News

We recently reported on a situation of severely weather damaged homes for some of our brothers and sisters in Tanzania.

To keep you apprised, Eric Pyle recently forwarded some news to Brian McLain from Mara Presbyterian Church in Tanzania. This is the church we reported on back in May who had 3 members with homes significantly damaged by rain and winds. With the agreements of the elders, the deacons were able to disburse some of the St. Mark benevolence fund, sending the money to Eric, who coordinated the transfer of those funds into monetary value usable by the folks in Tanzania.

As a point of interest, we chose to disburse $500 USD. That converts to Tsh 11,593,44.02 (Tsh being a Tanzanian Shilling).

The report forwarded to us by Pastor Manumbu of Mara Presbyterian Church expressed great gratitude for the funds, which has enabled them to commence repair work on the damaged homes.

We praise the Lord for the work he’s doing there in Tanzania and for these faithful families and churches. As we have news to share we’ll continue to keep you updated.

One of the challenges we face as Christians is faithfully balancing our calling to live at peace with all men while also discharging the other duties which God requires of us. There are times when those things come into conflict. This is true for pastor Tim Stephens who has been arrested for a second time and is likely facing massive fines and potential prison sentences. And what did this pastor do to warrant the wrath of the Calgary police? He gathered God’s people to worship on the Lord’s Day. What’s worse, the police say they were responding to many repeated calls from people in the area that the congregation Stephens pastors were meeting in violation of health restrictions. Make no mistake, this is an attack by godless scoffers on God’s people. While this type of persecution is, so far, mild by comparison to times past, we should nevertheless keep this congregation and Pastor Stephens and family in our prayers.

It’s interesting timing for the introduction by Pastor Thacker of our “Men of the Mark” ministry. The timeliness of this call, for men to stand forward and do their duty and be bold and wise men of courage as the Riders of the Mark (also known as the Rohirrim in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings) is plain. Pastor Thacker sent out a notification to the men and friends of St. Mark this past week and we hope it will offer encouraging resources for you in these challenging times. If you did not receive this first email and would like to receive it and future emails, please let Pastor Thacker know.

Our hymn of the month for June is “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe.” Coincidingly today, one of the lectionary Psalm readings is Psalm 20, which seemed appropriate to the text of our Hymn of the Month:

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble May the name of the God of Jacob defend you; May He send you help from the sanctuary, And strengthen you out of Zion;

This is why we need not fear the foe, mighty though he may seem to us. As the text of verse three reminds us, God’s word is true. We take comfort that the powers of hell will not prevail against us. But though they seek our overthrow, our help is in the name of the Lord, and he answers us in the day of trouble.

Be of good courage. We noted many prayer requests this past Wednesday at the prayer meeting regarding suffering, needs for comfort in the face of oncoming death, political situations where the heathen rage and the people plot vain things. Indeed, the kings of the earth take counsel against the Lord. But we serve a God who’s so mighty, he made all that you see from nothing. When serving such a God, we can take comfort. Nothing that happens to us escapes His notice. And he fights for us.

Today, we join our voices with the whole chorus of heaven, with the saints around the world, and with those who have gone before us, worshipping the one who has already won the battle. Thanks be to God!

“Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”

 — C.S. Lewis

This month the U.S. celebrates what is being called “pride month.” Pride month was declared by the U.S. President in 1999 to commemorate the Stonewall riots of 1969. The idea being if you are homosexual, bisexual, etc. you should be proud of it.

Of course God condemns this behavior throughout the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, 1 Timothy 1:9-10). Godless man, in all his “wisdom,” mocks God and the morality He has prescribed, insisting instead that they should be proud of being in outright rebellion against God’s created order.

Isn’t it interesting that pride is the term used in association with homosexuality? We know that to be prideful is a sin. It’s quite apt that pride is associated with their hardened and darkened hearts. In 2 Chronicles 26 we read of how Uzziah’s pride caused him to be struck of the Lord with leprosy. And then in Chapter 32 how the wrath of God was about to come upon all of Judah because of Hezekiah’s pride. Pride is no small matter to God.

