Eastern Home Missions

Newsletter

Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma

216 Thornberry Drive

Pittsburgh PA 15235

phone: (412) 371-2277

willb52@adelphia.net

April, 2006

Greetings from the mission field in Pittsburgh!

Settling in:

The past couple of months have been spent settling into our new house here in Pittsburgh. Mary and my two youngest daughters, Megan and Lydia, remain in Kalamazoo until June. Both girls are graduating this year, Megan from high school and Lydia from grade school. To pull them out of school and have them start at a new school with only part of a semester left would be hard on them, especially when it is so close to graduation. So we decided to allow them to finish the school year there and then to graduate with their close friends and classmates.

This has worked out well, since the house here in Pittsburgh was not entirely ready for living when I arrived. The house here needed some repairs and the rooms a good coat of paint. Dave Rau, of our Southwest Church, volunteered his time and labor in making a number of major repairs to the house, including new windows and siding. Slowly but surely the walls now have been painted and a new laminate floor laid in the kitchen and dining area. The house looks good! It is now ready for the family and the furniture to move into it! I can’t wait!

Getting acclimated:

Moving into a new house is one matter, but acclimating oneself to a new type of work is another. Working on a mission field is not the same as that in an established congregation. To be sure, there still are the normal tasks of preaching each Sunday, teaching catechism classes, and leading Bible studies. These types of labors are routine, whether in an established church or on a mission field. But the question that I have confronted and still confront is: then what? What am I supposed to do that is the work of missions in particular? What does mission work consist of? There has to be something different, something unique that will occupy my time. Is mission work going from house to house and inviting people to the mission? Is it merely inviting every person I come in contact with to the mission and talking to them about Christ? I must admit that at first I was feeling somewhat panicky!

But the Lord has a way of revealing the labors that need to be done. I have now received several requests for speaking engagements. An example is the one I have received for this coming week. I was asked to meet with a group of men north of the Pittsburgh area to explain to them our view concerning the error of common grace. This group is made up of men from various Presbyterian denominations. It should prove interesting! But this is just one example. There are others contacting me as well to speak for them — not all kinds of invitations, but a few.

I am also discovering that the extended families of those who are members of the mission here need visits and, in some instances, labor. Certainly, given our covenant view, we do not wish to ignore the families of those who are in the mission. I believe these labors in themselves will occupy a large share of my time.

There is one other labor that is becoming more evident. I am beginning to write many more e-mails than I have in the past. When I was in my former congregation, I received complaints that I never responded very well to e-mails. I must admit, that was true. But that cannot be the case anymore! I am corresponding with people from several different areas in the Eastern United States. What seemed to be a waste of time (e-mailing) in the past, now is a part of my labors, and, I am finding, an enjoyable part. I am sure that time will reveal other labors that need to be performed too. But already I find my schedule being filled with the activities of missions.

Why?

There has been time for some introspection in the move to Pittsburgh too. There were doubts when I first took up my labors here. The first few Sundays that went by, I returned home asking myself the question: what am I doing here? What did I do, leaving my congregation in Kalamazoo in order to preach to people that fill only a few rows of chairs in a library, of all places? I mean, I had recently considered calls from some congregations of considerable size! And I could have stayed in a congregation that I loved and in which I felt very comfortable! Why did I leave all that behind to preach to a few souls on a mission field?

Since I have been here, God has definitely confirmed the call He has given me. I know why I took the call, and though I bulked, I am discovering anew what interests me so much in missions.

First of all, missions is not just an important part of the work of the church; it is at the very heart of the work of the church! Christ’s command to His church is this: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Christ’s command is not: “Preach the gospel to the few people in the denomination of which you are a part.” The work of the church is to preach “in season and out of season,” and to all who will hear. Or, to use the words of the Canons of Dordt, Second Head, Article 5, “This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be declared and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.” When I hear a person say, “if we pull all our missionaries from the mission fields to work in our own churches, we will not have any vacancies,” then I hear a person who is ignorant of the calling of the church.

Besides this, when that attitude is taken, that we need ministers in our own churches first and then we can worry about the mission field, it indicates we have become smug and selfish. God has entrusted into the care of our denomination of churches a precious gospel! He has given us freely, and certainly not because we have made ourselves worthy of it, the truth — a truth that is of extreme value! Now, what is going to be our attitude toward such a possession? Are we going to be misers? Are we going to hoard it to ourselves and not share it with anyone else? Of course not! I want the world to know what God has done for us and what He has given to us as churches! What we have freely received from God we must be willing freely to share with others! When I see first-hand the positive reaction of those who hear the gospel of grace that God has given into our hands for development and protection, then I understand this calling!

That is the second reason that I took the call to be missionary. Maybe it’s selfish of me, I am not sure. But I did it for me! At times it is easy for a person (including a minister) to coast. One can get so caught up in his labors in the church that those labors become mere work. They become humdrum. One starts to become complacent in those labors and to forget personally just how precious the doctrines of grace are. There are no challenges to what one believes. There are only few opportunities to share the gospel with those who do not know those truths as do the members of the congregation. When working on a mission field I am able to witness first-hand the zeal and enthusiasm of those who are hearing this gospel for the first time. I can read their correspondence, I can see their faces, I can observe their reaction to the preaching and teaching. “This is a precious jewel! I want that truth!” When I see that reaction to the gospel, then I am renewed in my zeal too. I am made to see anew that indeed God has given me and my churches something special. I will have opportunity to share in future newsletters some of the correspondence I already have received from those who are filled with that zeal for the truth. Maybe that will give you a taste of what I mean.

The men who labor on the mission committees of our churches and in the calling churches can testify to what I am talking about. Maybe it was by means of my labors for so long on the DMC that God led me to take the call. Maybe it was the frequent visits I made to mission fields both foreign and domestic that gave me the desire. I am not sure. But I count it a privilege to labor in missions!