Last year, Bloomington, Ind., RPC celebrated 200 years as an organized church—worshiping, proclaiming, and serving Christ in southern Indiana. To mark the occasion, our congregation formed a committee to plan a weekend gathering, not only for current members, but also for former members, pastors, and the local community.

To promote this event, a handful of congregants wrote articles for the local newspaper, detailing how the history of our congregation is intertwined with that of the community (at least 18 street names have Covenanter or Reformed history ties), describing the church’s involvement in the Underground Railroad (the original pastor, James Faris, and several others were documented as participating), declaring how the truth of Jesus Christ shapes our worship, and rejoicing in the Lord’s faithfulness to the church generation after generation. It was truly beautiful to see the body operate in this way with various members compiling historical accounts, publicizing the occasion, planning meals and events, and arranging a video documentary.

From first to last, this celebration served as a profound season of remembrance of the work of Jesus Christ in building and preserving His church in this place. Even though I’ve been a member of the congregation just five years, I felt connected to the stories of brothers and sisters with memberships of over 50 years. (Laurence Curry, our oldest member, was the first infant baptized in our current building in the 1930s.) We came away from this season keenly aware that we did not receive this inheritance through any work of our own merit. Our pastors, Rich Holdeman and Philip McCollum, reminded us that our history points to our Savior’s faithfulness, not our own, and serves as a call to humbly continue to worship the Lord and serve Him in love. Singing psalms in this season was especially moving.

“Let this be written for the sake of those alive in future days, so people He has yet to make will to the Lord lift up their praise” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 102C).

Not one of the faithful Christian men and women who traveled to Indiana from South Carolina in protest of the institution of slavery were alive to observe this bicentennial. To put this in historical context, just five years before the church formalized in 1821, Indiana had become a state and Abraham Lincoln’s family moved into Indiana from Kentucky. No doubt our forebears prayerfully sang Psalm 102. What a gift to echo those words 200 years later with the humbling conviction that, when my own short earthly pilgrimage ends, Christ will continue to build His church. What a motivation to press on in declaring God’s praise in full reliance upon His grace and in the confidence that our labors are not in vain in the Lord.

“Great is the Lord, deserving praise; His greatness none can comprehend. One generation to the next will all Your mighty works commend” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 145A)

When my husband and I came to Bloomington RPC in 2016, we found a vibrant body of people ranging in age from 0 to nearly 100 years. When there was a pastoral message to the children at the front of the church, it was common to have a couple dozen children assembled. However, the older members attested to the fact that a few decades prior, the church was an aging congregation—and, from an earthly perspective, a dying congregation. But the Lord of life moved in the hearts of those saints to pray earnestly and steadfastly for growth.

Today they enjoy the weekly reminder of the Lord’s answer to those prayers as they see families gather to worship. Our older saints continue to meet midweek, joined now by others, as they pray for the Lord’s continued blessing. Hearing their testimonies, we, the next generation of parents of growing children, see a little more clearly and personally the grace of our covenanting God and cry out to Him to continue to raise up the next generation.

“Deliverance comes from the Lord; He works salvation—as He will. O may the blessing You have shown be granted to Your people still” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 3B).

We often sing the last stanza of Psalm 3 at the close of our service. From our first Sundays worshiping with our church family here at Bloomington RPC, these words have gripped my heart. I sing as a mother to six children knowing I have no power to save, but united in Christ to the One who can and does work covenantally in families.

I give thanks for how He accomplished my salvation at the cross and worked it out in time with my coming to Christ as a preteen hearing the gospel faithfully preached by Roy Blackwood at Second (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC. I grew in my understanding and commitment to the Reformed faith when shepherded as a teenager at Sycamore (Kokomo, Ind.) RPC under Barry York. I was called to practical godliness as a college student when mentored and cared for by Kent and Rosaria Butterfield in the RP church plant in Purcellville, Va. I yearn for and have begun to see my children trace the work of Christ in their lives in such a way, and I labor with reliance upon His grace toward this end. I am confident that participation in His church is a vital part of that work.

