, books, and pamphlets from us and now get the Covenant Reformed News. Our
tape supplier was unable to provide us with new tapes for some time, so Sean
Courtney (the CPRF tape manager) was up till after 2 o’clock in the morning
running off about 200 tapes and labelling them when they finally arrived. We didn’t want to keep people waiting any
longer. We also enclosed a letter of
apology for the delay.
Prof. and Mrs. Hanko are to be in Northern Ireland
for 5-24 May or thereabouts. He is to
preach for us on three Lord’s days, lead two midweek meetings on the offices of
elder and deacon, give a speech in Ballymena on the Authorized Version, and
another in Limerick on tradition. After
the Limerick speech, Prof. and Mrs. Hanko and Mary and I plan to spend a day or
two around the south coast of Ireland.
The CPRF has rented some
space (20-feet by 10-feet) at the Ballymena Agricultural Show (Friday and
Saturday 27-28 May). At the minute,
we’re looking about shelves and signage.
We hope to make people in the Ballymena area more aware of us; to
display our books, pamphlets, and tapes; to give away free copies of one or two
audio sermons, and to gain some more names for the Covenant Reformed News.
Our thanks to all who sent condolences on the death
of Mary’s grandfather, Rev. Cornelius Hanko.
He fought a good fight and finished his course. Please continue to intercede for the witness
in Northern Ireland and the British Isles.
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces” (Ps. 122:7).
By grace,