News and Prayer Letter
Summer 2024
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
The Lord gives us life, breath, and all things. He works and directs all for the good of His people, to the praise of His glory. Psalm 90:12 asks that the Lord would “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. Our lives are in the Lord’s hands, and may we live each day for His glory, seeking first His kingdom and righteousness.
In the Lord’s providence and good purpose, Rev. Rudy Poettcker has found out that he has a health situation that needs your prayers. Here is an update from him on his health and the work of RCM and Christian Liberty Academy:
Thank you for your continued prayer for my health situation. I have been experiencing a variety of pain (from lower back radiating down right leg). I had an MRI which showed that there are a few cancer tumors on the spine, and one of them is a bit larger that is probably causing the pain. In the past week the Lord just opened up one “door” after another (appointments and treatments). We are so thankful. We do pray for God’s will in granting healing through the treatments, and for grace to trust the Lord if that healing does not take place in this life. Either way we know that God is good and right in all He does. As His people we have the greatest of all blessings, eternal life.
Let us also join together in thanks to the Lord for the Graduation Ceremony we had in May. We focused on the glory of God and His blessings to CLA for another year and another graduation class (the 44th!). Of the class of 14, 10 graduated. They are from 6 different countries. Four of them had been students in CLA from K-4! What a great blessing!
I must confess I feel sad to not be able to be present for the beginning of the school year (including the teacher preparation day), but this too is in the Lord’s hands. Please continue to pray for the ongoing plans which also includes ongoing work in the yard and side street (which includes drainage and laying of street tiles). PTL for the workers and for all the teachers who are preparing. I am thankful that I have been able to complete the teaching plans for the courses I normally work on. I still have exams to revise, and hope to get them completed as soon as possible, by God’s grace.
For His kingdom and for His glory, together with you all,
Rev. Rudy Poettcker
COLLEGE AND SEMINARY UPDATE (RITS & RIC):
Last time we mentioned the enrollment of another student in our seminary program, who lives in France but is from Pakistan. He continues in his studies, as do our other college and seminary students. We also have several Ruling Elders taking courses through our seminary program, with the goal of being licensed to exhort in the Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church denomination.
Please keep these students in your prayers, as well as the other RCM students (College, Seminary, CLA).
Seminary Student/Church Partnership Program:
To help students and churches train men for the ministry, we are offering the following:
- We will reduce tuition $10 per credit for every man who is enrolled into our M.Div. program and is supported financially by his local church for the purpose of preparing him for the work of ministry.
- To receive the discount, applications must include a note from the church that they will be sharing in tuition cost.
- Students should complete a minimum of 18 credits per calendar year to maintain the discounted price.
To learn more about this offer and to see our M.Div. course program, listen to free lectures, sample syllabi and outlines, etc., go here: https://reformationseminary.org/course-lectures/
Would you continue to pray with us that God would bring many more students who are zealous to learn God’s Word and be equipped to serve as teachers, church officers, pastors, and missionaries? We greatly desire to see biblical reformation in our churches, but sadly so many are caving to the cultural moment, along with many seminaries and academic institutions. Pray that God would use our college and seminary programs to raise up a faithful generation of Christian laypersons and church leaders who will stand firmly on God’s Word, as Paul said to the younger Timothy –
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching (2 Tim. 4:2).
The Good News Bible Series Update:
The Good News Bible Series (GNBS) is a program which has enrolled more than 30,000 people from all around the globe. It is an evangelistic Bible study that covers basic biblical teaching on God, sin, Jesus Christ, faith and repentance, and obedience and holiness. Currently, Rev. John Otis and others are migrating GNBS courses online.
If your church would like to know how to utilize the courses of the GNBS to reach your community and further instruct your congregation, please contact us and we will show you how to do this just as we did with a church in Oregon!
Also in the Lord’s good purpose, He called Christine Otis home to glory in May. Here is John Otis:
My dear wife Christine left this vale of tears and entered into glory to forever be with her Jesus at about 8:00 PM. Her translation into glory was peaceful. I will terribly miss her, but she is not missing me!
She was a godly wife, and her contributions to my ministry for these 46 years was profound, and her work with the Good News Bible Series will go on for generations. She has left a wonderful legacy.
One of my major prayer requests I mention to people is that I need to replace Christine’s technical talent with someone else. The Lord may have helped me find this person; we will see.
Blessings,
John
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In 2019, the great catechism titled Questions About Christianity With Scripture Proofs: A Catechism for Children, Young Converts, and Inquirers was printed and published. This catechism has been used in Sunday School classes to help children learn the Christian faith through Questions and Answers with supporting Bible verses listed below each answer.
To learn more about GNBS and the catechism, take this link here: https://goodnewsbibleseries.com/.
College/Seminary Website & 50 FREE Lectures!
We are now offering the Bavinck course for $95, and if you complete it, you get a $50 credit toward a future course. In addition, we have made 50 of our lectures across 17 of our courses available for free on our website. These lectures are the first several from each of these courses, giving you an opportunity to learn more about them and enroll if you like what you hear. The new college & seminary website now allows you to sample syllabi, view study guide assignments, listen to free lectures in our seminary program, & more. Stay tuned, as we hope to do more with our lectures and other materials, to make them readily available online in the future.
REFORMATION INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY SPOTLIGHT:
This time we are focusing on our Biblical/Covenant Theology Course. The course is designed as an introduction to much of what the student will be studying in future courses as well as an application of biblical theology, i.e. how this subject is developed and expanded through successive expansions and insights into God’s covenants of promise. The various covenants are all progressive parts of the one overarching covenant of grace as promised and fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This course approaches the subject from an exegetical and biblical-theological perspective, so that the richness of the covenant shines through and the Christ of the covenant is proclaimed. This study will help the student to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially as shown in the Old Testament and brought to fulfillment in the New Testament. It will also show both the unity of Scripture through all of the sixty six books of both the Old and New Testaments. Since the covenant of grace is perhaps the most dominant theme throughout Scripture, each of the successive covenants of promise serve as a plumbline against which many errors and heresies so common today may be measured, understood and critiqued. False gospels become much more clear when measured against the true gospel of the Christ of the Covenants who saves always and only by grace alone and evidenced in their works of holiness from the God who promised to call a people to be His people and to be their God.
TEXTBOOK: The Christ of the Covenants (paperback) by O. Palmer Robertson.
LECTURES: Covenants of Promise Lectures and Outlines (DOWNLOADABLE VERSION with 35 audio MP3 lectures, PDF transcripts & PDF Outline) These lectures are by Rev. Dr. Joseph Morecraft III and were given in 1983.
If you or someone you know is interested in enrolling for this course, you can find more information about it here https://gorcm.org/product/bts-501-covenants-of-promise/ or email us at tfb@reformation.edu
REFORMATION INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE
A one-year Bachelor Certificate in Theology is now offered through RIC to interested students at just $75/credit (courses pictured on the right), or for only $2000 if you pay for the whole program upfront. Please visit www.reformationseminary.org for more information and to check out our full Bachelor’s in Education program.
Donations to RCM
Your generous gift to RCM is greatly needed and sincerely appreciated.
Reformation Christian Ministries
| U.S.A.: | 1300 East University Blvd. Melbourne, FL 32901 | (772) 663-8844 | tfb@reformation.edu |
| Canada: | 74 MacKenzie Crescent, Lacombe, AB T4L 0B3 | (403) 597-7244 | canada@reformation.edu |
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