|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In harmony with the principles of holy Scripture and our Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dordt), the PRC through its Committee for Contact with Other Churches maintain full sister church relationships with three foreign churches and a corresponding relationship with one other foreign denomination.
83 Clarence Street,
Ballymena BT43 5DR, Northern Ireland
Services: 11:00 A.M. & 6:00 P.M.
Pastor: Rev. Angus Stewart
7 Lislunnan Rd.
Kells, Ballymena, Co. Antrim
Northern Ireland BT42 3NR
Phone: (from U.S.A.) 011 (44) 28 25 891 851
View items...11, Jalan Mesin #04-00
Standard Industrial Building
Singapore 368813
Worship Services: 9:30 A.M. & 2:00 P.M.
Pastors: Josiah Tan (2021) and Marcus Wee (2022)
Pastor J. Tan
Pastor M. Wee
148 Bishan Street 11 #06-113
Singapore 570148
View items...For information on this small Presbyterian denomination in Australia with whom the PRCA have a "corresponding relationship", visit their website.
View items...
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
"Covenant Keepers", the youth ministry of the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore (our sister church), has just released the November 2016 issue of "Salt Shakers" (#40),their youth magazine.
Once again, this issue of "SS" is filled with interesting and profitable articles, and our PRC young people especially are invited and encouraged to make it part of their reading content.
Below you will find a note from the "SS" Committee introducing the contents of this issue and images of the cover and table of contents. The entire issue is also attached here in pdf form.
Beloved Readers,
The Salt Shakers is pleased to bring you Issue 40 of Salt Shakers!
In this issue, we wrap up our consideration of this year's theme: A Pilgrim's Path. Look out for the theme article A Pilgrim's Path: A Stranger in the World by Boaz Leong! Also in the same vein there is Preparing for Persecution by Cheryl Lim. In this issue, we also begin a series on practical eschatology, based on notes from a seminary class given by Prof. David Engelsma. Josiah continues his series on dating with his latest article on Intimacy in a Courting Relationship. We are thankful to all our writers for their excellent contributions to this Reformed magazine.
Once again, we are thankful for the Lord' grace in sustaining the continued publishing of Salt Shakers.
Pro Rege,
Chua Lee Yang
On Behalf of the Salt Shakers Committee
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In his "pastoral voice" part of Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church's (Singapore) October 30, 2016 bulletin Rev. A. Lanning reported on the wonderful news relating to the examination and call of Emmanuel Singh from Kolkata, India:
Dearly beloved saints of CERC,
Yesterday, we were privileged to witness firsthand the fulfillment of God’s promise in Jeremiah 3:15 – “And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Through the examination of Emmanuel Singh, God has brought CERC very close to having our own missionary in Kolkata. It would be good to record here the actual decisions that Session made after the examination.
Decision 1: The Session approve Emmanuel’s examination. Ground: Emmanuel demonstrated his knowledge of, and commitment to, the Reformed faith as taught in CERC, and demonstrated his commitment to teaching the truth in Kolkata.
Decision 2: That, with the concurrence of the brethren from the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, who assisted in the examination of the brother, Session declares Emmanuel Singh eligible to receive a call from Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church in Singapore into the ministry of the Word as a Missionary to India. Ground: All of the requirements of Article 9 of the Church Order have been met.
These decisions mean that, although Emmanuel is not yet our pastor or missionary, CERC may now proceed to call him as our missionary to India. In the next few weeks, Session will be meeting to discuss this call, presenting its nomination to the congregation, and calling a congregational meeting. At that congregational meeting, the congregation will vote whether to extend a call to Emmanuel to serve as our missionary to Kolkata. After that call is issued, Emmanuel would then consider whether to accept the call. Continue to pray for our brother and for CERC as we continue to follow the Lord’s will in India.
Today, our joy continues as we witness the Confession of Faith of Emmanuel and Sonali. One of the requirements of calling him to be our missionary is that he must be a communicant member of CERC. We rejoice to receive our brother and sister as members of this congregation, and look forward to partaking the Lord’s Supper with them next week.
As part of this report, we may add some pictures taken by Daniel Tang of the CERCS and posted by Mrs. S. Lanning on her blog.
Members of the CERC Session examine Emmanuel Singh
Emmanuel S. receives his diploma from Rev. A. Lanning, pastor of the CERC, as Emmanuel's wife Sonali looks on.
