In a recent lecture at our Ottawa seminary, Andrew Quigley, pastor of the Airdrie Reformed Presbyter-ian Church, enthusiastically described his hope of seeing a theological hall developed in Scotland. This was triggered by seven new congregations joining the Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPC) in Scotland, and Rev. Quigley’s desire to see men trained for pastoral ministry in the RPC.

It was exciting. I found myself thinking back to a similar situation in Canada over 30 years ago. There was only one organized Reformed Presbyterian congregation—the Almonte, Ont., RPC. The Almonte congregation was spearheading a new work in Ottawa, to which I had just been called as church planter. At that time, I, like Pastor Quigley, witnessed the need for a theological center for training future Reformed Presbyterian pastors within the country.

This is a history of one of the first Reformed and Presbyterian theological seminaries in Canada.

By 1970, it almost seemed as if the Reformation had bypassed Canada, leaving the “True North Strong and Free” free from much of a solid Reformed witness. What follows chronicles one attempted resolution to this tragic deficiency—the creation of a Reformed seminary in the heart of Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

In response to a call to plant an RP church, my family and I arrived in Ottawa on May 6, 1980. From the beginning, I saw broader issues than establishing a single church. In a nation almost devoid of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, one congregation hardly seemed sufficient to the evil of the day. I realized that if I only put my energy into building a single church, as important as that was, there would be nothing left generationally to impact Canada from our cherished theological heritage. The vision had to be for many Reformed Presbyterian churches to be established across the country, and for the training of Canadian men who would pastor these churches.

Without indigenous training, there is no way to have a sustained ministry. My concern was not only to plant a church but, at the same time, to build a teaching institution in Canada to train Canadian men for the ministry of a future, Canadian RPC committed to planting churches throughout the Commonwealth of Canada.

The problem, of course, was the implementation of such a vision. Not only was there no Reformed Presbyterian seminary in Canada, there also had never been a Canadian pastor in the Canadian RP Church! According to pastor/historian Robert More, in his history of the RP Church in Canada entitled Aurora Borealis, there had once been over 100 congregations and teaching stations in the Canadian RP Church. By the summer of 1980, Almonte remained the only organized Canadian RP congregation, led by American pastor Ken McBurney. Pastors had come from the U.S., or, as it had been earlier, from Ireland. This was never a good long-term arrangement. In order for the church not only to survive, but also to advance, we needed an indigenous seminary and we needed Canadian pastors.

What were we to do? How would we train men, since we did not, at that time, have men in Canada equipped to teach, except for myself? How would we fund this? How would we obtain a Reformed theological library? How would we even get a place to house our new seminary?

I determined to just keep moving ahead. It took a full year before any tangible action for the start of a Canadian RP seminary was realized. It was in October 1981—shortly after our first year here, and five months after Ottawa RPC had been organized as a congregation on May 31, 1981—that I took the first concrete step toward this vision of establishing a Canadian seminary. The reason for this delay was because the main focus during that first year had to be on the planting of the Ottawa RPC. Without the church, the seminary would be meaningless. We needed to have a church from which to plant other churches and support a seminary.

I wrote a letter to the St. Lawrence Presbytery in order:

…to apprise you of the current status of the work of the RPCNA in the Ottawa .area and to propose to you my hopes and goals for future ministry. Fellow elders, I would like to propose the Canadian branch of the seminary of the RPCNA. If we really mean business about a work in Canada (and I believe we do) then this is an absolute necessity. We must have the facilities here to train young men who possess the gospel call on their hearts. A teaching institution in the United States will never be the answer. While this is an enormous commission to undertake, it is an enormous omission to neglect it. I know that our church can grow and become a vital influence in Canada. For this we need indigenous training. While there may be lean years for a while, this is the obvious time to begin. We have a great possibility before us. God will provide the necessary resources, time and strength to accomplish His work. We should consider beginning classes on some kind of basis by Sept. 1982. If this vision for the training of men and expansion of the church is from the Lord God, then I urge you to share in it with me.

Excitingly, the St. Lawrence Presbytery was willing to share this vision.

During the next few months, I began speaking with individuals in several Canadian and U.S. seminaries from various denominations about how to set up a theological educational institution. They were unanimous: Everyone assured me that what I was attempting to do was impossible! There was no money, no building, no students, no library, and no faculty. There was nothing. But the more I kept hearing, “It’s impossible!” the more I kept thinking and believing, “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

In the eyes of the world we had nothing, but I knew we had everything that really means anything. As Peter puts it, we already have “everything we need for life and for godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). We had the Lord. We had God’s Word. We had faithful pastors and teachers from the U.S. who could help us train other men for the work of the ministry. I was gripped with a reality: God had not given me a spirit of fear. He had given me faith, hope, and love. He had entrusted me with His truth. What more did I need? So I pressed forward with the vision of the seminary.

