What To Look For In Deacons

Danny Olinger 0:00

What do you look for for a local deacon? Um, same thing you look for for a good pastor or a good elder. Love of Christ. The love of the brethren. And a spirit in which you're willing to give yourself away in service. And you know what? That permeates the entire congregation.

David Nakhla 0:21

This is David Nakhla here with the OPC Committee on Diaconal Ministries. Today's episode is part of a series of special episodes of the Reformed Deacon Podcast. These episodes consist of audio from the sessions presented at our fifth OPC National Diaconal Summit held in June 2026. It's our hope that you deacons who were not able to attend the summit, or those of you who missed one of the many wonderful workshops offered will benefit from this content that I think you will find to be very practical and encouraging. If you find this episode particularly encouraging, please consider sharing it with your fellow deacons. And if it's an episode that is especially suited to the work of your particular diaconate, you could consider watching the video version of the presentation together with your fellow deacons and discussing it. All of our videos can be found at opccbm.org. And now enjoy this episode of the Reformed Deacon Podcast. Well, it's our privilege this year to have Danny Ollinger with us at the summit. I'm sure most of you know Danny by his name. He's been serving as the General Secretary of Christian Education for more than 20 years. And I like to say that Danny is a walking, talking OPC almanac. I don't think that there is anybody who knows the history of the OPC as much as Danny Ullinger. You can quiz him over a meal. You can off the top of his head, he can tell you the dates when almost any OPC minister was ordained, the churches they served in, um probably the years. He knows the histories of individual churches of the OPC. Uh but he and so in very many ways he's uh or de facto historian. He loves the OPC and it flows through his veins. So we invited Danny to speak, particularly regarding the history of the diaconal ministries of the OPC. The OPC has a long, rich history of mercy ministry locally, regionally, and denominationally. The Committee on Diacon Ministries itself dates back to 1947. The OPC was an 11-year-old church when it sensed the need to think about those diaconal needs that are beyond the ability of the local deacon to meet. And so we are the recipients of that rich history, and we're privileged to build on the work of our forebears. And yet there's so much of that history that's not yet been studied or told. So we're really privileged to have Danny here. He's not only an almanac, but he's an incredible storyteller, and he knows some stories. So you're in us in for a special treat this morning. And without further ado, help me welcome Reverend Danny Ollinger.

Danny Olinger 3:32

Well,

Why This Summit Talk Matters

Danny Olinger 3:33

it's great to uh be with you here. And we are going to try to do the history of the OPC Diacle Ministries in an hour. We'll see if I can pull it off or not. So uh this is sort of like you're you're getting an insight into what like a recording of a podcast with me is it's a hire wire act with no script. So let's start with the very beginning of our church. Um,

Depression-Era Poverty And Early Mercy

Danny Olinger 3:58

again, we start during the Great Depression. Uh we don't have any buildings, um, we don't have any uh money, and things got worse from a human perspective. And so in 1938, um things were so from resources uh perspective, so bleak, that uh Robert Marston, who at that time was the General Secretary of Home and Foreign Missions, uh, he had to figure out what to do. And he uh because um, you know, we were originally the press trained Church of America, and in that summer of 1938, we lost in the Court of Common Pleas and regarding the name, and we did not have any money to fight it. We would have probably won if we'd been able to fight it, but we didn't have any money because that month Robert Marsden, in trying to send out the payments to the missionaries and the pastors, could only pay 31 cents on the dollar. And they were only getting one $100 a month to begin with. And so he went out and started visiting churches to find out what was going on. So the first church he went to, one of the the pastor and his wife who had received one of those $31 checks, they had potatoes for breakfast, potatoes for lunch, and potatoes for dinners. Marson says they are done differently each time, and they were tasty, but that's what their meal was because the family was so strapped that they allotted 10 cents per meal in order to get by. So he goes on to the next church. In this church, the pastor and his wife had five children, and they had apples for breakfast, apples for lunch, and apples for dinner, each done differently, tasty. But that was the lay of the land in the OPC in 1938, and yet Marston testified that they were rejoicing in the opportunity to preach the gospel and to have it go forth, and there was no complaint. And I think he would have added, and I know this has been the case, that you could see it also diaconally with the love of the brethren. That even at the beginning, when we our our families were eating potatoes and apples, they didn't have money for anything else, the diaconal work was going on from the very beginning. So, what I have done for this talk is on tab four, you will see the report of the Committee on Diaconal Ministries to the General Assembly. There are seven main activities and ministries that they list there that the committee does. I'd like to take you through the roots of those seven in regard to the history of the OPC as we move from the beginning to the present. So

Caring For Ministers And Church Plants

Danny Olinger 7:12

we're going to start with ministry to those within the OPC. And I thought since we were here at Wheaton College that this would be a good uh place to start with uh Ed and Eleanor Kellogg. Um, because when it comes to ministry to those within the OPC, there's often those who need one-time help, and there's others that need long-term help. So um with the Kellogg's, um uh we're here at Wheaton. Ed Kellogg was the grandson of the founder of Wheaton College, Jonathan Blanchard. He went to Westminster Seminary, had a great relationship with Jay Gresson Machin. As a matter of fact, when Machin died, Ed Kellogg was one of the pallbearers. The Kellogg's were so devoted to the OPC, they uh he would go on to minister for over 45 years, and their two daughters uh married OPC pastors. So uh Susan married Roger Schmirr and uh and Gwen married Ed Urban. But the thing that stands out from the very beginning is that the acronyl help they received are probably one of the first major things that you find out in regard to the acneal help and the OPC because they went to Manhattan and they tried to plant a church there, and overwhelmingly could not make it in regard to the cost of living in Manhattan. It became so dire that they were reduced to eating um canned goods that were unmarked. And this came to the attention of the presbytery, nearby Presbytery of New Jersey. And so this was the first time that you find the deacons really getting into action on a denominational or at least a presbytery level. They held a food drive in the presbytery of New Jersey for the Kelloggs to make sure that they had food to eat. And uh, you know, I think that worked on the heart of Ed and Eleanor Kellogg. So we'll come back to them. We'll come back to them. Now, the more long-term uh diacle needs to those in need in the OPC could be seen here with uh the Davies and in Morgan Siding, Wisconsin, because they had the tremendous opportunity to minister at the Old Stockbridge Presbyterian Church. And if you want to find out about uh Arthur Perkins and the Old Stockbridge uh church, talk to Brian DeYoung, he'd be happy to talk to you. But uh this was a group that dated their uh roots back to Jonathan Edwards and his son. They had uh uh been the first Presbyterian church in the state of Wisconsin, and they sided with Machin, and they came out of the of the church and formed their own uh congregation, but they had no money. So here you see what they're needed to do for Sunday school. I mean, this this is what you're doing for Sunday school. And then um, you know, they they just had a wonderful mess. Here's Mrs. Davies with uh the ladies' prayer circle. Um, but this dear, these dear believers who were so courageous, um, the church, churches in Wisconsin, the press trade of Wisconsin first, and then the press trade of the Midwest for decades helped them with assistance. And the primary assistance was to help them in regard to their building. Now, there was also clothes that were perpetually uh given diaconally to this dear group. But here you have uh Pastor Henry Phillips. Henry was there for 21 years. This is in the early 70s, and this is by the time that they have their building and just rejoicing uh in the Lord. So that was an example of more long-term ministry.

