Our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.” 1 Thess. 1:5 JUNE 2020

Students Continue to Study the Church Fathers during the Covid-19 Outbreak. Early in the spring semester, I was having so much fun lecturing in person on the early church fathers. I was gearing up to lecture on various missionaries and theologians in the Middle Ages. My students were learning about the church fathers and the development of doctrine in the early church. Then the Covid-19 outbreak struck.

While many Americans followed stay at home orders, and had less of their normal work to do, my students continued to study. Even though classes were cancelled, my students continued to follow a detailed class syllabus. They have been completing daily homework assignments and writing term papers—although they cannot get into the classroom to type them out.

So my students kept busy throughout the spring semester. They are about to make me terribly busy. In an unprecedented move, the chaplain is approved to collect my student’s assignments and to mail them me. Normally no contact would be allowed through the mail between a volunteer and prisoners. Soon I will be grading 60 term papers on how the early church fathers defended the Godhead of Jesus against the Arian heretics. I will grade another 60 papers

on how Augustine, Gottschalk, Bradwardine, and Wycliffe championed the biblical doctrine of predestination.

In three of the prisons where Divine Hope Reformed Bible Seminary teaches there have been few or no prisoners diagnosed with Covid-19. However, in two other prisons there have been wider outbreaks. But God has protected our students.

We wait on the Lord’s timing for the reopening of the educational institutions in the prisons. For the summer we are making plans for a distance learning course that the students can take if we are unable to teach in person.

Lately I have been working on putting together video talks on church fathers or medieval theologians. The plan is to play these videos on the prison T.V. station. I videotaped talks on the life and mission work of St. Patrick of Ireland and the life and thought of Thomas Aquinas. Even though Patrick was enslaved as a young man in Ireland, he

returned to the island of his captors to preach the gospel. While it is true that Patrick faced opposition along the way, what is remarkable is the astonishing fruit that God gave to his evangelistic labors. I think that my students will be surprised to learn to what extent Thomas Aquinas taught the doctrine of sovereign, unconditional election.

Pastor Brummel can be reached at:divinehopedanville@yahoo.com

Divine Hope Reformed Bible Seminary Rev. Nathan Brummel

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Please visit urcnamissions.org for recent interviews with our missionaries, newsletters and prayer requests. Rev. Rich Kuiken and Rev. Thabet Megaly explain the blessings that they have seen in their work.

Check it out!

Dear brothers and sisters of the United Reformed Churches

Greetings from Eastern Europe! I pray that you are all healthy and safe in this strange and chaotic world. We are living in an interesting time when nothing is ”business as usual.”

I am thankful to have the opportunity to visit the United States just before the pandemic started. Each January I travel back to visit a few churches and meet with pastors. It is encouraging for me as I have the chance to discuss our Romanian mission with our greater church family. It is a time of fellowship and reflection which I greatly appreciate at the beginning of each new year of ministry.

After returning to Europe, I was glad to see new visitors attending our worship services. We also started a new members class which we were able to complete right before the Romanian lockdown started. We were able to raise the awareness of our church plant as I was invited to join a TV show where priests and pastors meet to discuss theology.

After an encouraging start of the year, everything was halted by a military lockdown which was implemented on March 15. We were not allowed to leave our homes except for doing grocery shopping and a few other essential activities. This lockdown had quite a significant impact on people as everyone was discussing the danger of COVID19. Death seemed closer and more real to many people.

Because of the restrictions we moved all our mission activity to online platforms through Zoom meetings, YouTube recordings, and website articles. We saw a significant increase in people interested in theology, some maybe just out of boredom. Many COVID19 dilemmas have presented an opportunity to promote Reformation theology through sermons, blogs, and articles. For example, the Eastern Orthodox (EO) church administers the eucharist by using a “holy” spoon where they put wine and bread. As hundreds of people have to put the same spoon in their mouth when attending a liturgy, this raised many questions during the pandemic. The unwillingness of the EO church to reform the spoon practice has made many people question this superstition and the EO church in general.

The military lockdown has ended on May 15, but we are still not allowed to hold worship services in person. We hope this restriction will be lifted sometime in June so that we can resume our regular church activity.

Thank you for all the prayers and support! We are comforted by your love and support.