This vision for a seminary in Canada was brought before the 1982 Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA). Approval to begin our seminary was eventually given, but not without a struggle. It was an American Synod that had to be convinced of the need for a Canadian seminary. Ken McBurney, the pastor of the Almonte RPC, and myself—the Canadian RP Church’s only two pastors—spoke to the Synod of this need. A committee was appointed to study our proposal, which urged Synod to “go on record as commending the vision and energy in the establishment of the Ottawa Theological Hall.” In the summer of 1982, they did. The new seminary, Ottawa Theological Hall (OTH), had begun and it would be under the authority of the RPCNA’s St. Lawrence Presbytery, of which Almonte RPC was a part.

Now began the process of working out the details. Elder Aubrey Ayer was appointed registrar of OTH, and later he was also appointed treasurer. Rev. Harold Harrington was appointed dean. In 1986, I was appointed president. We needed help both in preparing a constitution and in the work of incorporating the seminary. James R. Hughes undertook this task for the fledgling seminary.

As the newly established Ottawa RPC did not have a facility of its own, classroom space had to be rented from the same local church for use during the week. This continued until 1995. Now all that remained to be accomplished was acquiring both funds and a library.

We had determined that we would need approximately $12,000 in operating costs for our first year. It seemed a formidable sum. During the summer of 1982, a one-time visitor to the congregation handed me an envelope after the service to use for whatever was necessary. In that envelope were stocks valued at $12,000! All we needed now was a library.

OTH began its first year without a library. In early 1983, I began earnestly praying for God to provide a theological library for OTH. It seemed impossible, humanly speaking. That summer, at Synod, a pastor from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) was passing through and stopped at our Synod. He was given the floor, spoke for several minutes, and then mentioned, almost in passing, that a family in his congregation possessed a Reformed theological library of between 6,000-7,000 volumes, in basically new condition. He mentioned that they hoped to sell it to a Reformed college or seminary.

This sounded familiar. A year earlier, I had responded to just such an opportunity. The executor of the estate of a Reformed theologian was in possession of a large theological library and hoped to sell it to an evangelical seminary. We had no funds to buy a library, and eventually it was sold to another seminary.

At the RPCNA Synod of 1983, another opportunity was presenting itself to us. I rushed up to this man from the OPC. His name was Denny Prutow (he eventually became a pastor in the RPCNA and then a professor at the RP Seminary). I told him that we were in desperate need of the library, and requested the name and phone number of the individual who was authorized to sell it. I immediately called. We spoke several times, trying to agree on a price. He understood our need and was prepared to sell us the library for $3,200, the price of shipping 35 large boxes of books by train from Oklahoma to Ottawa! He told me that I would have 24 hours to raise the money.

I immediately called pastors in the RPCNA, and God opened their hearts to help us. Within a few hours we reached our goal. The boxes were soon sent by train, and a truck delivered our treasured cargo of Reformed theological literature that summer. At this point Elder Ayer further added to his responsibilities of OTH registrar and treasurer by taking on the function of OTH librarian. Thus, he began a 30-year project of overseeing our new and rapidly growing library. We are thankful for his labor in doing the bulk of the work to make this a well-run, well-organized library, which it is to this day.

I have mentioned just a few people who gave their time and energy to help make OTH a living reality. The names of many others, and the work they accomplished over the decades, is too large to mention, but their reward is there for them in heaven. Without them, we would not have been able to function. I give them deep and heartfelt thanks.

On Sept. 8, 1982, Dr. Ed Robson, pastor of the Syracuse, N.Y., RPC, gave the opening address at the first convocation of OTH. Classes began the same week and have continued to the present day. The courses were arranged in a four-year cycle and were given in the evenings and on Saturdays. In our first year, we had six men enrolled as full-time students, and average class attendance was around 20. We were on our way!

The initial faculty consisted of the following men:

—William Edgar, Ph.D. History

—Richard Ganz, Ph.D. Clinical Psychology, M.Div.

—Harold Harrington, M.Div.

—James A. Hughes, Ph.D. Old Testament Studies, M.Div.

—Edward Robson, Ph.D. Linguistics, M.Th.

—Kenneth Smith, D.D., M.Div.

