Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan.

Mission Activities

Before we go any further, we have to make one correction from our last issue of the “News.” You may remember that in that issue we included an item about Rev. Gritters and Mr. Gord Wassink going to Northern Ireland for two weeks to visit with our missionary, Rev. R. Hanko, and his family, as well as the Covenant Reformed Fellowship, on behalf of our calling church, the Hudsonville, MI PRC and our churches’ Domestic Mission Committee. Well, since that report, Mr. Wassink’s mother became seriously ill and passed away, making it impossible for him to go. Because of that, Mr. Tom Bodbyl, another member of our DMC, went in his place.

Congregational Activities

On Friday night, the 26th, and for most of Saturday, the 27th of January, more than one hundred members of the Georgetown PRC in Hudsonville, MI met together for a Conference on Family Worship at Camp Geneva on the shore of cold, frozen, and windy Lake Michigan. This conference was sponsored by Georgetown’s Council and was meant to give detailed instructions as to what family worship should consist of and how it should be conducted.

As you can imagine, there were all kinds of activities planned for this two-day conference, with many of the participants staying over night. But the main emphasis of the conference was family worship, and the weekend began with a speech by Prof. R. Decker, a member of Georgetown, on Friday night, dealing with the “Historical Basis of Family Worship.” This instruction was followed the next day by a speech by Rev. B. Gritters, pastor of the Hudsonville, MI PRC, entitled “Family Worship — How?” It appears hat these two speeches were well received; since, a week after the conference, Rev. R. VanOverloop, pastor of Georgetown, took an informal poll of his catechism students and found that many of them had noticed a difference in their family worship.

With that in mind, if you are interested in either audio or video tapes of these two speeches, you can obtain them from Georgetown by either calling or writing Mr. Randy Kamminga at (616) 669-0204, or 8541 40th Ave., Jenison, MI 49428.

The Consistory of the Hope PRC in Walker, MI, after hearing no objections from their congregation, decided to change the time of their Sunday evening worship service to 6:00 p.m. This change took place on February 4.

In mid-January, after repeated bulletin announcements, about 25 members of the First PRC in Edgerton, MN got together and organized a Choral Society, with Rev. Brummel being their first president.

School Activities

The P.T.A. of the Free Christian School in Edgerton, MN met January 19 to hear Rev. A. Brummel, pastor at First PRC in Edgerton, give a slide presentation on Myanmar (formerly Burma). The entire congregation of Edgerton was invited as well.

There was a special Christian School Chapel by the Hope Christian School in Redlands, CA last month. This chapel was held in the auditorium of the Hope PRC in Redlands, and the topic was “Obedience to Authority.”

Evangelism Activities

Members of our churches in west Michigan, as well as neighbors of the Byron Center, MI PRC, were invited to a series of Community Bible Study Classes at the Byron Center church. These classes, hosted by Byron’s Evangelism Society, dealt with the subject of the Covenant Family. These classes were to be held on four successive weeks last month.

The first class, entitled “The Blessedness of Single Life,” was led by Byron’s pastor, Rev. Doug Kuiper. The second, scheduled a week later, was entitled “The Husband as Head of the Family and the Wife as Help Meet for the Husband,” led by Rev. R. VanOverloop. The third was to be led by Mr. Don Doezema and Mr. Bruce VanSolkema and dealt with “The Childless Couple in the Church.” And the fourth and last class was led by Rev. W. Bruinsma and was titled, “Nurturing Covenant Children.”

News From Singapore

Back in December the Sunday School of one of our sister churches, the First Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore, launched a noteworthy project. They issued a challenge to those in Sunday School, including the adults, to memorize the 107 questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Plans called for memorization every Sunday in the sanctuary for 20 minutes after church. Prizes were also going to be awarded on the basis of a written test in November 1996.

Minister Activities

Rev. Dale Kuiper, pastor of the Southeast PRC in Grand Rapids, MI, declined the call he had been extended from the Grace PRC in Standale, MI. Since that decline, Grace formed a new trio of the Revs. M. Dick, S. Houck, and S. Key. Rev. Dick received the call.

The Doon, IA PRC has extended a call to Rev. W. Bruinsma of the First PRC in Holland, MI.