My wife and I were born and raised by families who attended the Catholic church. While we both heard the name of Christ Jesus, we grew up knowing next to nothing about how He truly saves His people, and we were never presented with the gospel. Kim and I both experienced early life in pagan homes but always under the watchful, protective eye of our heavenly Father. Neither of us suffered any physical deprivation, but neither of us benefited from the example set forth by godly parents in homes whose prime directive is to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.

Within God’s providence and Christ’s care for His pre-regenerate elect, we both suffered many negative consequences resulting from our sinful choices and lifestyles and those familial sins committed against us. However, at the appointed time, our Father, in His mercy and by His graciousness, drew us to His Son, revealed to us our sinfulness and desperate need for our Savior and Lord, and gave us faith to believe in the saving work of Christ on our behalf. Christ Jesus faithfully delivered His Spirit to us as earnest of our salvation, and our new lives in Him commenced. Kim was regenerated in 1985 and I received His redemptive mercy and grace in 1992.

We were married on Dec. 2, 1995. We were so grateful to the Lord for giving each of us the other (and grow more grateful as each year passes). We lost a child in spring 1996 to a miscarriage, but in July 1997 our first son, John Christian, was born and, in May 1999, God graciously delivered Elijah Aaron to us. (We are currently pursuing adoption to determine if God will add more children to our brood.)

Our road to the Reformed Presbyterian Church is long and winding and stretches over eight years. I began my search for a church shortly after receiving Christ. My first experience was with a non-denominational Pentecostal church. While being impressed, at first, with their zeal and outward friendliness, I became doubtful of the “slain in the spirit” phenomena. When, on command of the leader, the whole congregation began babbling, supposedly speaking in tongues, I left quickly. Even a young Christian, after reading 1 Corinthians, can discern disorder and what I later came to know as “will worship.” After this experience I continued listening to “Christian radio” teaching shows and reading the Word. I was inundated with the Arminian view of how man is justified. In His gracious care, God provided me with an issue of Tabletalk magazine that featured a daily devotional on the sovereignty of God in election. I can remember how humbled I was when the Spirit opened my eyes to truly understand God’s grace to me; a sinner without any ability to merit any thing before our holy God. It was, and is, amazing!

Unfortunately, at that time I was not aware of any church available to me that taught this truth. I remained under Arminian teaching and struggled greatly with what to believe. All that could be done was to continue to ask Christ for wisdom and for truth to be taught to me by His Spirit and to faithfully attend to His Word.

Around 1994, I finally settled into a Camphellite Christian church, headed by a man who I thought knew the truth and could teach it. I didn’t know enough of the truth, at this time, to know any better. This was the church in which Kim and I were married and in which I was baptized. Six months after our marriage it became clear that this pastor was interested in other things than the worship of God and His Christ. After completing “spiritual gift inventories” which were computer graded by Willow Creek church, and a final sermon which stressed each family’s duty to fill the empty seats in front of them, we left that assembly extremely disillusioned about evangelical Christianity and its expressions.

We began looking for another church about six months later. We visited a large Assemblies of God church but were not satisfied with its emphasis on the Spirit at the expense of Christ’s work, and the outward manifestations of “the Spirit’s movements” were also problematic. Around this time I began listening to R.C. Sproul’s program and was becoming educated about the Reformed view of Scripture. This was my first sustained experience with being edified by the Word taught rightly, and I couldn’t get enough! We then joined a non-denominational Bible church which had its roots, as I later learned, in the Plymouth Brethren movement. I was asked to be a deacon a short time later and experienced some growth in Christ, mainly through involvement in a men’s Bible study group. There were problems with the pastor and he declined to accept what the church was able to pay, so he left. I was asked to search for an interim preacher. This led to my first contact with the RPCNA.

I phoned the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary and spoke with President Jerrv O’Neill. He recommended a recently graduated young man who, after expositing the Scriptures for us, was asked to preach regularly and was then offered the pastorate. He accepted both offers. Trying to gently take a church out of much darkness into the light of the truth is a slow process filled with many pitfalls. Some churches, in the final analysis, reject these efforts. This church did so. We had to leave another church and were very disheartened.