In today’s world, all of us will almost certainly know, interact with, or work with those who have pride in their rebellion on this matter. Pray that you might know how and when to speak God’s truth to them.

As some amount of sanity begins to return in these “post-COVID” times, we are ready to resume Friar’s Forum. Since we’ve gained many fresh faces in our congregation over these last several months, an explanation of the event might be in order. Friar’s Forum was (and now will be again) a monthly meetup of men to enjoy food and drink and discuss anything and everything pertaining to the life God calls us to and the enjoyment of the bounty God has bestowed upon us. It also doesn’t have to be just the men of the St. Mark congregation, so invite a friend or two if you’d like. And in any event, we hope you’ll join us at 55 South in Brentwood on June 23 as we resume this monthly fellowship.

The next monthly hymn sing is also coming up next week and brings with it a new hymn of the month to add to our repertoire with a piece of music written in 1530 (words in 1632) called, “O Little Flock, Fear Not the Foe.” We will continue to sing and enjoy Psalm 148, of course. And as a hymn of the month, it was a great success. The writer of this newsletter has witnessed his children singing it randomly and at various times throughout the past month. When your children randomly sing the Psalms — the very word of God — well, you give thanks. We hope that’s been the case for you as well. One of the goals of the hymn of the month is to be a blessing to you. So let us sing and make music together!

Today is Pentecost Sunday and the liturgical color is red to symbolize the tongues of fire which descended upon the Apostles upon receiving the Holy Spirit. This marks the beginning of the Church’s ministry to the world. It’s significant that one of the gifts the Holy Spirit brought to Jesus’s followers was that of communication.

Generally speaking, we, of course, believe in the reformed doctrine of cessationism —simply put, that the supernatural gifts like tongues brought to the early believers by the Holy Spirit have been discontinued under ordinary circumstances. That does not mean we believe the Holy Spirit does not move and work among the church. On the contrary, the work of the Spirit is very much present with us today. And in keeping with the commissioning that the Holy Spirit enabled on this day we celebrate, we will also be commissioned — as we are each Lord’s Day — to go forth from our worship this day and communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ through our lives, our work, our actions, our speech, and our entire being. The Spirit working within us is what enables us to do this. And it is through the means grace, like the meal we share this day with Christ in the communion of His Body and His Blood, that the Holy Spirit works in us to fulfill our commission. And that is what we celebrate this day. So let us keep the feast!

You may recall that in previous newsletters, we mentioned the Pyle family who lost their home and possessions to a fire in the bad winter storm that swept through the country. One of the things that Eric Pyle supports and promotes is the mission work for multiple new Presbyterian church plants in Tanzania. These faithful brothers and sisters have recently left their previous denomination due to its liberal leanings and are seeking support from conservative, reformed churches. God is clearly doing a work as we received a report that a few Sundays ago one of their churches baptized 26 people!

Of course one of the ways you can help is to pray for them, for the gospel ministers involved in this work, and for the perseverance in the conservative principles God is calling them to. The deacons are also discussing ways we can help financially and you can speak with Brian for more information about that. They have several financial needs.

One of these financial needs you can be praying for is for restoration of the homes of those at Bweri Nyabange Presbyterian Church. Strong rain and winds caused significant damage to 3 family’s homes. Praise the Lord no one was hurt but they are in need of repairs. Pray for our brothers and sisters there.

This week concludes Brian’s Sunday School class based on the book, a Theological Interpretation of American History. This means, of course, that we needed to look for a new study topic for Sunday mornings. So we decided that for the next two weeks, Abe will lead our Sunday Morning Sunday School, and then on May 30th, Pastor Thacker will begin a Sunday School study into Covenant theology.

Because God relates to his people through covenant, we believe such a study brings many benefits and helpful understanding — particularly as our culture drifts further and further away from a covenantal understanding, and becomes more focused on God as having individual relationships with individual people only. And yet one of the most important aspects we see of God is that he has always had a people with whom he has established a covenant. This starts at the beginning of creation even with Adam as we see the first covenant promise given to him in Genesis.