Disaster Relief Begins In Kentucky

Danny Olinger 11:20

Now we also have ministry of from the very start to those affected by disasters. And this is one of the great figures, hidden figures in the OPC, Lyle Shaw and his dear wife Eleanor in Newport, Kentucky. So Newport, Kentucky's um on the Ohio River, uh opposite Cincinnati, and it's where uh it's it's was it just a poverty-stricken area. And uh Lyle Shaw wanted to take the gospel there and had the support of the local OPC congregation across the river uh in Cincinnati. But in January of 1937, there was the great flood, and uh it just devastated Newport. And um the Shaws immediately took people into the chapel. And so for weeks, um individuals, um uh initially they had 24 individuals that were living there in the chapel because there was nowhere else to go, and they provided them meals, and as Mr. Shaw would say, they also got the gospel twice a day. This relief work uh went on for two and a half years, and tons of shoes and clothing deactively throughout the OPC went to Newport, Kentucky, in regard to the disaster relief of what happened there. Now, I want to follow up on something that that that I is you know, that is kind of uh heartwarming. And again, when you have this type of ministry in which you give yourself away to others, um, there were two young ladies there that during the midst of this, they asked if they could go to a Bible camp in Kentucky. And so Lyle Shaw checked it out and he said, sure. And then they said, we have friends who would like to go also. And the next thing you know, uh and the word got out in the churches in the press trade of Ohio, can you help diaconally to send these young teenagers to this Bible camp? And before you know it, they raised the funds to send 44 of them, and someone even donated a bus in order to go. And they spent the whole week, and uh um, and just it's kind of uh, you get tears in your eyes and you read the accounts because most of these young uh ladies were never had never been in a place where they had three meals in a day. And Shaw talks about how they not only were so thankful for uh that, but they were so eager to learn the catechism and the scriptures. And so that was the start of our disaster relief ministry in the OPC. The

Refugees In World War II

Danny Olinger 14:06

next was ministry to refugees. So at the same time in 1939, we really had to start ministry to refugees because of what was happening in Europe with Hitler in the start of World War II. Now, the key figure here is David Freeman. This is uh in Philadelphia in New Covenant Presbyterian Church. This is June 14th, 1936, when they're getting evicted from their property for supporting the new church. So I put this picture up here because I want you to see that person coming out, top left corner, last person out, that's Cornelius Van Till. This is where he worshipped. So that's Fan Till up here, and this is uh Freeman leading the march uh uh down the street. Well, David Freeman was a Jew who was converted and loved the Reformed faith. And so in 1939, um the the Jews were getting exiled from Germany, and he was the one who was talking to so many OPC congregations about what we could do to serve these refugees. He went out to Waterloo, Iowa. He went to Cincinnati, Ohio, he went up the second parish in in uh uh in Maine. He uh uh was in all the churches in Philadelphia. I mean, he was so active, and they were having a ministry. And one of the things I love was the fact that uh, and they would have 40 or 50 uh uh uh Jews, uh refugees in their home, and they would try to help them and in everything. But I love Mrs. Freeman also. She was great about talking to uh to the individuals and uh because she would say, you know, Jesus is the promised Messiah. And they would say to her, Well, when, you know, that doesn't the scripture say that when the Messiah comes, the Jews will be living in peace and security and will be blessed and and prospering. And she would say immediately to them, the scripture says that when the Messiah comes, he must pay the price for the sins of his people. You know, Isaiah 53 and go to the cross. So this was a glorious ministry that that they carried on there during World War II deactively. It's when you actually read the records, it's overwhelming the work that they were doing there at uh New Covenant Presbyterian. But we also had ministry to those in need internationally, and there's the great, I think the greatest Protestant missionary of the 20th century, Bruce Hunt.

Creating A Denominational Mercy Committee

Danny Olinger 16:46

There is Bruce Hunt um in Korea there. And what happened was so so as we know the story, or hopefully, if you don't get four testimony, after Hunt's imprisonment and torture, and he was released, he came back uh here to the States to uh just an incredible worker in evangelism. But he came back from Korea. You had the McIlwains coming back from Japan, you had the Duffs coming back from Ethiopia, and so they were all telling um the congregations and the people of the OPC what was going on in these places and the great need that was going on in these places. So, what happens is after the war is over, we're sending them back to these fields, and that leads to the overture from the Presbytery of Philadelphia to create a committee on deacons to study um uh how to distribute gifts beyond the local situation. So this was in 1947. They named a special committee on general benevolence, and they had the moderator, as uh some of you would know, the moderator. He was a young 34-year-old uh moderator by the name of John Galbraith. They had Mr. Galbraith um uh uh hand pick the committee, and so he ends up uh uh picking um, let's see here, uh, this man, Cal Cummings, to be the convener um of the committee. He also picked the pastor who was the host of the General Assembly that year, Dina Dare at uh Calvary Church Cedar Grove, and three deacons, including R. B. Kuyper's son, Claudius. But I love this picture. This is time appropriate. This is 1947, because you have Cal there, pastor at Covenant Church in Pittsburgh. You have future OPC pastor Wilson right here on the left, you have future OPC pastor Cal Jr. on the right. David was not yet born, another future pastor. You had Gwen uh who married uh Noel Weeks, who I believe's grandson might have been at the General Assembly two weeks ago. And then you had Mary, who married OPC minister and PCA minister John Frame. But the most important person in this picture for our purposes is Mary. Why is Mary Cummings uh important and why did Mr. Galbraith uh have uh Cal Cummings be the convener? Uh Mary was Bruce Hunt's younger sister. So if you're going to establish the diaconal committee in regard to helping out internationally, particularly in Korea, what better way than to have Bruce Hunt's sister married to the convener? Now, they ended up actually making Dean Adair uh the pastor. Um some of you know Steve McDonald uh from Second Parish in uh Portland, Maine. Um this is uh he was baptized by Dina Dare when Dean was the uh Adair was the pastor there at Second Parish. But what happened was Dina Dare tragically died um in uh Christmas Eve uh of that year. And so actually, this new form committee the entire next year, it was all about supporting his widow and their family. So that was really what would had taken place in 1948, and and um his widow was so thankful for all the assistance that this new committee gave. But the committee came back, in addition to helping those in need locally, uh like uh uh uh the Adairs, they came back with three main recommendations. One was in regard to what was happening in Japan, the Christians, reformed Christians in Japan. And uh, this is time-appropriate picture, also, that uh just if we could provide food for reformed Christians there. So Japan was an emphasis. This is one of my favorite pictures, and I was really glad when I found out that uh the Netherlands also was a recommendation uh in regard to this. So this is in 1949, the OPC decided to send Ned B. Stonehouse on the left as our representative to the Reformed Ecumenical Synod uh meeting in Amsterdam. And this is how we found out that there were uh hungry, needy reformed Christians uh after, again, from uh what had happened in the war in the Netherlands. So this is uh uh Stonehouse with Herman Ritterboss, the great Reformed theologian. They're there, but there's a smoke, there's there and they have a little smoke, and there's a lady's lake coming around the corner. It's one of the great pictures. I don't know what's going on, but these two guys are really cool. And and and uh there are theologians. So anyhow, I had I that was sort of for me putting this picture in there. Um but uh this is the great picture, okay? And this is really what theaconal ministry was for the OPC um and a denominational level from 1947 until the mid-60s. Uh this is Korea. And um this picture tells a great story. So um Bruce Hunt was doing such incredible work there and the church was growing, and uh um so we uh had great opportunities. So this big tent is the church. It had regularly over 300 members that would worship there, but this is during the conflict. So notice that these are all more or less than a million females. Their husbands are all fighting. But why are they all gathered around here? It's because they're receiving supplies and stuff that we're distributing. Why are we distributing them? You see those tents in the background? This is a uh in addition to this taking place during the the Korean conflict, this village had been decimated by a flood. And these ladies and their families had nowhere to go, so there's tents that were set up for them to uh live in. So this was the nature of our ministry in Korea. During World War II, we brought our missionaries back. During the Korean conflict, our missionaries stayed there, so they were on the ground. And during that period of time, uh they had they were, it was glorious. They were preaching the gospel, so many were being converted, but they were also continually in diaconal ministry, and this is where the majority of our labor or resources, our giving went was to help those in Korea. So