In the summer of 1997, and again without a home church, we were invited by new neighbors to their church. It was another Assemblies of God church. My study of Reformed theology was yet new and I had some questions as to the validity of certain aspects of neo-Pentecostal beliefs. We started attending this group. By winter it was clear that this church was not based on sound doctrine. I felt the pain my wife and daughter had when my dissatisfaction with this church was made known to them. Again, they had made friends and again Dad, for these “lofty” reasons, wasn’t happy.

The Lord, however, brought a Calvinist to a “cell group” meeting (he was an acquaintance of one of the members) that my family and I attended. He is a Russian native who translated Bibles and other ecclesiastical literature from English to Russian and Norwegian. We hit it off famously as we discovered our commonly held Reformed beliefs. In short weeks, in much conversation with my like minded brother, the Lord, through him, brought my understanding up to speed on many of the fundamental doctrines of the faith. I felt like I had been born from above again! It was also clear, however, that the current church would not do and, through some relational circumstances and the impending move to our new home, God made it clear that our time at this church was over.

Thoroughly disillusioned with the concept of church and my changing under standings of Scripture (towards a Reformed understanding and away from Arminianism and other errors), my wife advised me that I should take all the time necessary to find the “right” church and then let her know. I couldn’t argue with her as I too was chagrined over not being able to find a scripturally sound expression of Christ’s church.

After our providential move to our new neighborhood, in spring 1999, I was extremely encouraged when my next door neighbor (now a member of Providence RPC) turned out to be Reformed in his soteriology. We rejoiced before the face of God. My neighbor has a weekly Bible study which I immediately began attending. He was involved, as a deacon, in a Baptist church that was going through the historic battle between Augustinian and Pelagian understandings. That church was just not an option for me and my family, although we did attend a Sunday school class taught by one of the Calvinists through that fall and early winter.

Late that summer, my neighbor, a friend of his (who is now a seminary student at RPTS), and I visited RPTS looking for Reformed literature. This was my second contact with Jerry O’Neill. Jerry graciously gave us a tour of the seminary, and we bought a few’ good hooks. He also informed us of the existence of Providence RPC. He asked for our names and numbers and asked per mission for his pastor to call us. Shortly, thereafter C. J. Williams called and we talked… and we talked. Over the next few months we talked a lot.

In spring 2000, I began attending Providence on a regular basis. I was “blown away” by preaching as I have never heard it, in person, before. Imagine, to finally find an assembly where the Word is rightly preached, where Christ is exalted, and where the sacraments are rightly understood and and ministered! a place where church discipline is taken seriously, and where only the Psalms are sung and without instruments. Outside of the merciful hand of God you would not have convinced me a church like this existed. What a gracious gift our Father has given us. Within two months, I was convinced that this was the church for which we had so long been petitioning the throne of grace.

God had finished preparing me to appreciate what I found at Providence. Tentatively at first, and then wholeheartedly, my wife and daughter joined me as adherents to Providence RPC. Then, after meeting with the session, the blessed day came when my wife, my daughter and I became communicant members and all three of our children were baptized into Christs covenant. Blessed day! We were finally home. Thanks he to God.

We look forward to spending the rest of our days as members of His Church militant at Providence within the RPCNA. for those of you, blessed by God, to have been born and raised by godly parents in this Reformed and Presbyterian denomination, take a moment to close your eyes and thank our Father in heaven for His care for, and protection over, you in this matter. We are so very thankful that we are with you. Let us move forward in faithfulness to obey His commands to love one another fervently from the heart and to be doers of the Word, not merely hearers only.

In Romans 13, Paul writes that loving your neighbor is the fulfillment of the law. Pastor Williams has preached on the active nature of agape love in the carrying out of the positive proscriptions of the negative prohibitions of the law. Doing this results in loving your neigh bor. We also would do well to remember Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:2, saying. “If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” To those to whom much is given, much is expected.

Let us also be found faithful in presenting His gospel to a dying world and not in merely congratulating ourselves on how well we know and expound the doctrines of truth revealed by Scripture. We love our neighbor best when we care for his needs as we are enabled and speak the truth to him in love. We obey the law fully when we act in agape love toward everyone, especially to those of the household of God. Let us not be found ashamed upon the arrival of the great day of the Lord. Certainly salvation is by grace alone—through faith alone, in Christ alone-but even our judgement shall be with a view toward our works. So let us work well, my brothers and sisters, in the power of His Spirit and in dependence upon Christ, so that we may obey His command to love one another, thus obeying the law, and so that we may indeed show forth that we are sons and daughters of the one true God as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.