This semester our students are learning as diverse subjects as how to carry out the mission of the church in personal evangelism to how to imitate the Puritan approach to meditation. They are studying missions, the Heidelberg Catechism, the doctrine of Christian Worship, the General Epistles, and the book of Acts.
I am lecturing on the history, theology, and practice of Christian missions. My students are learning about the trials and travails of the great missionaries throughout Christian history from Patrick, the great missionary to Ireland to William Carey who initiated the modern missionary movement with his unceasing toils in India. My students were struck by Carey’s claim: “I am a plodder.” It was an encouragement that a self-educated cobbler could become the missionary who translated the entire Bible into multiple languages and parts of it into many more. It is a reminder that we might not have brilliant gifts that could get us accepted into an Ivy League university, but the Lord can use our gifts as we keep on keeping on.
My students have followed David Brainerd as he rode his horse from Indian settlement to settlement in the American frontier, being plagued by horrendous depression as he struggled to love the people who were the objects of his missionary outreach. My students can relate to Brainerd. They too struggle with clinical depression. They also struggle to love the officers and fellow inmates to whom they are called to be witnesses in word and deed about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In a class on Public and Private Worship, students are learning from Professor Brett Mahlen about the Puritan art of meditation. I tell my students that their approach to Bible reading should imitate how cows chew their cuds. Cows do not just chew hay or grass one time. They first chew grass and swallow it. Then they regurgitate partially digested food from their rumen. They re-chew the food and swallow it again. In Mahlen’s class on worship, he is teaching them how to imitate the Puritans who wanted saints to read and then apply God’s Word to their hearts and lives. In this class on worship, students are learning about the biblical principles for worship. They students are learning about the regulative principle of worship and the elements of worship in Presbyterian and Reformed churches.
Ken Anema is teaching on the Book of Acts this semester. The students are learning about how Christ by His Spirit began to gather a holy, catholic church from among the Gentiles. Among other pastoral labors, he is teaching a Bible study in Westville Prison.
One exciting development is that the board of the seminary has appointed Rev. John Vermeer, an emeritus minister in the United Reformed Churches, as an adjunct faculty. He is being trained to begin work with Ken Anema in Westville Prison already this spring.
Recently, our faculty had our yearly volunteer training at the Indiana State Prison. Because of the potential dangers in prison, we receive personal defense training. If you were in the room, you would have seen me putting Ken Anema in a supposed chokehold and then he, following the directions of the trainer, escaping from my grip. You would have observed Brett Mahlen grabbing me by the arm and I responding by twisting him around until he was immobilized. All in good fun!
In the rest of this newsletter, you can hear from my happy students who have the joy of the Lord and the hope of Heaven.