Korea And The Rise Of Giving

Danny Olinger 24:12

we became a standing committee of general benevolence in 1953, and this is the great figure of this period of time. So this is Lester Bachman, and he was elected to the committee in 1958. He was the pastor of Kirkwood OPC, a little rural church outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Central PA. And uh he had energy beyond belief to promote diaconal uh ministries. So suddenly you started to get these complete reports in the Presbyterian Guardian. Now, um, what's fascinating to read, for instance, the per capita request here in 1958 was for 12 cents a communicate member. And we could still only could get about 65 of our percent of our churches to give. Uh so that's always been the story in regard to the Akinal Giving. We kind of hover around that 65 to 75 percent. The highest mark I found in the research was around 1980. We actually got over 80% uh in giving. Uh, but Mr. Bachman just had a love of for others, and his energy uh was just amazing. So he's the second longest serving member ever on our committee. He ended up serving for 30 years. But what became very apparent by the time we got to the end of the 1950s was the uh what was happening in Eritrea.

Eritrea Hospital Debate And Oversight

Danny Olinger 25:48

So this is Clarence Duff, and I have to tell you this story if I'm going to talk about Clarence Duff or Eritrea. The last time we saw him, he was in Ethiopia. So why is he now in Eritrea? Well, after World in 1943, the British beat back the Italians and the Germans from Ethiopia, and the field wasn't uh open. And so Duff begged Robert Mars and the Committee on Foreign Missions to be able to go back to uh Ethiopia. And they finally said, yes, but you need to go alone. So he hops aride on a U.S. naval ship, goes across the Atlantic, gets to Africa, then makes his way down the bottom of the tip of Africa, comes up the other side to the, I think it's the Mediterranean or Red Sea, but there's U-boats. So he has to do it by night, undercover, traveling 20 uh days that way to escape the U-boats. Then he gets to uh Africa. He walks for about um uh two months, he gets to the border, and the British reject his passport to enter into the country, and he spent five months to get there. He turns around, he goes, and he finds out about Eritrea, the neighboring country, and he tele uh uh Western Union back to to uh Mars and great prospects for the gospel at Eritrea. The OPC has had an open field in Eritrea to this day from that moment, from when Duff went there. It's still an open field for us. So here is Clarence stuff there, but what was happening was that the medical need was so great that often so much of his day and his dear wife Dora was just taking up with all the medical issues. So here's Mr. Galbraith, who by that point, I I can't I know it's John Galbraith, having known Mr. Galbraith, I I could never say anything other than Mr. Galbraith, uh also a pallbearer at Machin's funeral. But at this point, he was general secretary in the early 60s of the Committee on Foreign Missions, and here he is in Eritrea. And what Mr. Galbraith had done is he had found three uh RC uh uh RCUS and maybe an RCA churches in Iowa and in Michigan that would fund a hospital in Eritrea. So suddenly that was before the General Assembly. And so they were also promoting it. So here's the 25th anniversary promotion. Here is Mrs. Duff, and uh and we're we're trying to promote uh this work. Well, the Committee on Foreign Missions, now this is a great picture, because here you have three members of the Committee on Foreign Missions, uh, John Murray, and then you have Paul Woolley, and then you have Meredith Klein. Now, I also wanted to do this picture because those of you in the press trade of the South and Southeast, there's Tom Champness. Tom has always been around with a great smile. Uh so now at our Wolf Run uh church. But uh these brothers, uh, they said uh we don't know if this is what we should be doing in the way that it was being put forth. And uh what they said was that is this really what the Great Commission is about? And is this really what the Committee on Foreign Missions should be doing? So let me put it this way. Um, those of you who have been involved with Christian schools, this is sort of a parallel analogy, but this is really what was being done at the time. Should the Christian school be established and run by the session of the church or by Christian parents, independent of the session of the church, to put it in those terms. That's what the debate was about in many ways. And they were saying uh the thing to do is to do it. Uh, we want to have uh they they were they were uh arguing from Kuiper's sphere of sovereignty, we want to have Christians build a hospital there, but we don't think the church should be involved in doing it. But if the church is going to be involved in doing it, then it should be done by the deacons. So they were saying, if we're gonna do this, it actually should be under the Committee on General Benevolence. So um they went to the uh 1963 General Assembly, 1963 General Assembly said, we need to think about this more, both uh the committee and the minority. Uh we'd like you to come back to the next assembly. So what really struck me, and I really think it's it's uh something that I hope we would take to heart, is that how brotherly this debate was. Uh Mr. Galbraith uh uh told, you know, he he he shared with uh Meredith Klein and Paul Woolly, I'm gonna have uh R.B. Kuyper be my main theologian to talk about this. And so he says, yeah, talk to R.B. And that's exactly what they did. And and Klein told R.B. this is what I'd like to say. And R.B. said, This is what I'd like to say. Very brotherly. But the most brotherly thing was our other missionary in Eritrea, Herb Bird. And so here's here's Herb and Mary Bird. And um, and Mr. Galvere said, Herb Bird is going to be the one who's gonna present it for us on the floor of the General Assembly. Well, Herb Bird was great, great friends with Meredith Klein. They had gone to seminary together, they'd been in the same graduating class, they shared one, you know, it was not, you know, someone uh this antagonism, it was just a principal debate on what should be done. So Herb Bird is the one that prevailed at the General Assembly. He said, Look, we have a missionary in Eritre, and he was talking about Clarence. He can't get to preaching the gospel. This is an Acts 6 situation in which we need someone to wait upon table so he can preach the gospel. And and also they were making arguments, wonderful arguments, about the nature of the what we do on the mission field, encompassing the whole person, body and soul. But it didn't mean that um, again, there's a brotherly aspect, but it didn't mean that the OPC um uh immediately signed off on this. So the main motion, so the way it operates, the main motion came on the floor, we're gonna build this hospital. There was a substitute, assign it to the special or the standing committee on general benevolence, give it to the deacons. And that was debated at length. And then that failed. And so the next motion was, well, let's do it, but we need to have a full-blown study about the principles of the relationship here, because there's the material is scarce, and we have these differing opinions on the interpretation of Galatians 6, 10 and other things. That uh motion, after a long debate, was tied. And you know, in any uh vote that's tied, the moderator can make or break ties, and the moderator voted for it. That's how close it was. So that's how we ended up with a hospital in Eritrea, somewhat of the backstory. Um, but we'll come back to that. But this is what I love also. So Christianity Today, back when Christianity Today was still readable. Uh this was from this was news. This was the big news item that the the Machin's uh uh children were going to have this this uh hospital. They finally caught up to the times, and uh they really ripped into Meredith Klein in regard to uh his being the traditional OPCer who saw a liberal under every rock that the social gospel would be taking place in uh uh in doing this, and how refreshing it was that um that they had done this. Well, letters to the editor. Klein wrote back and said, Look, there was not a person at the assembly that didn't agree that we needed a hospital, we need medical work. The question was like, what would the oversight be? And the letter after that was from Herb Bird, talking about how Christianity had misrepresented his dear friend Meredith Klein, that that was not what Klein was after. He was just simply asking a biblical question, biblically, where are what is the authority here? So again, so brotherly. I wish we retained that spirit in regard to uh to going forward. So this was the uh hospital that was eventually built. Then we uh moving ahead, coming to the assembly in 1972.

