We should look at these dates more closely to see the true importance in some of them. Days like Fat Tuesday or the “Easter Egg Hunt Day” or the day off on Monday to “do as I please” make a lot of noise but not a lot of sense. Many people today treat these days as a carnival, a superficial event often used to cheer themselves up from the pain and sin they experience everyday in their lives.

The events that take place on the dates of Good Friday and Easter are historical facts which shed light over the shadows of death with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and Life through His Resurrection. The Christ on Good Friday died on the Cross and arose on Easter Sunday to life. He did not only die to cover all our sins. He died to also renewed us to a new life, eternal life, removing all our grief, pain and suffering. What days of celebration at Easter!

Search the internet, better yet, search the Bible for the facts of the cross of Good Friday and the Resurrection of Easter. Enjoy yourself in this Lenten season.

-Rev. deJong

Rev. deJong is a retired CRC minister. He resides in Aylmer and attends church at Aylmer Christian Reformed Chruch.

Yesterday was Rev. deLange’s last Sunday to preach the word as the senior pastor of Aylmer Christian Reformed Church.

We wish Rev. deLange and his family God’s Blessings as he begins his new position shepherding Trinity Christian Reformed Church in Edmonton, Alberta. It certainly is difficult to part ways, and Rev. deLange’s passion for his work will certainly be missed.

Below are a couple of brief last comments from Rev. deLange

“Dear Aylmer Congregation,

It’s been a great decade among you. Today was a wonderful end to a wonderful time here. Thank you for everything, including the beautiful clock we were presented this morning!

Thank you for your partnership in ministry…

God bless you all.

There a few pictures of the day attached.

We love you all!

–Pastor Rich & Patsy deLange

Adrian deLange is in the youth ministry and theology program at Dordt College. Adrian would like to thank Rev. Norman Jones for providing some assistance in completing his message.

We love you. Aylmer CRC has been so good to us for the past 9 ½ years. We offer our sincerest thanks for your love and thank you for the ways you have forgiven us for our failings. We praise God from whom all blessings flow for we have surely felt a steady flow of love—encouragement, cards, gifts, visits, support, time away, hugs and prayers. We have felt God’s grace through the trials and experienced the power of your prayers. We are thankful to have been part of this church for the past decade. I’ve enjoyed great cooperation and fun with all of the staff and council over the years (Phil. 1:5).

As we prepare to leave Aylmer, I want to encourage you to continue to love one another deeply (1 Peter 1:22). Our mutual love for the Lord is bigger than any of our personal issues or problems. Life is too short to hold grudges and our place in the body of believers is too important to waste time alienated from one another or alienating one another. The body of Christ is diverse but united in Him. She is beautiful in her diversity (1 Cor.12). This church—and every other one—has growing pains. But better to have the growing pains than to have no growth.

I have grown through struggles in the past decade, grown to see how great God’s grace is (2 Cor.12:9). I’m thankful to God for His providence and grace. As we leave Aylmer, it is part of God’s plan for you to seek a new pastor. He may be very different from me. He may have some similarities. Whoever he is, remember that God sent him to you. Love him and his family as you have loved us.

Carry on the vision you have adopted. Support one another in fulfilling it. Love your neighbours as yourself. Show them the love of Christ. Let the community see how much this congregation loves Jesus and each other so that they want to know Jesus and be a part of this church (Mt. 5:16).

We are on the brink of a new year, the beginning of a new decade. Does it seem like ten years already since we were being warned about the potential problems with Y2K? Time goes quickly. But our time is in God’s hands. You can count on that. No matter where we live, we are united in Christ and continue to be part of His growing family.

Thank you once again for being such a blessing to our family in the formative years of most of our children. It has been a good thing to be part of this covenant community. We thank God for all you’ve done to shape us and our children into what God is calling us to be. Aylmer will always hold a special place in our hearts. God bless you!!

The deLanges—Pastor Rich, Patsy, Rachel, Adrian, Erik & Jessica

PS If you come to Edmonton, stop in for a visit.

