February 1969

“No preacher is furnished to preach simply by possessing a gift to analyze a text and by the ability to lay it out in verbal form! If the word he would preach to others has not first of all been the instrument of his own personal indoctrination and instruction unto sanctification, he is not fit to declare it unto others.”

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“The Word of God must be to us first of all, that Book which we relish because here we see the face of God whom we love, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.”

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“The problem with our preaching is the shoddiness of our lives in the realm of practical piety as expressed in domestic life and in our speech.”

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“You are never free to be an instrument of blessing to your people unless you are free from the effects of their smiles and their frowns.”

What’s Wrong With Preaching Today? Albert N. Martin

March 1969

“All who listen to us preach for any measure of time should come to the conclusion after sitting under our ministries, that unless they repent and bring forth the fruits of repentance, they shall perish even though their heads may be packed full of objective and correct orthodoxy.”

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“…we are lulling our people to sleep through our failure to set before them in a close experimental way the marks of true faith as opposed to the faith of demons.”

What’s Wrong With Preaching Today? Albert N. Martin

May 1969

“Christian action, properly conceived, is always reformational. It confronts an apostate world, under the grip of a false world-and-life view and moving in the wrong direction, with the call of Christ to reform, to be transformed.”

A Call to Christian Communal Action B. J. Haan

“As Reformed Christians, we have the message which the world needs. We have to bring this to the people of our world, here and now. Christianity alone has the answer. Now, this isn’t anything new, but we don’t act as if we really believed it.”

“For a Time Such as This” John Zinkand

July 1969

Let’s admit: Preaching that is truly irrelevant is not preaching at all! It may be soothing or pleasing or something, but it simply isn’t Biblical preaching.”

“If our sermonizing is sweet rather than prophetic, a palliativerather than serious, conversion and repentance-demanding admonition,then we had better get on our knees before the Lord.”

Why Christian Reformed Youth Are Turned Off by Present Forms of Worship John H. Piersma

October 1969

“…the clergy in the CRC are a tight-knit little fraternity who look upon each other with rose-colored glasses. Privately they may discuss the faults of a brother in the clergy with candor and detail. Before the public, that is on the floor of classis or synod, however, the same men refuse to lift a finger toward the discipline of a fellow member of the clergy.”

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“We believe that we are too conservative to find a comfortable home in the CRC today.”

What About CRC-RCA Merger? Gordon H. Girod

“Not only does there appear to be a growing lack of interest in Christian instruction – as well as a frightening loss of understanding of what it is all about – but also, more ominously, the spirit of secularism has infiltrated our own ranks so successfully that by and large we have become incapable of distinguishing friend from foe. What passes for sound Christian education is more often than not a thoroughly secular affair.”

The Enemy Within: Secularism in Christian Education John Van Dyk

November 1969 “When the sermon has lost its meat and authority, then the pastor needs candles, kneelings, pulpit switching, offertory prayers with the back to the congregation, can-tatas that minimize sermons – anything to fill up the lack of the Word of God.”

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“The answer to the problem of the restless church and declining attendance is not the shortening of the sermon and filling the lag with liturgical trappings, but is the precise opposite: in expounding the eternal Word of God.”

The Underground Church Edwin H. Palmer