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Covenant
Protestant Reformed Fellowship Ballymena, NI |
To the saints of the
Protestant Reformed
Churches,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord! Mary and I hope to see some of you this summer when we come to the US for four weeks (probably 25 July-22 August, 2005), spending some time in New England and in western Michigan. We intend to give presentations on the work in the UK in several Protestant Reformed Churches and to be in Pittsburgh (31 July), Wyckoff (7 August), and Grand Rapids (14 & 21 August) for Sunday services. It seems such a long time from our last visit to the States!
The work in Ballymena and the wider British Isles is very encouraging. God gathers His church by His Word! Recent sermon series include “The Apostolic Office,” which dealt with many of the errors of Pentecostalism (7 sermons), and “Church Discipline, a Key of the Kingdom of Heaven” on I Corinthians 5 (5 sermons). A few weeks ago we began a study of “Abraham, the Father of the Faithful.” The CPRF is growing in the faith, and our visitors are increasing—nothing massive; just slow and steady. One young man from Dublin is looking for a house and a job in the Ballymena area to come and join us.
We appreciate visits from the PRC. Wayne, Sarah, and Connor Courtney, Andrea Lenting, and Sara Kamps have been with us recently. Elder Henry Boer from Hudsonville and Rev. Rodney Kleyn from Trinity were with us 4-14 February 2005. They engaged in family visitation with Mary and me, church visitation with the CPRF Steering Committee, and fellowship with many of our people in their homes and at various church activities, including our congregational dinner. They were also able to accompany us to Limerick and see the saints there. Rev. Kleyn preached three times for us and led our mid-week meeting. We enjoyed having them over, and it gave me a bit of a break.
On 14 January 2005, I debated
Rev. Ivan Foster of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster on Psalm
singing. The hall at Ballymena Leisure
Centre was well filled, with about 150-170 present. Jonathan Moore, from Cambridge in England (who chaired the debate
and whom some of you will know from British Reformed Fellowship conferences),
stayed with us for the weekend with his wife, Caragh, and their four
children. The debate went very well and
we were greatly encouraged. A lot of
people took the free pamphlets we set out on the back table. In the days and
weeks afterwards we have had a good number of positive responses by phone,
e-mail, and letter. Some of these
people now receive the Covenant Reformed
News. We have also had very
favourable responses from the people in Limerick and South Wales to whom we
give lectures. Probably about 1,000
people have listened to the debate on-line (www.cprc.co.uk/m3u/
psalmodydebate.m3u). We decided
to advertise the two tapes of the debate in the British Church Newspaper for two issues and have had a fair number
of sales so far.
Two weeks after the Psalm debate, the CPRF held a lecture on “Problems with Revivals” in Ballymena (28 January, 2005). The speech was preceded by a slide presentation on revivals in Wales given by Lindsay Williams from England, who stayed with us for the weekend. The speech was well received by most, but one minister, on hearing the tape, wrote that the CPRF shows “all the signs of an unbiblical cult!” “All” of the signs! It is very sad that the biblical and Reformed faith is so little known.
On Friday 18 February, I gave a speech in Ballymena entitled “Does God Desire to Save the Reprobate?” Our friend Stephen Rushton from Bradford (a member of the British Reformed Fellowship Council) was over for the lecture and stayed with us for the weekend.
In the last couple of months,
I delivered two lectures in Limerick (“Irresistible Grace” [15 December, 2004]
and “The Lord’s Day” [9 February, 2005]) and one in South Wales (“The 1000
Years of Revelation 20” [21 January, 2005]).
The speeches were well received.
At the lectures we also sell books and tapes, distribute free pamphlets,
and gain new names for the Covenant
Reformed News.
The terrible tsunami in
Southeast Asia captured public and church attention in Northern Ireland. The Belfast
Telegraph (N. Ireland’s best-selling daily newspaper) devoted two pages to
comments on the tsunami by religious leaders.
Rev. Ian Paisley repeatedly and emphatically denied that there are any
punishments for sin in this world(!).
My letter, quoting the Bible and Westminster
Larger Catechism Q & A 28, which teach the opposite, was published in
the Belfast Telegraph, Ballymena Guardian, and Ballymena Times. We put the letter on
the CPRF website and somehow or other it appeared fourth in the “Google” web
search for “articles on the tsunami.”
This meant about 30-40 people a day came to our website through this
article for several weeks.
The CPRF website is seeing more traffic than ever before. The number of website users and hits each day is increasing, and February 2005 already has by far the largest number of sermon downloads we have ever had.
The CPRF bookstore is well stocked and doing very
well, especially through advertisements in the News, as well as through our website. Book reviews of Rev. Hanko’s Doctrine
According to Godliness were carried in the Ballymena Guardian, Ballymena
Times, and the Newsletter; and a
book review of John Calvin’s Sermons on
Galatians (by Martyn McGeown, a friend of the CPRF) was published in the British Church Newspaper and the English Churchman. These generated only a few sales, but it is
good to get the material out there.
The CPRF Steering Committee
decided to place an advertisement for three issues in both the British Church Newspaper and the English Churchman promoting the Covenant Reformed News; our tape, book,
and pamphlet catalogues; and audio tapes of sermon series on “The Most Avoided
Chapter in the Bible” (Rom. 9) and “Jehoshaphat, the Ecumenical King.” We have been delighted with the response and
have sold many sets of the tapes and gained several new names for the News—we now have over 450 people on the
list. Several people have also ordered
books and tapes from us from the catalogues that we sent them. So great and unexpected was the demand that
we even ran out of blank tapes! A good
problem to have! We have since made an
improved arrangement with our tape supplier.
Thank you for your prayers and the letters and cards we receive (sorry we can’t respond to them all!). Please continue to supplicate the throne of grace for the witness of Christ’s gospel in Northern Ireland and the British Isles.
In Christ,