“You care for my lot, where the lines fell to me, my pleasant and lovely inherited land” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 16D).

I recognize that when God brought my parents to faith individually and then deepened their faith as a married couple (eventually resulting in their becoming members of an RPCNA church when I was 11), my life and the lives of countless descendants were radically changed. God chose them, redeemed them, and set them (and by extension their children) on a different course. My parents feared God and prayerfully sought to raise up a generation that would know and worship Him.

Some of my earliest memories include regularly reading God’s Word as a family, especially the daily rhythm of five psalms and one chapter in Proverbs. I heard my parents pray for me and live intentionally in ways that pointed their children to Christ. They were pioneers in the modern American homeschool movement and named their endeavor Christian Heritage Homeschool. They spoke of how God worked repentance and belief in their hearts. This happened for my dad as he read Scripture and Augustine’s Confessions. He pointed me to the work at some point in my youth and said how much the words “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in You” had impacted him. This happened for my mom as seeds were planted during her first year of college reading a Bible given to her by a friend and then were watered and bore fruit through the ministries of Billy Graham and the Navigators.

A glorious aspect of God working covenantally in families is that one is doubly blessed. Not only did I receive the stories of God’s grace to my immediate family, I also inherited all the stories of the church throughout time and place. God’s promise to Abraham, “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen. 17:7), is my own family story.

When God drew the lines in such a way that my parents moved into the Reformed Presbyterian church, I began to hear the gospel weekly as my pastors not only preached Christ from the Gospels, but from all of Scripture, drawing the beautiful thread of Christ’s work of atonement from Genesis to Revelation. As a young person, and to this day, I love the practice of choosing favorite psalms as an element of evening worship. Whenever I was “picked,” my frequent request was Psalm 16.

“For You’ll not abandon my soul to the grave, Your Godly One You will preserve from decay. Life’s path You will show me; full joy is with You; Your right hand holds pleasures for me ever-more” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 16D).

It is not outside of God’s providence that the same year I was meditating on God’s lovingkindness from one generation to the next with my church family, my immediate family experienced profound heartache and deep comfort. My father, Joseph Marcisz, entered into glory on Feb. 24, 2021. Those who knew and love him talked of his quiet faithfulness throughout his life—as a Christian, as a husband (married 44 years), as a father and grandfather (8 children, 23 grandchildren and counting), as a pharmacist (director of pharmacy at the local hospital for most of his 30 years there), and as a quiet example of patience in suffering (during the last 30 years of his earthly pilgrimage, he bore the burden of Parkinson’s Disease). He died with the assurance that he would see the Lord after death and one day worship in His presence with his wife, children, and grandchildren. Such is the future glory we in the church eagerly await and labor for in this life.

“I will say, ‘May peace be with you!’ for my friends’ and brothers’ sake. For the Lord’s house, our God’s temple, this my purpose I will make: your well being, your well being, I will seek with all my heart” (The Book of Psalms for Worship, 122A).

Our congregation gathered for worship on Oct. 10, 2021, exactly 200 years to the day after our church’s first service. Pastor James Faris, a descendant of the first pastor at Bloomington, preached to us from Deuteronomy 12. He encouraged us to recount our past history as motivation to propel us forward into our future history as the church of Jesus. Pastor Faris closed with this charge:

“You have been given a God to be loved…a place to call upon Him…a people to gather with…a word to hear with your ears…a new song to be sung with joy in your hearts…an inheritance…promises…a legacy. It is your calling to praise God for all of that and to pass it on to the next generation as you call one another to be gathered here in God’s place of worship.”

Considering life in generational terms has altered and enlarged my perspective. In 100 or 1,000 years, should the Lord tarry, may the people of God here and all the descendants of Joe and Kathy Marcisz, along with all those God will bring in, still be found in church—faithfully worshiping and declaring our great God of generations.