Emmanuel S. receives congratulations from Rev. W. Bruinsma and Rev. D. Kleyn, examiners representing the PRCA.
Pastor Emmanuel Singh at a November 2015 presentation in the CERC
Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church in Singapore, sister church of the PRC, has a busy couple of weeks beginning the week of October 23, 2016.
From their bulletin of October 23 we find these special events mentioned in the "pastoral voice" section:
...This week will be busy for our congregation as we host the church visitors and conduct Emmanuel’s [Singh, from Kolkata, India, where the CERC is supporting a mission work] examination this Saturday (29 October). Pray for our brother as he preaches his sermon and answers the questions.
...Church Visitation, which is required by Article 44 of our Church Order, will be conducted on Thursday, 27 October, at 8pm at church. During the Church Visitation, the brethren that we have invited from the PRCA will ask the Session a set of pre-determined questions regarding the church and the work of the officebearers. The purpose of the questions is to help CERC remain faithful in the calling that God has given us as a church, and to help the officebearers remain faithful in their work.
The Lord is good to His church, and through these many events we can see the Lord’s goodness to CERC. Let us continue to seek His face in all our life as a church.
Conducting the church visitation will be Rev. D. Kleyn, PRC missionary to the Philippines, and Rev. W. Bruinsma, pastor of Pittsburgh PRC (on behalf of the PRC Contact Committee). Rev. and Mrs. (Sharon) Kleyn plan to arrive in Singapore on Monday, Oct.24, leaving on Oct.31, while Rev. and Mrs. (Mary) Bruinsma plan to arrive on Wednesday, Oct.26, departing on Nov.8. Emmanuel Singh and his wife Sonali are scheduled to arrive in Singapore Oct.27, staying until Nov.7.
Rev. Kleyn and Rev. Bruinsma will also be preaching at the afternoon service in the CERC while there - Rev. Kleyn on Oct.30 and Rev. Bruinsma on Nov.6.
In addition, the CERC will hold its annual Reformation Day Conference on Nov.4-5, at which Rev. Bruinsma will be speaking.
Let us do as Rev. A. Laning exhorted his congregation to do - pray for these events and for all those involved, including for safe travels for the special visitors.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
13 October, 2016
Dear saints in the Protestant Reformed Churches,
The church year is in full swing here again. The children of the congregation are doing well in the three catechism classes on Monday nights, as we look at New Testament History (Beginners), Old Testament History (Juniors), and the Heidelberg Catechism.
Our Tuesday morning classes (which continued through much of the summer) have cov-ered the ceremonial laws in Leviticus 11-15 which treat uncleanness involving food, child-birth, leprosy, and bodily issues. It is good to dig into the Old Testament law and see references to these things in Israel’s history and prophets, as well as in the gospel accounts and epistles. It adds further depth to the Scriptures, and shows the glory of the cross and the spiritual liberty of Christ’s New Testament church.
The Wednesday night classes recently concluded our treatment of Belgic Confession 28 (www.cprf.co.uk/audio/belgicconfessionclass.htm). The 8 audios, entitled “Bound to Join a Faithful Church,” should soon be produced on CDs as volume 20 of our series of box sets on this great Reformed creed.
“The Life of Jacob” is the engaging subject of an on-going sermon series in Genesis (www.cprf.co.uk/audio/OTseries.htm). We have looked at the patriarch’s birth and its doctrinal significance, his finagling the birthright from Esau and hoodwinking of Isaac for the blessing, his amazing dream of the ladder at Bethel and his godly response to it, plus most recently the strange circumstances surrounding his marriage to Leah and Rachel, when he received some of his own medicine by being outwitted by greedy Laban.
Jacob Buchanan is now helping with the live streaming of our Sunday services, especially in the evenings. In the last few months, viewers have more than doubled and we have been get-ting some good feedback. Our UK times (11 AM & 6PM) are 5 hours ahead of US Eastern Standard Time (www.cprf.co.uk/live.html).
One of our local newspapers, the Ballymena Guardian, carried an article I sent them about our new season of classes and services (6 September). It is good to have opportunities to witness of the Reformed faith so that others may be brought to the rich treasures we enjoy in Jesus Christ.
The CPRC Bookstore continues its work. We have had a good number of new titles in the last three months. Of these, our best-selling books are, in order, Be Ye Holy by Profs. Engelsma and Hanko (46), Christianizing the World by Prof. Engelsma, and God’s Goodness Always Particular by Herman Hoeksema.
