Domestic Missions Newsletter - Fall 2023

Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord, 

My wife and I have been warmly welcomed at  Zion PRC and are very blessed to be among the  saints there. I am very thankful for the men on  Zion’s council and the DMC and for the friendship and good working relationship we have  together. Things are going quite well and I am much enjoying the work. 

What follows is a brief summary of what  has taken place thus far and some things  regarding what is planned going forward. 

ThM classes 

I am currently taking classes at Calvin Theo logical Seminary toward a Master of Theology  degree (ThM) with emphasis on Missions/ Evangelism. In each class I am conducting  research and writing papers from a missions  perspective.

One of my classes last semester was on I & II Thessalonians. In that class we studied Paul’s mission work in Thessalonica and the subjects brought up in I and II Thessalonians, which he wrote early on in his mission labors. My second class was on the history of worship. My paper in that class was on how mission work was conducted in the days of Augus tine, considering specifically what Augustine’s experience was like as a convert/catechumen going through the catechumenate and being baptized while receiving instruction from Ambrose.

From now on I plan to take no more than one  class at a time, so that I have sufficient time to devote myself to other labors. In this fall  semester I am enrolled in just one class. It is  called ThM Research Methodology, and is on how to conduct the research and write my  Master’s thesis. At the present time my inten tion is to write on the subject of eschatology and missions. Paul frequently talked about the return of Christ when conducting his mission  work. The thought would be to conduct research on the specific points he mentioned  and how this can be applied today in the work  of missions. 

Speeches/lectures 

I have been and will be continuing to conduct research on what God teaches us in Scripture  on the principles and methods of missions. The subject of the history of missions is quite  important as well, and I am doing research on this also.

In May, I led a presentation/discussion entitled  “Fishers of Men” in one of the breakout/discus sion sectionals during the Missions Conference  put on by Trinity PRC and the DMC. Later this  month (September) I am scheduled to give an  evangelism lecture at Hope PRC (Redlands),  followed by another one in October at SW PRC. 

Working with Evangelism Committees With the help of our evangelism committees, I  am beginning to put together a list of contacts.  So far we have communicated with contacts  in Texas, Minnesota (north of Minneapolis),  North Dakota, Alabama, and Hungary. I have  travelled quite a bit this summer, assisting our  churches and our sister church in Northern  Ireland with pulpit supply. As this begins to  wind down a bit this fall, my wife and I plan  to travel to visit with some of the contacts we  have and to witness to others in their area. We are working on coming up with more ways  to start communicating with those who are  making use of our sermons and written material  online. Some of these people who are visiting  our websites are leaving comments. If they  leave their name along with their comment, it  may be possible to locate them. For example,  a man left a comment regarding a sermon  preached at one of our churches. My wife is on FaceBook and she looked up his name on  FaceBook, found him and sent him a FaceBook  message letting him know that I would like to  talk with him on the phone. He very quickly  provided his phone number and I called him  and we talked for awhile. This is just one way that we can work together to start communi cating with those who are watching sermons, listening to podcasts, or reading our material online.

We are also analyzing website stats. I have  asked all of our evangelism committees to  provide us with any stats they have concerning  the location of the hits they are getting on  either SermonAudio, their own website, their  FaceBook page, etc. I also had very helpful  conversations with Jordan Van Baren about  the RFPA stats, and with Brian Key about the  Reformed Witness Hour stats.

Hungary

A thirty-six your old man named Adam has  emailed us. Hungary, being a country in  Europe, falls under the work of domestic  missions. He has translated a number of works  for the website of Covenant PRC in Northern  Ireland and has also learned much by listening  to the sermons there and reading material that  they have posted.

After talking about his own spiritual history  and the current ecclesiastical situation in  Hungary, he writes:

The reason why I am writing you (is) that I  would like to kindly ask about your opinion  about the following thing: 

What are the circumstances where PRCA  would take into consideration one church  planting in Hungary? I know the workers are few and by the Grace of God the doors  are open by the Holy Spirit in Asia, thus  the harvest might be bigger there, but is there anything that could help to raise the chances (at least) that a good Reformed  Church with Dutch Heritage would consider  Hungary as a target for a church planting mission? Or at least providing a little help  in that? 

He goes on to say that he knows one family of  five that he expects will likely be interested, and also a number of others. He expressed  agreement with us on the doctrine of the life long marriage bond and said that this was one of the main reasons he was contacting us specifically.

He went on to say that he was willing to open  his house in the airport area of Budapest for all  gatherings and Sunday worship in the begin ning.

Using Technology

We intend to use both audio and visual means  to find contacts and begin working with them,  with a view to hopefully gathering together  groups of contacts. I am working on a series  of messages/podcasts and plan to add intros/outros encouraging people to contact us. After  completing a podcast series, the plan would be  to make a series of YouTube video shorts (i.e. 1  minute), perhaps 20 or 30 of them for starters. 

Closing

There is much work to be done, and as time  goes on the number of those to whom our  Lord will lead us will likely continue to grow.  Should our Lord lead you to anyone desiring to  receive instruction, please direct them to me  at the contact info listed above. May our heav enly Father continue to bless us as we labor  together in this important work. 

In the service of our Lord, 

Rev. J. Laning