Upon the request of the Mission Committee Southwest’s Consistory has granted their pastor, Rev. Lubbers, permission to labor for six Sundays in Pella, Iowa. Rev. and Mrs. Lubbers’ plan was to be gone from home from Jan. 10 to Feb. 18. Rev. Veldman, of Hudsonville, was obtained to teach the two mid-week catechism classes on Tuesday evening, and the Elders were assigned the Saturday classes.

Hudsonville’s Mr. and Mrs. Society scheduled an unusual after recess activity for their January 1 meeting—a tour of the new Covenant Chr. High School.

The Deacons of Hope Church remembered the Hoeksema Memorial Library of our Seminary with an offering received at their New Years Day Service.Here are the names of some of the clerks of consistories appointed for 1969: Southwest—Jay Boone, 1319 Den Hertog S.W. 49509; Southeast—R. Teitsma, 1659 Shangrai La Dr. S.E. 49508; First—J.M. Faber, 1123 Cooper S.E. 49507.

A very interesting report from Mr. H. Vander Wal, business manager of the Standard Bearer, came to our desk this week and we would like to share with you some facts regarding the mailing list which we found to be an eye-opener, The bulk of the mailing goes to our own people in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, North and South Dakotas, Minnesota, Washington and California, but our magazine also finds its way to thirty-one other States, including Hawaii. New Jersey, alone, receives 18 copies each mailing. The amazing thing is that it reaches 14 Foreign Countries; 23 copies to Jamaica, 13 to the Netherlands, 19 to Canada, 7 to England, 3 to India, 2 to New Zealand, 2 to Japan and single copies to readers in Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Tasmania, Nigeria, and South Africa. One wonders how these folks came into contact with our publication and then deemed it worthwhile to subscribe to it. The Jamaican contact ‘we all understand, but wouldn’t it be interesting to hear the answers to those questions directly from the other 53 Foreign readers? This page would be an excellent spot for some news from Hungary or Tasmania or any of the other far-off mailings. We wonder how soon we could expect a response on this Feb. 1st issue. Here is a “first” found in Hudsonville’s bulletin: “The newly organized Covenant Christian Booster Club will hold its first meeting in the High School on Thursday, Jan: 1 at 8 P.M. All men interested in becoming members and giving the athletic department a boost are invited to attend.”

Department of confusion: We have three churches in our denomination which go by the name, “Hope Prot. Ref. Church.” The first one, so named in 1925, has a Grand Rapids mailing address, but is not in Grand Rapids; the second is in Redlands, Calif. and the last one is in Isabel, S Dakota. To avoid confusion this page calls the Grand Rapids one “Hope Church”, and identifies the other two by the name of their city. Clear?

A Memphis, Tenn. minister wrote Rev. Woudenberg that his tapes are helping him in his ministry, and added, “The sermons on ‘Human Depravity’ and ‘The punishment on Sin’ are two of the best I’ve ever heard.” And a lady in Pompano Beach, Fla. writes to encourage Rev. Woudenberg to continue sending her his pamphlets. Those travel from the northwest corner of our land to the southeast corner!

Lynden’s Old and New Year services had to be cancelled because of the weather (as were many others) and the installation of office bearers had to be rescheduled for Jan. 5.

The Young People’s Federation Board sponsored a toboggan party in the Grand Rapids area. Refreshments and games were furnished by the Board but the toboggans had to be furnished by the boarders.

Southwest’s Young People’s Society, in their first meeting of the year, featured an after-recess paper by Karen Kuiper on, “What is the difference between pastors and evangelists, and why was the latter omitted in the Protestant Reformed Churches?” No doubt that any of our pastors would claim to be one of that class of teachers in the early church next in rank after apostles and prophets, but each one of our pastors would insist that he is an evangelist, a preacher of Good Tidings. 

. . . see you in church 

—J.M.F.