All Articles For Anonymous

I have agreed to write anonymously, but I must caution all of us on this approach because of two dangers it presents. One, this sends an unwanted message to the abused that they must remain hidden from view and must not speak out about their abuse. Two, this provides relief to the perpetrator of the crime that they will not be found out and are actually allowed to continue to abuse in obscurity, leaving the lambs of God in grave danger as the wolf continues to roam unhindered amongst the sheep. This is what happened in my case.1 Sexual abuse...

By God’s grace, Georgetown PRC just celebrated her 25th Anniversary in 2019. Currently a congregation of 154 families and 32 individuals, we began as a group of 34 families and 1 individual. Georgetown is the 26th congregation to be organized in our beloved Protestant Reformed denomination. Our official organization took place on March 2, 1994 in the auditorium of Hudsonville PRC. On Au­gust 21, 1994 our first pastor, Rev. Ron VanOverloop, preached his inaugural sermon on Ephesians 4:19. The church began meeting first at Bauer Elementary and then moved to Heritage Christian School. The land at 7146 48th Avenue was...

In July of 1942, Rev. C. Hanko came to the Randolph area and began to give speeches. Later, Rev. H. Hoeksema came with him and the Reformed truth was expounded. The church was organized in August of 1943 with eight families and several individuals. Worship services were held in the Congregational church in the afternoons and evenings. Special meetings and catechism classes were held in various homes. Later, a “ basement church” was purchased from the CRC and was used until 1974, when a new building was built beside the basement church. That building was outgrown and a new sanctuary...

In the 1970s the city of Hudsonville, Michigan was experiencing a population growth that also was reflected in the Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church. Hudsonville PRC outgrew its little white building on the southeast corner of VanBuren and School Street, and decided to relocate to a brand new facility on a hill less than a mile away on 32nd Avenue. In the next few years the congregation experienced more steady growth in membership, so a decision was made to establish a daughter congregation in Byron Center, Michigan in order to help alleviate overcrowd­ing in the “new” church building. In 1994 the...

Peace Protestant Reformed Church is located in Dyer, Indiana. Our pastor is Rev. Ryan Barnhill. We are a congregation of 47 families, seven single adults, and a quiver full of 104 baptized children. Our roots are founded in the South Holland PRC, as we are a daughter of that congregation. Peace was organized as a church in 1988. Our first meeting place was Illiana Christian High School in Lansing, IL. We met there for seven years, and then built our first church building and parsonage in Lansing, Illinois. That building served us well for 22 years. Two years ago, we...

God has ordained elders for their place in the church, and God has worked in them spiritually in their upbringing in their homes, in catechism and in the preaching, to prepare them for the work they will need to do in their office. But this training is not sufficient for all the help some saints need. This contribution is not to criticize the work of our minsters and elders, but to make everyone more aware of some of the great and difficult needs of hurting saints, which the ministers and elders alone are not able to meet. (Read Prof. B....

On Monday night, January 3, 2011, God answered the prayers of many parents in Loveland, CO. By faith the Loveland Protestant Reformed Christian School Society voted to start a high school beginning in 2011-2012. This would complete our school’s humble beginnings forty-nine years ago, when we started with seven students in grades 1-5. The possibility of our having a high school in Loveland was explored already in the early 1980s, when we added the 9th grade. In the 1990s, the Board conducted feasibility studies and surveyed the school society membership, in order to gain their input and gauge the level...

Featured in our May 15 “Special Issue” on Missions and Evangelism was the work of various PR Evangelism Committees. The contribution of South Holland PRC’s Evangelism Committee was inadvertently omitted. With our apologies to South Holland, we print theirs belatedly below. The Evangelism Committee of the South Holland Protestant Reformed Church officially labors in direct obedience to Christ’s command to proclaim the gospel to all nations. We do this under the supervision of the council of our church, with our pastor as the chairman of the Evangelism Committee. The committee takes this work very seriously. The work is nothing less...

Call the Sabbath a Delight! Welcome to our special issue on the Lord’s Day. The Old Testament name Sabbathemphasizes the truth that we are to rest in the mighty works of God, notably our salvation sealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The New Testament name Lord’s Dayemphasizes that Jesus Christ is Lord of the entire Sabbath, and He determines what is right for the day. This special day, established by God as a creation ordinance, is one that even the ungodly cannot ignore totally. And yet, in both respects—as Sabbath and as the Lord’s Day—God’s law is trampled underfoot. That the...

The next two selections transport us back in time to the events of the reformation in the Netherlands. The first is a song composed by Martin Luther, honoring the first two martyrs of the Reformation as a whole—two Augustinian monks from the Lowlands. On July 1, 1523, Henry Vos and John van den Essohen were burned at the stake in Brussels. Shortly thereafter, Luther composed this, the first hymn of the Reformation. The second is an eyewitness account of the hedge-preaching that occurred in the Netherlands. This was a worship service in an open field, made necessary because the Romish...