Covenant Protestant
Reformed Fellowship Ballymena, NI |
To the saints in the
Protestant Reformed Churches,
Greetings in Christ’s name from the mission field in the UK. The work here is going very well. God be praised! A couple from the other side of Belfast now have a
car and are able to attend all our services. They
are redoubling their efforts to buy a house in the Ballymena area. Other visitors continue to come, including a
family of seven who first visited with us when Rev. VanderWal was in Northern Ireland in
August. This last week (11 October) saw the
birth of Nathan Colin Buchanan, the second son of Colin and Beth.
The saints are profiting from the Word. We
recently finished a series on the new birth from John 3:1-13 and now we are considering
God’s Covenant and the Golden Calf (Ex. 32-34).
The CPRF midweek Bible Study on Eschatology and Time is being very well attended. So far we have mainly been studying the
Scripture’s teaching on “this age” and “the age to come” and
seeing how it refutes the errors of premillennialism and postmillennialism.
Recently the CPRF bookstore has been distributing a lot of material on common
grace. We ordered 20 copies of Sin and Grace for sale to those who are not members
of the RFPA book club. All are now gone. We mailed about 50 copies of Common Grace Revisited to British subscribers to
the Standard Bearer along with a letter and a
sample copy of the Covenant Reformed News asking
if they would like to receive the News. We also distributed another 50 copies of Common Grace Revisited to others. Last week we received the two audio tapes of
“A Debate on Common Grace” between Prof. Engelsma and Dr. Mouw. We’ve given out copies of the tapes to our
members and visitors and plan to sell the two audio tapes for 3 pounds through the Covenant Reformed News. Prof. Engelsma’s statement of the biblical
and Reformed position is compelling and we hope this will enable people in the UK to see
through common grace.
Articles we have written continue to be published in local and Christian
newspapers. Probably we get more newspaper
space than any other church our size in the British Isles.
Another book review of Righteous by Faith
Alone has been published in a UK Christian paper and hopefully two more such reviews
will soon see light of day. The English Churchman and the Ballymena Guardian carried letters I wrote in
connection with the second anniversary of September 11.
For the first time we have had something published in the Belfast Telegraph, the best selling Northern
Ireland paper. One of their columnists raised
the question, What is a devout Presbyterian? Mr.
Callender, a former elder in the CPRC, suggested I respond.
The letter I sent (“Devout Presbyterians are rare”) was abbreviated but
still it was good to have it published. We
have recently begun to make use of the “Events to Note” sections of Christian
newspapers to advertise our special meetings. Like
the letters, reports, and book reviews, this is free.
On 26 September, we held a lecture in Ballymena on Jonathan Edwards in connection
with the tercentenary of his birth. We had
half a dozen good visitors and have since
distributed a number of tapes of the speech. Previews
or reports of the Jonathan Edwards speech were carried in various newspapers.
We will be holding a Reformation lecture (DV) in Omagh and in Ballymena entitled
“Calvin versus Pighius: Does God Desire
to Save the Reprobate?” on the evenings of Thursday 30 and Friday 31 November. Belief in the free offer is widespread in the UK. This is facilitating the slide into Arminianism of
many professedly Presbyterian and evangelical churches.
Prof. and Mrs. Hanko have booked flights to be with us from Saturday 29 November to
Monday 15 December 2003. As well as preaching
for us, Prof. Hanko will speak 3 times at a special 2-day mini-conference (Friday
5-Saturday 6 December) on the Antithesis (the speeches he gave at a young people’s
retreat in Edgerton). Friends from England,
Scotland, and Wales plan to be with us for that weekend.
Subscriptions to the British Reformed Journal
have increased steadily. The last few
issues have included an article by Rev. Langerak against the Arminianism of John
Wesley and articles on infant baptism, the covenant, and psalm-singing. Preparations for the 2004 British Reformed
Fellowship Family Conference at High Leigh in England (13-20 August) continue. We had originally thought that we would be sharing
the High Leigh Conference Centre with a group led by Ian Paisley. However, the article in a UK paper (from which we
gathered this information) published a correction: Ian Paisley’s group comes a week
after us.
Last month we employed two men to put up a new fence around the piece of land we
own in Ballymena. Next we plan to send in a
bulldozer and lorry to clear away the rubble and uproot the tree stumps. This will make the site much tidier.
Brethren, continue to pray for the progress of the Reformed faith in Ballymena and
the United Kingdom.
Yours in Christ Jesus,