Diaconal Ministries Expands In 1972

Danny Olinger 35:29

I love this picture. So this is at Bethel Church in Usburg, and um, this is the assembly that we decided to change the name of the uh committee to the diaconal committee, because at this point the debate had changed um in uh in regard to things. So one of the points that Klein and Woolley had made was like is our primary work to the world or is it to the covenant community? And so through the civil rights movement and other things in the church, just like in the country, there were those who were becoming a little bit more um progressive in regard to what the church should do. And so the thought was at the time that if you change it to diaconal, it becomes more wide-reaching in regard to its scope. Uh, but there was also things going on that we were rejoicing about in this. Uh but uh uh so we commit uh uh established a committee on diaconal ministries, and also this is the next major figure. Leonard Komppus was elected at that committee, and he's the longest serving member in the history of the committee. He would serve for 33 years, and we'll come back to Leonard. But what was happening was we were having this great work in inner city with Bill Crispin in Philadelphia, and so this is what the diaconal committee started to support with scholarships and other things to help uh those that with Crispin's work. And this eventually became Emanuel Chapel, was one in, and then the on the far left there, you can see Wilson Cummings, who we saw as a little boy. He's the pastor there at uh Emmanuel Chapel. But um, this was only one of the churches in Philadelphia. The other church was the church in the city, which is one of the most uh interesting reads in OPC history. You know, the in the 60s there were um students at Westminster Seminary that um wanted to reach out to inner city, and so they they lived in a in a house and they made that the church, and they became the and we uh accepted it as a work and a mission work, and and it was sort of like a commune in a church, and uh they were uh uh very much into diaconal ministry in regard to our non-Christian neighbor, let's fix their house. Our non-Christian neighbor, let's get them a Christian lawyer. Our non-Christian neighbor, let's do this. It was very uh progressive in that regard. So that led to New Horizons actually having a cover story on the great debate because Leonard Kauppus was maintaining the traditional position of the OPC in regard to ministering first to those in the covenant community, then to the world appropriately. And so this had become the great debate by the 1980s.

The 1980s Debate On Priorities

Danny Olinger 38:39

And so you actually had uh principles of diaconal ministry uh leading up to the General Assembly, in which you had on the one side Jim Petty, who was the uh uh uh founder of the Church in the City, and also Leonard Koppus. So, what had happened was the Reformed Ecumenical Synod had asked us for a diaconal paper. And so by the 1970s and 80s, in the Reformed world, the Netherlands, and else places, this type of um work was being promoted. The difference being that we were always trying to keep word uh and deed together. And there were those in the reformed world who were really struggling with that. Uh, and I should say this back to the era tree when everyone was agreed about the priority of the word. Uh, and so even here with Petty and Compass this debate, the priority of the word was always there. But then parsing what it means to uh minister to the world was really, you know, where the content was. So this was like 1984, they were playing off the presidential debate and the Wendy's commercial, and they had the two go back and forth in regard to the nature of diaconal ministry. Petties could believe that our goal should be to end poverty in the world. That was the kingdom goal, and we could do it. And Coppas didn't think that that was a biblical. Now they were gentlemen in doing it, uh uh, but he said, no, I don't think that's the biblical goal. So how did this get resolved? Well, how it got resolved was the JR of 1986, even though 58% of our General Assembly voted to go into the PCA and be absorbed, that was not enough for a supermajority. And so what happened was Petty, the Church in the City, and others ended up leaving to join the PCA. So for a broader sense of ministry. Now he would help everyone, but when he would talk to young men aspiring to ministry, he would emphasize that we are an old school Presbyterian church, as did the new general secretary of Christian Ed Tom Tyson. So the previous general secretaries on both those committees had been more towards the petty side and others, and these were more uh traditional men, and they were emphasizing the old school Presbyterianism. And so uh at that time also, then you uh so he this I thought this was a great picture. So here you have David King, who became a member of the Committee on Diaconal Ministries for 25 years, and you have Leonard Compis here, and then you have Charlie Dennison also promoting old school Presbyterianism historian, and then a young pastor in Holdaysburg, Pennsylvania, Mark Fra. So Mark was very helpful in the early 90s, having the support of Ross Graham and uh and Tom Tyson in regard to helping us through office, um, because that also had become something as we emphasized our old school Presbyterian roots.