Warmly in Christ,Rev. Mihai Corcea

Bucharest, RomaniaPastor Mihai Corcea

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Starting this month we will be featuring a series of articles on evangelism written by Pastor Paul Murphy, church-planter in NYC.

Extended Trumpet

There are many who could address this topic. However, I have heard far too many people address this subject in an academic and doctrinaire way. This demonstrates that not all should address this topic. Thus I begin by stating my qualifications and experience. I have been an elder or pastor in our churches for over twenty years. Ever since my conversion I have had a burden for evangelism and to see lost people come to Christ as Savior and Lord. I have been involved in evangelistic enterprises all my Christian life. I have served my local congregation efforts, my seminary while in attendance, have taught seminars, trained people, am now a church planter in NYC, and seeking to see evangelism done in local congregations throughout the URC.

I have been a member and officer in Dutch Reformed churches for that whole time. I mention that because I want you to know that my comments and observations, while at times challenging and critical, come from my personal and pastoral experience. I address shortcomings and omissions in our midst towards the end that we are more balanced in our ministries and more useful to the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ. Having said all that, allow some preliminary observations.

Most congregational growth in our circles has been biological (having lots of kids) and transfer (members from other congregations) growth. While these are generally referred to in a disparaging and dismissive manner, I want to affirm them.

Very often biological growth is jokingly called ‘Dutch evangelism’. It is no joke. Since the great commission calls us to make disciples, what better way than to have children and raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord? This is simply consistent with the design of the covenant. God is a God to believers and to their children. God ordinarily works in the line of families. It has been my delight to meet many families who can trace back the faith for multiple generations. One man told me that Christianity has been in his family line for 400 years! And that’s not all.

In our circles it has been common to retain our youth. This is highly unusual in the North American evangelical context. What is routine is for church youth to leave the faith when they go off to college. This, I think, is not so much the fault of the college (as secular and anti-Christian as they may be). Rather it is most likely the failure of the church to see these children as beneficiaries of the covenant with all its attendant privileges and responsibilities. In our circles much time and energy is expended on the three-legged stool – church, school, and home. There is catechetical instruction through high school years. There is a commitment to Christian education (domestic or institutional) so that children

learn to ‘think God’s thoughts after Him and see all of life through the lenses of Scripture, taking every thought captive to make them obedient to Christ’. And there is in the home a deep piety affecting the hearts of all within its walls. Truth be known, the Church in North America would be stronger and better off with far more ‘disciples’ if every church has the same emphasis and distinctives that we in Dutch Reformed circles take for granted. I am thankful to God for our biological growth!

Furthermore, it needs to be said, that with such emphasis and distinctives among us, members time and energy are pulled in different directions than just evangelism. Here we see once more the connection between doctrine and life. Our theology is covenantal and that has implications for how we live, especially with respect to our children. There is need for manpower to teach catechism, populate school boards, give adequate attention to family life, and all this in addition to church life with its committees and councils, etc.

This is contrasted with the typical North American evangelical church where rapture theology reigns. In such churches, since they believe that we live on “The Late, Great Planet Earth” (a la Hal Lindsey), the only thing that matters is getting people saved, plucking brands from the fire, and getting them into the church. Thus all attention, effort, and energy are spent on evangelism. It is the be all and end all of the Christian life. Add to this then the idea that children of believers are not members of the covenant and thus not to be discipled and you have a recipe for aggressive programs of outreach. But you have little, if any attention on making disciples of those in the church already. Doctrine does affect life! Biological growth is a good thing and should be seen for what it is, the blessing of God on the faithful nurture of covenant youth.

What about transfer growth? I think it is OK if and when people in other Christian communions come to Reformed doctrinal convictions that they can find a home in confessional churches. After all, we believe that doctrine unites not divides (contrary to the popular adage – ‘doctrine divides, love unites’). We are those who confess the Three Forms of Unity. We are thankful for churches that have confessions where we all confess the same truths. We welcome all those who would confess that the Bible teaches the same things we believe. Praise the Lord that there are places for such people to go. This too is a good thing.

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From Whence Comes Our Growth?By Pastor Paul Murphy, church planter in NYC

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EXTENDED

Next month Pastor Murphy addresses the question, “What changes are needed?”