The RPCNA Synod itself offered no financial assistance for OTH. Various congregations in the U.S. loaned us their pastors to teach for one or two weeks at a time. A constant stream of men, bringing the truth of God’s Word and the life of Christ’s Church, began flowing into Canada from the congregations south of the border and across the ocean. The Canadian RP Church was no longer an isolated outpost on the edge of some vast Northern snow-covered wilderness. It now had many vital contacts and living connections with the rest of the church. Pastor Harold Harrington (Rose Point [New Castle, Pa.] RPC) began traveling across the Canada/U.S. border several times each year to teach systematic theology (which he continued for approximately 20 years). Dr. Ed Robson began his many weekly long journeys across the St. Lawrence River for over 20 years to teach New Testament exegesis. Dr. Ken Smith (Pittsburgh, Pa. and then Syracuse, N.Y.) began the first of his many visits, which continued until 2000, to teach evangelism and discipleship. Dr. Bill Edgar (Broomall, Pa., RPC) began flying north for over 20 years to teach church history. Dr. James A. Hughes (Ottawa RPC) taught biblical languages from 1982 into 1985. I was assigned to teach biblical counseling, pastoral theology, and English Bible, and I still teach biblical counseling and pastoral theology.

Over the years, many other names have been added to the list of men in the RPCNA who were willing to travel and lecture in the capital of Canada: Dr. Christian Adjemian, Dr. Roy Blackwood, Dr. Clark Copeland, Dr. Rick Gamble, Pastor Kit Swartz, Dr. George Scipione, Rev. Anthony Selvaggio, Dr. Dean Smith, Dr. Wayne Spear, Dr. Bruce Stewart, Dr. Jonathan Watt, Dr. David Weir, Dr. Jack White.

Later, ministers from the Irish RP Church also began to preach and teach in Ottawa. These were gifted men such as Pastors Ted Donnelly, Robert McCollum, and Andrew Quigley. God also blessed OTH with teachers from outside of the RP church: Dr. Joel Beeke, Rev. Ian Hamilton, Rev. Al Martin, Rev. John McArthur, and Dr. Derek Thomas, to name a few.

These men are all faithful pastors and teachers who are committed to training men for the work of the ministry. Each professor received travel expenses, but nothing more, since OTH had no funds to provide salaries or honoraria. These men sacrificially gave of their time and talents to help this work continue. Thankfully, by approximately the year 2000, OTH was able to provide a small honorarium to its professors. Throughout the years, these men have not only blessed the students at OTH; they have blessed the growing number of Canadian RP churches as well.

In August 1993, the Ottawa RPC bought a piece of property in the heart of Ottawa on which to build a church and seminary complex. Unbeknownst to us, the former owners of the land, the Strank family, hoped that their land might be used either as a church or as a theological college. In God’s providence, both dreams were fulfilled by our purchase and use of the property. In February 1995, Ottawa RPC, along with OTH, moved into our new building.

From the beginning, OTH has been open to both men and women to study. Our desire for OTH has been twofold:

—To train and prepare men for pastoral ministry;

—To equip all the saints for the work of a full-orbed ministry.

To date, 19 men from OTH are either in, or have been in, full-time ministry. Many more men and women have received varying degrees of training to help them in their various callings and walks with the Lord. At present, several Canadian men who have studied at OTH are involved in pastoral ministry, both in Canada and abroad: Vince Ward heads up what is perhaps the most ambitious ministry in RP history—the ministry in Sudan—which now has several thousand people involved and sees new churches springing up regularly. Our daughter church, Russell RPC, is under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Matt Kingswood (also our first Canadian-born OTH professor); it was organized in 2006 and became our sister church. Our mother church, Hillside RPC (Almonte), is under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Matt Dyck. Rev. Andrew Stringer ministered for a time in Bancroft, Ont., in the Ottawa RPC, and with the Sudan ministry. Rev. Kiernan Stringer ministered in Toronto, Ont., first in an RP church plant, and now in the Presbyterian Church in America. Rev. Case Stromenberg went into Baptist ministry. Dr. Cheung Park began missionary work in South Korea. Rev. Christian Adjemian (1947-2011) pastored another Ottawa daughter church, the Perth RPC (which later became Smiths Falls RPC), until 1999, after which time he accepted a call from Cambridge RPC. Rev. Steve Zink was ordained in October 2012 to be the associate pastor of the Ottawa RPC. Jan Buchanan went into full-time missionary work and spent many years ministering full-time in Senegal before entering into full-time work in the Sudan ministry.

Something I never could have imagined took place in 1995. I became a Canadian citizen in that year, which made me the second Canadian pastor in Canadian RPC history, and the only Canadian pastor at that time. The great blessing was that quite a few Canadian men were to follow on my heels.

At present, the Canadian RPC has seven Canadian pastors, one American pastor, and five men under the care of presbytery and currently studying at OTH. The testimonies of these five Canadian students have been featured alongside this article.

Over the years, we have had our share of struggles and heartbreak, but we have also experienced victory, for which we give all glory to God. We can only imagine what God has planned for this seminary in the future training of men and women in ministry in Canada and around the world.

What numerous men had said was impossible proved to be false, because indeed “all things are possible with God!” To Him belongs all the glory, now and forever!

—Rich Ganz is president of Ottawa Theological Hall and senior pastor of Ottawa RPC (www.rpcottawa.org).