Recovering Historic Deacon Office Teaching

Danny Olinger 42:22

So Former Government Chapter 5 tells us that the ordinary and perpetual offices in the church are that of teaching and ruling and serving, and that those offices are seen in that of pastor, elder, and deacon. And so that all came back into play. And in Mark, so what happened was Mark's church had been divided over a question of office. And Charlie Dennison told him you need to read the 19th-century Presbyterians. And so Mark started reading Charles Hodge and Thomas Smythe and A.A. Hodge and others, and started to publish about it in the 1990s and New Horizons and other places. And so when you get to chapter 11 in our former government on deacons, you see what is going on with the understanding of what Presbyterianism principles were when we wrote the book and what it was founded on, and including that of deacons. So deacon historically, the reformers were battling against a Roman Catholic conception in which deacon was a stepping stone to the preaching ministry. You had bishop, priest, deacons. So we were standing over against that in believing that the diacnet was not a teaching office. It was not a rolling office. It was a serving office. On the other hand, you had independency. The independence had merged the office of elder and deacon and made it one. So the Presbyterians, the divines, and the 19th century presbytress like Todd and others, Smith, were trying to help us through this, said, no, you have you have these two lay offices that support the work of the church. And then the principle is that the uh the higher office contains the other offices. So those ordained as uh as ministers, pastors, they are teachers, they're also rulers, they're also servants. That means also then with the elders, they share in the role of the church and they share in the service in the church. So that's why uh former government 117 says that when there's no deacons, the sessions shall act in that role, because they have that as part of their office. So this is a re-education taking place in regard to things. Because what the argument was in the 19th century, and what Brown was um trying to emphasize from particularly the great Southern Presbyterian Thomas Smythe, is that when when each of these offices do their role correctly, they lift up the other. But if you get them confused, then things get left undone. So that was a great um uh event of the um of

Missionary Deacons And Word-Deed Balance

Danny Olinger 45:24

the 90s. So Ministry In and Through Missionary Deacons, uh, Mark View, um that came to uh to be the general secretary of foreign missions at the turn of uh the late 80s and early 90s, and they had the opportunity to go back to Eritrea. And this is the thing that had happened. In Eritrea, our missionaries, the Duffs, the Hafies, and the birds either retired or came home. So by the events of 1974, it was really so dominant that we were medical work and not a uh the gospel going forth building the church that we didn't want to repeat that. It had gotten out of balance. It had been providential. You know, retirements had happened, and then uh Ethio uh Eritrea was uh so hard to be in. But this time we wanted to send preachers, and we also wanted to do the medical work. So there's Steve Miller and Charles Telford, and this is the church that was taking place there at Eritrea. And some of the uh the Eritreans are familiar to some of you out here. Um and um this is what we wanted to do. So I think we've we've really always tried to have that balance in the mission field in regard to word and the actual ministries. Now, this picture is important because um there's always civil wars in Eritrea, and the communist government took over the country again after we had been back in in the early 90s. This picture, literally this picture, was the most important picture because as the government sought to persecute and imprison these uh these individuals in the church, we could go to embassies and say they're part of our work. And this was the way that they got safety. Now, what was interesting was that uh we did raise money for a famine even after we had been kicked out. And uh we raised $61,000 in 1999 and 2000, and um we uh said to the government, we would like to give it to the Eritreans, but we we wanted to be able to preach the gospel. And they said, Yes, you can preach the gospel. So we did it, we distributed the money. The government came back to us the next year and said, Can you help us again? And we said we need to preach a gospel, and they said, That's no problem. You can preach the gospel. So that's pretty cool. Uh, that even a communist government there uh had done that. So we get started in Uganda, and there you see David Aachen, and uh, and then we have the great uh missionary deacon Bob Wright. And so again, the priority of the word. Then we have Bob Wright coming on. I'm going long, I can't do the justice here. We have Jim Knox, missionary deacon, but then we get to disaster response.

Modern Disaster Response After 2005

Danny Olinger 48:11

So this happens in 2005. I was privileged to be on one of these teams. Um, here is uh a great picture, and here is uh the what Bob Bob didn't know I was gonna do this, he didn't know I vice versa. But this was the picture of when they went down. There's Peter Stafford, and look at the bottom of his hand, this this 18-year-old, there's his Bible as he was talking to uh people, and there's the great David Haney, and uh um, and so um what happened was uh David uh had a great heart. Um, Bob had a great heart for this ministry, and we needed to uh pivot. And um this so David volunteered and got elected to the Committee on Diacronal Ministries, and that really gave us the third iteration of the history of the committee. And I think this this is like the great. I mean, I don't I love these brothers. They really did the groundwork. Uh, so you had Chris Sudlove, deacon here at Bethel Wheaton, David Haney, a young ruling elder from uh Calvary Church, La Morata, David Knockley, you had Bob Keyes there from Grace Church, Columbus, Lendell Smith, the pastor here at Bethel and Wheaton. You had Ron Pierce at the Church of the Covenant in Hackettstown, New Jersey. You had Ken Leslie, uh deacon at uh Morgantown Reformation, you had Bob Wright, our missionary deacon, and then you had Nathan Trice at Matthews, North Carolina. Uh I'll still say Matthews probably forever instead of resurrection. It's kind of ingrained. But uh, this committee did the work, and they really were amazing in regard to how we can serve uh in these areas. And uh and so they started to do the work, and they in 2010 had David then become the administrator for disaster response and short-term missions. And uh so uh this is Hurricane Sandy, and uh and so um, you know, I think David uh Haney was so happy to have someone with him to work on this. And so David started to take this over, but we also have ministry through short-term missions, and so here we have uh really the key figure in my estimation, Dave Crumb in the Presbytery of Southern

Team Baja And Short-Term Missions

Danny Olinger 50:39

California. So Ed Kellogg, who we met earlier, had started to minister to uh to across the border in uh the K-54 Little Village and Tijuana and Presbytery

Danny Olinger 50:52

of Southern California had kind of grown into the ministry. And so in 1984, they offered this young graduate a call to serve in this uh uh uh evangelistic effort, and they offered that the call was $20,000. He took it and gave his heart to it totally. And so for the next quarter of a century, team Baja was uh helping the church and also helping with things. And here's at Bayview OPC as their orientation meeting. You know who was a part of those orientation meetings? David Ockla. This is where he learned to do short-term missions. Dave Crumb told him. Earlier, I bypassed it because of time. Dave Auken preaching there at uh Uganda. Where did Dave Auken learn short-term missions? David Crumb here in the Presbytery of Southern California. So incredible things they did here, digging a ditch. And here's Haiti short-term missions. So by this point, uh David uh Nokala had been made administrator of uh CDM, and here's with the hops with Haiti short-term missions. And so there's uh David uh giving the report. But I wanted to save this for the end.

Local Deacons Set The Pattern

Danny Olinger 52:08

So these are my deacons. When I joined the OPC, these are my deacons, these were the two deacons, and uh what I learned I learned from them. And we grew together at that church in Columbus, Ohio, and uh Bob's the same now as he was then, he just give you his heart, and um um we gotta do so many things here. We must have moved in someone every single weekend. Um you really get to know someone when you're trying to get a piano up the stairs. Uh uh, and that's true. Uh so as you often know. Um, and so um ministry in and through of local deacons and Paul, and dear Paul Archer, um uh what do you look for for a local deacon? Um same thing you look for for a good pastor or good outer love of Christ, a love of the brethren, and a spirit in which you're willing to give yourself away in service. And you know what? That permeates the entire congregation. I mean, that's what we're called to do, as Christ has given himself for us to prefer the the brethren in love, and so it all starts here um in regard to um the diaconal work, and that's also the history of the OPC. We do not go from the top down, we always go from the local church up. And so David and myself and others are just your servants. We serve at your pleasure as we we serve the committees and we serve the General Assembly, and so uh pray for uh the next generation of deacons. Umrage young men in service, um, and then give your hearts away. And again, um when I first 40 years ago met them, we were uh worshiping in a rented Seventh-day at Venice facility. So that meant whenever you had weddings, they would have it on Sundays and other things. And uh so uh, and uh we were uh uh didn't have, you know, we I can remember worshiping in other buildings. We think, should we get this? Looking at bare pots of land and all this. You know, now this this congregation is 300 members, they're playing a church, there's not a seat to be found, they worry about fire. It didn't get there overnight. It got there by faithful preaching of the word and loving the brethren and service like these two men uh provided. So that's a whirlwind, uh at least subjective in my part, uh, history of the actual missions uh in the OPC or ministry in the OPC.

