First up today, we want to recognize the anniversary date for the following PCA churches organized [particularized] on this day, in the year indicated. Nearly one-third of all PCA churches pre-date the 1973 formation of the PCA, and for most of those churches, we do not presently know their exact date of organization. Typically it is the newer churches where we have that information. Please let us know if we missed a church’s anniversary date and we’ll add it to our list for future use. In some cases here we are using the date when the church came into the PCA, rather than when it was organized.

Christ Presbyterian Church, Clarkesville, GA [North Georgia Presbytery], organized on this day in 2002.
Orlando Korean Presbyterian Church, Orlando, FL [Korean Southeast Presbytery], was organized on this day in 2011.

As well, we would remember our Fathers and Brothers in the Faith, those who have gone before us:

The Rev. Donald J. MacNair died on this day, March 3rd, in 2001. Born in 1922 and educated at Rutgers University and Faith Theological Seminary, his first pastorate was with the BPC church in Coatesville, PA. Answering a call to serve The Covenant Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, he oversaw the relocation of that church and helped to design its new building. From 1964-1982, Rev. MacNair served as the head of National Presbyterian Missions (NPM), the church planting arm of the RPCES. While it was Dr. Edmund P. Clowney who came up with the idea of the Joining & Receiving method of merger, it was Don MacNair who was widely recognized as the architect of J&R and who worked tirelessly to bring about the reception of the RPCES into the PCA in 1982. In effect, he worked himself out of a job, since the PCA already had in place a director for its Mission to North America, NPM’s counterpart. Not one to sit around, Dr. MacNair then formed Churches Vitalized, a ministry to struggling churches. Both the Donald J. MacNair manuscript collectionand the records of Churches Vitalized are preserved at the PCA Historical Center. The latter collection is awaiting processing at this time.

Also on this day, the Rev. Robert James Ostenson, one of the founding fathers of the PCA, died on March 3, 2008. Born in 1922, he prepared for the ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary (BD, 1953) and was later awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree by Belhaven College in 1969. He was ordained by Mississippi Presbytery in 1953 and installed as the pastor of the Woodville and Gloster, MS churches, where he served for three years. At the time of the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America, he was serving as the pastor of Granada Presbyterian Church in Coral Gables, FL., 1965-1974. In his final pastorate, he returned to serve that church again, from 1987-1989.

And on this day, March 3, 1993, the Rev. John Galbreath Armes passed away. Born in 1918, his father was Roland K. Armes, a stalwart Presbyterian and a leader in the Bible Presbyterian Synod. John received his education at Hampden-Sydney College and Faith Theological Seminary before licensure and ordination by the Philadelphia Presbytery of the BPC. Rev. Armes served as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, 1944-46 and was Assistant General Secretary of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions from 1946-51. Leaving that post, he served as a foreign missionary in Kenya from 1951-1982. He was honorably retired in 1984 by the Northeast Presbytery of the PCA.

Image sources:
1. Portrait photograph of the Rev. Donald J. MacNair, from the MacNair manuscript collection.
2. Portrait photograph of the Rev. John G. Armes, from The Independent Board Bulletin, 14.1 (January 1948): 8.
All digital scans by the staff of the PCA Historical Center.

Words to Live By:
“Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1, ASV)

An Answer to the Charge of Being Unloving

There is a relevant editorial in the March 2, 1936 edition of The Presbyterian Guardian.  Historically minded readers will recognize this magazine as the voice of conservative leaders who were at that time still members of the Presbyterian Church, USA.  However, their remaining time there was but short, for in that year, trials and suspensions were taking place at an alarming rate for no other charge other than refusing to desist from the support of an Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.  J. Gresham Machen was still alive and writing vigorously for the defense of the Christian faith.  Others were taking their stand for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

On the editorial page of that issue (Volume 1, Number 11), H. McAllister Griffiths writes in defense of the need to expose modernism in the church at large.  Specifically, he answers why such an exposé is not unloving.  Listen to his words, which even today are apt in addressing the errors of today, both inside and outside the church:

“Why then do we present the facts concerning modernism . . .?  Only because it is our duty.  We find no happiness in the betrayals of which we must tell.  No one in his right mind could gloat over them, or be other than sorrowful.  But — if we love the souls of men we must warn them.  We must warn a sleeping church, largely uninformed about the nature of its official boards.  And finally, if we care anything about the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the place due His Holy Word, we are under a solemn obligation to speak.

“This speaking, let it be understood, is in love. But what, exactly, is speaking in love?  Is it to speak lovingly?  Yes—in part.  But there is more to it than that.  We speak most in love when the motive that prompts us is love, and when the end desired is the supreme good of the one addressed.  The most loving words to a blind man approaching an unsuspected precipice would be ‘Stop! Stop! Stop where you are!’  What would you think of anyone who criticized the speaker of those words because he ‘didn’t have a good spirit,’ did not speak ‘lovingly,’ and who advised the blind man to go on, paying no attention to such an un-Christian fellow?

“(We see the church moving) on toward the precipice. The ground will feel solid beneath its feet until it gets to the edge. After it steps over it will be too late.  That is why we cry ‘Stop!’ now. And the cry of those who would save is the most loving cry in the world, even if unadorned with honeyed words.”

The Presbyterian stalwarts for the faith back in the 1930’s were praying and working for the elimination of unbelief in the Presbyterian church.  As we know now from history, such was not to be.  And those who were standing for the faith once delivered unto the saints were expelled from the church.

Words to Live By: The apostle Paul wrote 2000  plus years ago that all true Christians are to “take no part in the  unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”  Ephesians 5:11 (ESV)