Since mid-July and the British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Conference in Northern Ireland, we have sold 25 box sets of “‘Behold, I Come Quickly’: The Reformed Biblical Truth of the End” and 22 other box sets of CDs or DVDs. The hard copy audio-visual catalogue we produced and posted out with the Covenant Reformed News in June is helping get the preached Word out.
We receive a lot of appreciation from the Lord’s people. A brother in England wrote, “A big thank you for the solid Reformed materials you kindly sent me. Doctrinal, Reformed, biblical truth is the bedrock of my faith in Christ alone. The CPRC is a great blessing to me. Wishing you God’s peace and blessing.”
It is also striking how combinations of materials over a long time can bring contacts. A lady in Northern Ireland, who has been receiving the Covenant Reformed News for years through a friend who passes his copies on to her, recently saw a 2013 (!) British Christian magazine’s review of Prof. Engelsma’s Federal Vision: Heresy at the Root. So she phoned us, dropped by at the manse, and bought three books and a box set of DVDs.
Others express their gratitude to the Lord for His truth financially. In the last two months, we have received £2,700 from five saints in Scotland, Australia, and England.
Our main website continues to grow (www.cprc.co.uk). Recently, Mary added to our “Articles” page three of my old seminary term papers, which her father managed to extract from an old floppy disk (remember them?). After making a number of improvements, “God Above Time,” “Postmillennialism and the Remnant,” and “Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo and the Reformed Doctrine of the Atonement” are now online.
Our website also contains articles on Belgic Confession 1-7, Charismaticism, and Psalm-singing, which I wrote for the Salt Shakers mag-azine of the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church (CERC) in Singapore. Earlier today, Mary uploaded a document prepared by David Hutchings, a friend in South Wales, containing 8 Protestant Reformed Theological Journal arti-cles by Prof. Hanko entitled “Another Look at Common Grace” (www.cprf.co.uk/articles/ anotherlookatcg.pdf).
Regarding translations, this past two months have seen another 23 added: 12 Hungarian, 5 Spanish, 2 Czech, 1 Indonesian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Thai, and 1 Tigrinya. All of this, plus putting weekly bulletins, the monthly Covenant Re-formed News, audios of services and lectures, etc., means that Mary puts in a lot of hours of work on our main website.
Our other on-line witnesses are also growing. We have about 700 subscribers to our YouTube page (www.youtube.com/cprcni) and over 2,200 likes on the CPRC Facebook page. Have you checked them out?
On 14 August, Rev. Michael DeVries preached for the CPRC, while Mary and I were in the Limerick Reformed Fellowship (LRF). This was the second of the three Sundays of Rev. McGeown’s trip to the US. It was good for the congregation to hear Pastor DeVries, some 9 years since his last visit. Mary and I spent some time with Rev. and Dawn on the north coast of Northern Ireland during the next two sunny days. They also joined us at our Tuesday morn-ing Bible class.
Later that week, Susan Hall and Janet Napier led a Children’s Bible Club at church (17-18 August). The attractive theme was “The Armour of God” (Eph. 6:10-17). Last Sunday, Philip Hall was reinstalled as deacon (9 October).
“Are Unbelievers in God’s Image?” was the subject at the lecture in South Wales (30 Sep-tember). Though a number of regulars told us that the date we had chosen would not work for them, we still had a decent number present, in-cluding some saints whom we had not seen for a while. Sales included 10 books and 4 box sets of CDs.
After the speech, we left off Timothy Spence, a CPRC member studying at Wales’ Cardiff University, at Hebron Hall (www.hebronhall.org). This is the Christian conference centre chosen as the venue for the 2018 BRF Conference on the family, with our main speakers being Prof. Engelsma and Rev. Andy Lanning! The gardens and the tennis courts look even better than they did in 2010 when we were last there. Maybe you should pencil in 21-28 July, 2018 for a week in Wales with the BRF?
May the Lord be with you all,
In Christ,
Rev. Angus and Mary Stewart
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
"Covenant Keepers", the youth ministry of the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore (our sister church), recently released the September 2016 issue of "Salt Shakers" (#39),their youth magazine.
Once again, the "SS" is filled with interesting and profitable articles, and our PRC young people especially are invited and encouraged to make it part of their reading content.
Below you will find a note from the "SS" Committee introducing the contents of this issue and images of the cover and table of contents. The entire issue is also attached here in pdf form.
Beloved Readers,
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Classis East
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Classis West
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.