Speaker 8 55:26

Thank you, Danny.

David Nakhla 55:27

That was so great. Learned so much. Hopefully you all did.

Q And A

David Nakhla 55:31

Um thankful for the rich history that we have to that uh we are the recipients of and can build on. Questions for Danny. And if you have a question, just go to the m go to the one of the mics. Okay, you shot it. We'll repeat it.

Speaker 1 55:52

I guess uh we were talking about Eritrea and I remember when Charles Telfer went there. Uh was his uh efforts in in translation into Trinia uh as a theaconal work.

David Nakhla 56:08

The just to repeat for the um so there's a question about uh Charles uh Charles Charles Telford, right? Or or I'm sorry. Charles Charles Helfer, yeah, yeah. Charles Helford when he went to Eritrea, whether his his work on the language, he was one of the most skilled uh translators in Tigrina. Um was that a diagonal work, Dan?

Danny Olinger 56:33

Great question. That was part of the debate. Uh very good. Um so um Klein and Woolley said yes. They would say yes, because Francis Mahathy in that regard, the Committee on Foreign Missions would say no. So that was part of what was being debated. It was Francis Mahathy at the time in in 1963 where they had done the great translation work, but yeah, uh that's a very good question.

David Nakhla 57:05

Um can you state your state your state your name?

Andrew Schmidt 57:07

Um my name is Andrew Schmidt. Um I believe that Machin, one of the things he did in in addition to founding the OPC was to found an independent mission board. Uh was that something that got folded in later into Foreign Missions Committee, or it what was the relationship there? Sure.

Danny Olinger 57:27

So in 1936, when we were started, our our our missions did go throughout uh from the independent board of press tree and foreign missions. So we did for our first 14 months operate in that way. But what had happened was um there was the events in November of 1936 in which Meachin was removed from the uh presidency of the board of the independent board, and then we had the uh the Bible Presbyterian Synod uh uh departure in uh after the Third General Assembly in 1937. So the uh I showed a slide in which you saw the the silver anniversary, the 25th anniversary, and it said 1937 and 1962, because the committee on four admissions was not established until 1937. Um in that regard. There's uh uh a lot that you know in that regard that you'll you can find in the in the books in regard to what had happened uh uh with with that.

David Nakhla 58:34

Interestingly enough, we have some BP brothers here, and they had they continued that name of the Independent Board of Foreign Missions uh when they became a denomination. And it's continued that name to this day. Other questions for our resident historian Suchi. Suchi Anto from Suchi, go ahead.

Speaker 3 58:59

Uh yeah, just I yeah, thank you for that presentation. I just never uh connect in my mind prior to this the diaconal work with the foreign mission. And but it was obviously it was there. Uh so but how what is the current state and you know of this relationship? And also would would you still encourage or any still opportunity as deacons serving more with you know more kind of foreign mission diaconal work?

Danny Olinger 59:31

Yeah, we have a great relationship. Uh Travis Emma's here. Uh you could talk to him about the work that gets done, and David actually can answer this question better than than I can. But the two committees work together in regard to uh uh resources but also staffing, and there's also aspects that uh get done by short-term mission teams also in in regards. So Ben Hopp's here, David's here, they can answer them better, and I can. I think we we have a very good working relationship.

David Nakhla 1:00:04

Well, I'll add to that. Um The Committee on Foreign Missions is the sending organization. So the Committee on Diacon Ministries does not send missionaries. Um all the missionaries on our fields are employees of the Committee on Foreign Missions, uh, whether they're the nature of their work is as an evangelist or or if they're in some sort of diaconal capacity, uh, all the care of them as missionaries, uh as as employees, if you can call it that, is their work is seen and overseen by the uh the Committee on Foreign Missions. The Committee on Diac Ministries seeks to, and and it's across all of our uh denominational committees, we seek to work together uh and in a sense stay in our lane. And so the Committee on Diac Ministry's focus is to receive funds, and and we will provide those funds uh uh insofar as their diaconal two sister committees. So that's the four missions committee would be not only funds for them to use on the fields in the um uh deeds side of the work that they do, but also to help with our missionary deacons. And then in the parallel to that is with our committee on ministerial care, um the committee on the committee on ministerial care is there to serve our ministers, and sometimes some of that service requires diaconal funds, and so the committee on diacon ministries uses some of your gifts to the committee to give to the committee on ministerial care to carry out that aspect of its work as well. Uh Benjamin Schult Schultz, right? Correct. I sometimes says sports, but uh Benjamin, I'm gonna introduce you real quick. Uh Benjamin is uh a full-time deacon for the PCA and uh for his presbytery, Central Florida Presbytery. And this is a new thing. Um he's on the vanguard of some wonderful things happening in the PCA, and uh it's encouraging to see what they're doing. Uh but go ahead, Benjamin.

Benjamin Schultz 1:02:12

Thank you for that and everything we're doing. We've learned from you guys. So thank you for uh being the vanguard for us. Um you had uh you talked about Jim Petty, and I want to ask two questions, a clarifying question so I understand you, and then a follow-up. Um you said that Jim Petty was uh having this debate, this gentleman's debate. And was it him that you said left to the PCA?

Danny Olinger 1:02:35

Yes. So what did how Jim got involved was um the OPC erected a special committee to study the uh the principles of the Achinal Ministry in 1982. And in it, the General Assembly elected two men. Uh, I believe it was Dr. Skelton and Jim Petty, and they also had two men from the committee, and Leonard Compass was one. So that's how he became involved officially in the debate. But yes, he ended up, I think in 1987, transferring uh 15% of the membership of the OPC in multiple churches left between 1987 and 1990 uh for the PCA.

Speaker 6 1:03:19

And he you said that he left to pursue dia uh something to do with diaconomical ministry. Is that the same thing?

Danny Olinger 1:03:25

I I think uh I I can't speak for Mr. Petty. I mean I for sure because look, he he uh he had the priority word and uh did see Rachel uh Kenny here. Uh but I remember talking to uh her grandparents and asked them how they came into the OPC at the time they were at uh at uh Franklin Square. And he said, Jim Petty, Church in the City. So they were reaching out in regard to those and really helping in regard to spreading the reform faith. But he did have a vision of of uh diacritical ministry in which he believed we should pour our money into going into the inner city and building something in all this. And it's very open in all these documents I showed, you can read it. Yet he wanted the priority of the word. So I believe if you know, just subjectively, my sense is that he felt more at home that he would be able to pursue this ministry uh uh in the our brother church.

