Location: Russell, Ont.

Presbytery: St. Lawrence

Organization: Oct. 13, 2006

Membership: 94 communicant; 68 baptized

Pastor: Matthew Kingswood (pastor), Ernst van der Meer, Hank Vedder

Website: www.russellrpc.org

Russell, Ont., RPC began as a church plant of the Ottawa, Ont., RPC. In 1997, four families from the Ottawa RPC put out a call to Pastor Matt Kingswood to pastor a mission work in Russell (a village about 30 minutes from downtown Ottawa). In October 1997, evening worship was first held at Russell RPC, and in June of the following year, morning and evening services were held.

Russell RPC meets in an elementary school in the heart of Russell. In 2017, we celebrated 20 years of ministry in our community. Over the years, the Lord has increased our numbers and has provided us with many opportunities to reach out. Although the RP church in Canada is small, we believe the Lord is blessing the work of his people in our country. We trust that He will continue to do so.

The Russell RPC is made up of people of all ages who come from Russell and the surrounding area to worship together twice every Lord’s Day. Recently, Pastor Kingswood has been preaching on Christian living from Romans 12 in the morning services and the life of David in the evening services. We enjoy fellowship meals following the morning service on the first Sunday of every month.

We have been blessed with many young families in our congregation, and our Sabbath school ministers to more than 40 children every week. Our church has grown from a group of four families to about 50 families, with around 200 regular attendees every Sunday.

We meet together every second week for prayer meeting, and every week there are various Bible studies, youth groups, and outreach projects. As the Lord has been blessing us with new members, we have recently engaged in the process of nominating more men for the roles of elder and deacon. We pray that the Lord will bless us with some additional church officers.

Every summer our congregation runs a weeklong vacation Bible school for the children in our community. In 2017, over 70 children attended. Every year we also run a ministry booth at two of the local county fairs. This has been a great opportunity to witness, to hand out tracts, and to gain exposure for our church.

Our outreach and visibility committee organizes new ways for us to minister to our community. Over the past few months, we have been serving lunches to the staff at the school where we meet for worship as part of an effort to foster good relations with members of our community and to share God’s love with them.

God has opened doors for us to be involved in regular ministry to local seniors. Several men from our congregation and their families lead worship services every two weeks at a nearby nursing home. Every December, our church leads a special service at a local retirement community to bring the good news of the gospel to the residents. These opportunities have been wonderful ways to involve our children in the evangelistic efforts of the congregation. We pray that the Lord would lay it on the hearts of the next generation to continue His kingdom-building work.

Prayer Requests

• Pray that the Lord would provide a permanent church building for our congregation.

• Pray that all our members would be able to come to both church services on the Lord’s Day.

• Pray that we would not grow weary while doing good but would continue to have a heart for our community.

• Pray for the ongoing process of electing and installing new elders and deacons.

• Thank the Lord for continued growth in numbers and faithful gospel preaching.

Fun Facts

• Four generations of one family (the Pol family, great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and son) attend our church.

• Our oldest member, Ebel Pol, is a retired chemist and lab technician who was on Dr. H. Gobin Khorana’s team that discovered DNA.