Congregations,

On October 8, 2013, the forty-first meeting of Classis Michigan was hosted by Sovereign Grace URC and held in the facilities of Dutton URC. Twenty-four delegates from the twelve area URC churches joined fraternal delegates Rev. William den Hollander of the Canadian Reformed Churches and Rev.’s Norman deJong and Vern Picknally from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The deliberations of the day were led by Rev. Mitch Dick as chairman and Rev. Jason Tuinstra as vice-chairman.

Numerous routine matters were dealt with in the early part of the morning, including the reception of reports from the numerous classical functionaries along with appointment to vacancies among these functionaries. Elder Lee DeWitt (Cornerstone URC) and Rev. Mitch Dick were appointed as church visitors to assist the current church visitors, Rev.’s James Admiraal and Bill Renkema. Mr. Paul Wagenmaker (Bethel URC) was appointed to the federation’s missions committee. Mr. Doug Ulberg (Cornerstone URC) was appointed to the classis missions committee. In addition, the churches were reminded of the need to give consideration to appointing a nomination for the federation’s position of missions coordinator and the need for more nominations for the task of church visitors.

A highlight of the meeting was the opportunity to hear fraternal greetings from both representatives of the Canadian Reformed Churches and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. It provided a visible reminder and encouragement of the catholicity of the church of Jesus Christ.

Much of the afternoon hours were occupied with the sad yet necessary work of giving advice to various consistories concerning the exercise of Christian discipline. An unusual number of requests were presented, which allowed the body to be reminded of the need to continue exercising discipline in a faithful and proper way in accordance with Scripture and our adopted church order for the good of souls and the glory of God. Prior to adjourning, classis set a date of March 11, 2014, for its next meeting, DV.

Humbly Submitted,

Rev. G. Lubbers

Clerk of Classis 10/9/2013