Benjamin Schultz 1:04:29

So my follow-up then is to you to through you to the PCAGA, what happened? You you went to go do that, and then I don't know, I feel like we dropped the ball.

Danny Olinger 1:04:40

Well, I don't know. I mean, sort of uh look, I I have a very limited existence. Uh in that as you so I have no life other than reading about the OPC and and being in and things like that. So I'm trying so he kind of went off my radar after uh after 1987. But uh I had a wonderful plan for his life before that. So yeah.

David Nakhla 1:05:08

Thank you.

Speaker 8 1:05:09

Yeah.

David Nakhla 1:05:10

Danny, you just to clarify, you would say though, that his focus was in the local church. He was not trying to start something denominational.

Danny Olinger 1:05:17

No, he was not something, but he but he needed the resources of the whole denomination in order to do this, the scope of what he wanted to do. In other words, he said, he he said, if we do this, the Lord will bless. And cop uh Dr. Coppus said, uh, we want to help, but we're stewards of this. We need to first think about those in need in the covenant community. And when opportunity arises, we are to do good to all people. So, um, in that sense, and and so uh Dr. Kaupus was taking more of the traditional view of Galatians 6 10, those individuals who should do Christian. And Mr. Petty was taking the view the church must do this in good to all men. And how you show that is you th th throw your full weight behind it uh in in giving questions.

David Nakhla 1:06:23

Danny is very uh diplomatically and very carefully uh airing the OPC's dirty laundry.

Danny Olinger 1:06:30

This is I always make Camden BC nervous.

David Nakhla 1:06:35

The the his the OPC historian Camden Busey. Yes. Uh yes, can you state your name and the church you're from?

Solomon Bosman 1:06:41

Uh Solomon Bosman from Grace Fellowship. In DC. In where? In uh Zealand. Zealand, Zealand, Michigan. Yep. Yep. Thank you. Um so maybe Danny, you won't like this question, but uh given the history that we've covered, um, and how much the diaconal committee has um developed, um where what areas would the diaconal committee like to develop moving forward or where's where are we going moving forward?

Where Diaconal Work Goes Next

Danny Olinger 1:07:16

Yeah, well that's actually a question for David. For me, I mean, because I actually think that we've achieved a pretty good I like the balance that we've achieved in many ways, um, in that um we always want to do both in regard to, particularly on the mission fields, um, word and deep. You know, it's so it's sort of like uh preaching a sermon. You know, you always must have the indicative and the imperative together. You always must what Christ has done, and then what in light of that, what we're called to. You know, sometimes you have sermons in which there's more of the one than the other, and sometimes you have more application, you know, but there's still a sermon in which they're joined together. And the thing is, it's like so many things that you have to deal with as deacons, it's the concrete situation in which you find yourself in. So it's going to be something that takes the sermon and wisdom. And in and I think that's we get the feedback from our individuals on the mission fields, and then the committees work with that and trying to help them the best they can. But I do think that we have tried to be responsible in regard to the priority of the word and yet giving ourselves away. I actually think, um this is my personal view, you know, thinking about things is going back to Nation, is that in some ways the the character of of the church is one of the places that's most well revealed is foreign missions and the Aquimal service, in which you're giving yourself away and you're not seeking anything in return except the the the Lord be glorified and the brethren build up. And you're and and so um and I think that's what's always helped us in foreign missions. Bruce Hunt was such an evangelist, but you know what? Everyone he ministered to knew that he wasn't there to to c colonize them, he wasn't there for other reasons other than sin and salvation. Your sinners, your sins to serve the wrath and curse of God, Jesus Christ has paid the price and their salvation found in him. This is the good news. He wanted to leave that message and have the church be built up in that place. And if it took us giving the thousands of dollars to help them unto that end, praise the Lord. So, you know, so to me, you know, that we continue to do this is very important, giving ourselves away.

David Nakhla 1:09:54

Um, so if I can just add to that, I would say that the development of the Committee on Diac Mysteries and its work has not been some forethought strategic plan of how we're gonna, you know, take on the world or anything like that. But it's basically step-by-step responding to the needs and opportunities that the Lord places before us. And as there's a disaster, well, how do we do that? How do we respond well? And we grow and learn as we as we develop that. Refugee ministry kind of, there was a long period in in in my involvement, there was a period where we weren't doing a whole lot of that. And then it was when there was a wave of refugees sweeping across Europe in the mid-20 teens, and we were getting lots of inquiries like how do we what what is helping look like? And that was when we in more recent time developed uh refugee ministries. So that's kind of been how it's how it's going. And I would say one of the biggest things that we're our focus, the committee on diacon ministries right now, is the connectionalism of our diaconate. Um and a big part of that is this is connecting you with one another. I think the more that we can be connected and have a have a um grow in our sense of what the work of the committee of a deacon is, which you heard last night, um, that is gonna that's gonna r develop a robust diaconal ministry in our churches, and that's really the primary, primary work of committee on or uh of diaconal ministry. Thank you. Zach Meadows.

Zach Meadow 1:11:30

Uh Zach Meadow OPC. Bethel, OPC, Wheaton, Illinois. Yeah. I'm a driver. Danny, can you give us a sense of um statistically number of deacons through the um 90 years of the OPC, relationships to um the number of short-term missions, projects? Where are we in a trend? Are we on an upswing? Are we in a downswing? Is there a critical do we have as critical a need for deacons as we do for uh ministers right now?

Officer Shortage And Busy Lives

Danny Olinger 1:12:01

That's a great question. Do you know how many deacons?

David Nakhla 1:12:05

Yeah, it's it's how many deacons is very hard to count. Um but I think it's 800 to 1,000, something like that.

Danny Olinger 1:12:15

So um I did chart out the uh number of churches uh who gave from 1958 to the present. So I did take a look at that when uh uh that regard. But uh oh, I think um we are definitely um need to have more deacons uh in that um 1987 or when the JNR the year after, we were only 16,000 members. You know, back when the church in Eritre uh we started hospital in Eritrea, we were 11,000 members. So deacons are getting spread so thin because we're now 35,000 members. And so we have a definite issue with deacons and elders. I did do the crunch the numbers for elders. It used to be like you had one elder for every 30 people, now it's like one for high 40s. So uh that is definitely it's not just a minister minister shortage, it's also officers. And one of the things of, you know, you're gonna be talking about, and I think Tim is actually having the uh address on it, is what I hear all the time is we have such busy lives and we don't want to take it on. Or it's not that they don't want to take, that's not fair. It's it's the busyness of the uh of the 24-7 lifestyle we've entered into. And so I definitely think there's a that is a a hidden issue that you know if this conference you know comes out and we have proactively in regard to uh finding that next generation of deacons, I would think it it would be something we uh uh be a lasting uh contribution.