There is much to learn and we hope you’ll make plans to join us each Sunday in June and July (tentative length of this study) as we look at how covenant shapes our understanding of scripture and how God relates to his people in history, and yes including even us, His people now.

As we renew our singing efforts today with the hymn sing and hymn of the month, we wanted to provide you with tools for continuing to learn and practice and grow in your singing and learning parts. So on the website, in a “members” area, we have both the music sheet and some practice tracks for you to download. As we move forward, we’ll try to provide these for each hymn of the month, but based on copyrights and licensing terms we may not always be able to do that. This month, we can because the licensing agreement from Crown and Covenant for Psalm 148 from the Book of Psalms for Singing permits it. However, we do ask that you keep this within our congregation and not share it with others.

All that out of the way, here is where you can get these tools:

stmarkreformed.com/members

On that members page, each month, hopefully, more resources will be posted. Hymns of the month are organized by month so just follow the links.

We hope the music and practice tracks will be a blessing to you in whatever way you and your family can use them as we put in the work to sing to the Lord and to one another both joyfully and skillfully.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Easter. We often think of Easter as that one Sunday in the year that follows Good Friday where we have flowers in the sanctuary and take pictures of ourselves in our nice clothes, and we (rightly) say to one another, “Christ is risen,” and hear (again rightly) the refrain, “He is risen indeed!” However, Easter is not over. During the rest of the Easter Season, we continue the story of God’s magnificent salvation of His people. Right now in the story, Christ has not yet ascended to the Father and we, knowing the rest of the story, look forward to His ascension and commissioning of His people with great anticipation. In the meantime, we remember the glorious days that changed everything as we recall with awe that Christ rose from the dead. This was, no doubt, a source of continued joy for Christ’s apostles, who had only just a few days ago considered Him dead and gone. And now, here was Jesus, the Lord, with them for forty days.

Of course, like every Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s presence with us, even today, in the body and blood, the divine food Christ shares with us. And Easter made this possible. Christ is, indeed, risen! Therefore, let us keep the feast. Alleluia!

We’re excited to announce that in two weeks time, on May 2 at 9:45 AM during our Sunday School time, we’ll be resuming our monthly Sunday morning hymn sings. In the past this time has been vital to our congregation as we learn and prepare new material to add to our arsenal of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We are told in many places in scripture how vital singing is. See, for instance, Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. In fact, Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Singing, and singing well, is important in the life of God’s people.

To that end, we’re introducing a new element to our hymn sing: the hymn of the month. The way it will work is this: at the end of every hymn sing, we’ll take some time to learn the hymn of the month, breaking down the various parts. And we’ll give you a good handle on how to sing it. Then we’ll also sing it at the end of Sunday School each week to keep it fresh. We’ll also provide printed copies of the music so you can take it home with you and sing and practice as individuals and families as you are able and desire to do so.

Over the coming months, we believe this will equip the congregation of St. Mark for our duties to God in worship and praise.

If you follow Jamie Soles on Facebook, you may have seen a video he shared of the RCMP (Canadian police) taking over and physically fencing off Grace Life Church — a Reformed Baptist congregation in Edmonton, Alberta Canada — to prevent access since they have been meeting “in an unsafe way.” Needless to say, this is of great concern to our Canadian brothers and sisters in Christ. Please keep this congregation (and others in Alberta) in your prayers as they seek guidance and direction from the Lord on how they should act, when they should act, what they should say, and more.

This week, we’d like to draw your attention to the ministry Hope Russia. We’ve had Founder & President of Hope Russia, Rev. Blake Purcell, speak at St. Mark more than once and the ministry is one we encourage folks to support. The last time Rev. Purcell was with us, the Drapers had him in their home, and Denise McLain was able to record a video of some of the stories he shared about the work they are doing. You can go to stmarkreformed.com/blake-purcell to be taken to that video to hear and learn more. The work and ministry is worthy of your support if you are so led. And certainly support them in your prayers as they pursue the work of making Christ known in this largely Godless country.