David Nakhla 1:14:06

One or two more questions. Stephen Majoskis. Great fellowship. Michigan.

Stephen Majauskas 1:14:17

Yes, you got it. Thank you. Um could you speak to diaconal work with sister denominations within NAPARC or globally, kind of aside from the you know, mission field, but yeah, perhaps

Partnering With Other Denominations

Stephen Majauskas 1:14:30

related. Yeah.

Danny Olinger 1:14:31

Great. Uh so you know, Hurricane Katrina, what we what would we have not done without the PCA just helping us at every point along the way? I mean, they were really so amazing with that. And uh I can still remember we were looking to them at every point in in those months. Uh uh, and so uh what happened was we actually ended up having home missions be the committee that oversaw the diaconal aspect. So Ross Grant and Dick Gerber were working with the PCA and so that type of thing. Now we have this wonderful relationship with the URC. This brings back memories. So it was on this campus uh in 2018 of June that the uh Trinity Solder Hymnal was released, and we actually had them shipped here to this campus. We have sold like 90,000 copies over eight years. And I can't, I I this is something it was like a Hollywood movies type thing. David Winslow and I, the very first box, we had worked on this project since 2007, over uh where the uh uh actually were uh I think uh where the registration is, we had the the crate stack there. We were so excited to finally see it. We ripped open the box and the very first coffee we we took off. We opened it up and all the pages were printed upside down. That coffee is in the archives of the OPC. The next one we picked was okay, and the one we picked after that was okay, and the one we picked after that was okay. So 90,000 later, they're still okay. Oh what does that mean? Our two churches have been singing together out of the same book, song book from the main for eight years now, and as that has happened, the relationship with the URC and what David does, see the polity is different. Um, the polity is more local, congregational. How do you then do diaconal ministries or foreign missions? So they have been partnering with us in which uh their uh Rich Um Rich Bower, Rich Bauer and others would be with David in regard to getting volunteers. And so they volunteer in our mission teams and we do things together. And so that's one of the ways that that relationship I think will only continue uh to grow. And so it the other places with NAPARC is local. So if you have a flood somewhere, um, it might be that we have one OPA congregation, but other NAPARC churches might be surrounding, and we we tend to work together there on those things. But uh we I think uh uh we have really tried to develop these uh relationships, but but sometimes it is what is providentially in front of you uh at the moment.

David Nakhla 1:17:43

Yeah, diaconal ministries is a really a wonderful way for us to show love to one another as churches and denominations, and that definitely is happening more and more. So just again, thankful for the Napark brothers and ICRC brothers who are here. Uh yes, sir. Can you state your name, church, and place?

Craig Dodi 1:18:02

Craig Dodi from Bayview. Baby OK and Jula Vista. So I had a question following up on one of your slides about Dave Crumb and uh Team Baja. Can you speak to that model as it's moved broadly into Team Praha and other areas in the world?

Danny Olinger 1:18:22

Adrian David, you what do you two need to answer that? So yeah.

Exporting The Team Baja Model

David Nakhla 1:18:26

So Team Baja, so uh the quick quick history. So Dave Dave Crum was a missionary of the Presbytery of Southern California, not of the foreign missions committee, a mission, a foreign missionary of the Presbytery of Southern California, sent across the border into Mexico uh to serve as a missionary. And because of the close proximity of that and the development of Team Baja, which was a two-week uh short-term missions effort, and then the frequent what they called weekend witness, which was every church in the presbytery had their turn to go down and take a group down for the weekend and do cross-cultural, have cross-cultural missions opportunity down there. Uh, short-term missions and foreign missions be became part of the ethos of the Presbytery of Southern California. And then in my last, and that's the presbytery I grew up in, and and kind of cut my teeth on short-term missions. And then in my in my last time there, we were starting to try to send teams to further places. And so the Presbytery of Southern California actually, we were voting to decide which field we were going to send a team to of our four mission fields, and we were coming up with Haiti, but it was actually that later that week is when Matt Ball was killed in Haiti, missionary Matt Ball, in a car accident in an automobile accident. And so we pivoted and we sent the first team to Uruguay, I think. Um, and so that became the the catalyst of sending teams to Uruguay, Czech Republic, eventually Haiti. Um, and then that's when I started serving denominationally, and I thought, well, I had been thinking that denominationally this would it would outgrow the capacity of the presbytery and it would need to be taken over denominationally. I had no idea that I was gonna be part of that. Um so I started serving denominationally, and then we basically began to identify lots of presbyteries, not lots of presbyteries, but other presbyteries that were also sending teams. So Presbytery in New York and New England had a history of sending a team to Quebec that has continued to this to this time. Um the Presbytery of the South uh became because of the because of Ben Hopp being part of that presbytery or becoming part of that presbytery and the proximity there, they began involved sending teams to Haiti and and and it has grown from there. And if I can use this opportunity to plug what we called renewed focus, we now have begun to send teams to some of our mobile theological mentoring fields. These are fields where the four mission committee says, we love what you're doing, we'd love to send a man, we can't send a man, but we can send um we can send mentors uh and do conferences and that type of thing. And so one of those fields is Colombia. And so we've been begun to send uh teams to Colombia for the last uh two. This will be the second team to go this summer. And then this will be the third year to send a team to our brothers in in Hungary with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe. And uh they've welcomed us, and that's been a wonderful way for us to to get to know one another as, you know, people in, you know, lay people in the pews uh going and serving in in other ways. So okay, we are almost out of time, but uh I wanted to give Adrian Crumb a chance. You were going to the mic, right? You went to the mic? And this will be our last one, and then we need to s we want to have a few minutes to sing together, which we would love to do, and then we'll have a break.

Adrian Crum 1:22:05

I just was gonna testify to the benefit we discussed a little bit about the history of missionaries on the mission field and particularly deacons assisting them. My parents were on the mission field 26 years. We did not have a deacon uh with us ever on the field. And in some ways, Southern California functioned as our diaconate. Uh, there were so many people coming to serve and help and care. Imagine if every time in your local church that you needed uh uh renovation or something fixed, Canadians just started showing up and fixing all of your stuff for you. There was, of course, a huge benefit for it because there was a very warm relationship between the congregations in Tijuana and the people from Southern California, but it didn't push them to establish their own deacons very strongly. And pastors sensed that need, and eventually, actually, the churches in Tijuana started sending short-term teams in other places in Mexico because of the sense of like we need to build up and serve in Mercy ministry. And it was a really kind of beautiful coming full circle, but it took probably 20 years to sense that need and then to start sending sending teams out.

David Nakhla 1:23:09

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Danny. Thank you. It's wonderful.

Final Thanks And Where To Find More

David Nakhla 1:23:14

Thanks so much for joining us. Special word of thanks to our producer, Trish Duggan, who works faithfully behind the scenes to bring this podcast to you. Be sure to visit our website, thereformdeacon.org, where you'll find all our episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And we hope you'll join us again soon for another episode of the Reformed Deacon Podcast.