Please post a good-bye note for Rev. deLange and his family in the comment section below. You must first click on the post title to view the comments section.

Twenty three individuals did one or more of the rides with an average of 10-11 participants each time. The ages of the riders ranged all the way from fourteen to seventy eight. Many of the participants began the season with limited previous riding experience. Most had never journeyed the average 32 km. distance in one sitting before and were somewhat apprehensive, not to mention intimidated by the prospect. By season’s end, however, that distance was “just the norm.”

While an interest in cycling may have been the initial, prime motivator to join in the rides, fellowship with each other quickly became a huge part of the experience as well. Riding and talking together with people that you don’t necessarily “hang out with” on a regular basis, provides a wonderful venue for new relationship building. Throw in a breakfast at the halfway point, where you can pray, talk and eat together over a meal that includes a mixture of eggs, egg casseroles, bacon, toast, hashbrowns, muffins, pancakes, coffee, juice, etc., and you’ve got the makings of a warm, family type atmosphere.

Of the twelve cycling “outings” this past season, eight breakfasts were hosted by members of the congregation, many who were not participants in the rides themselves but were very willing to open their homes and share a meal with us. A BIG thank you goes out to Harry and Hilda Broer, Wilf and Joanne Saarloos, Dave and Leslie VandenBrink, Chris and Al Helder, Kor and Lia Smit, Rev. and Patsy deLange, Tesse and Alice Kuipers at Port Bruce Manor (Ted was too busy cycling with us to help cook), and Corry and Kor VanTil for being such generous and gracious hosts.

Three of the trips, including two to London to ride on the cycling paths along the Thames to enjoy the fall colours, saw us head to Tim Hortons that just “happened to be” at the halfway point of our journeys. For the remaining cycling journery, the 54 km. trip to Wildwood on the July long weekend, a cooler full of drinks and snacks more than amply sufficed our needs at the “pit stops” along the way. (Thanks to Herman Bremer for driving with us and being our ride back home).

What about next year? Just listening to the cyclists themselves, most of them are already talking about next season, and perhaps even participating in a fundraising cause as a group. Two possibilities in that regard, cycling the astoundingly beautiful path along the Niagara River, as well as doing the “Ride For Refugees” north of London, have been mentioned as possibilities to consider. From that, it would appear that the cycling bug has not only “caught” but is here to stay, at least for a while yet. If the truth be told, that is just fine by me.

Pastor Bosma

The year 2009 marks 500 years since the birth of John Calvin. Calvin’s writings were extremely influential in developing the doctrine of the Reformed Christian Faith that churches such as the Christian Reformed Church and Presbyterian Church use today.

Sermons by three different pastors at Aylmer Christian Reformed Church were recently preached to contemplate on a small amount of John Calvin’s teachings. The first sermon was preached by Rev. deLange, Aylmer CRC Pastor, on November 1, 2009. The second sermon was preached by Rev. Norman Visser, Ingersoll CRC Pastor, on November 8, 2009. The final sermon was preached by Rev. Bob Loerts, Covenant Woodstock CRC Pastor, on November 15, 2009. They can be downloaded and listened to below, or on the Sermon Archive page.

Picture sourced from Wikipedia.

2008 Meeting Minutes

2009 Meeting Agenda

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.”

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)

The 20th century is a very recent reminder of how evil human kind can be. It was the bloodiest century on record. World War II claimed an estimated 60 million lives – the entire population of Canada two times! World War I claimed an estimated 20 million lives. The Korean War claimed an estimated 3 million lives.

Today war still rages on. Afghanistan and Iraq come quickly to mind where soldiers are currently fighting. We read in the news of soldiers coming home in coffins. We read of innocent civilians dying. We read of terrorism and suicide bombings.

As Christians we pray and ask God to grant His peace to this broken world. We pray for the families who have lost loved ones directly or indirectly to war. We pray for Jesus’ return to put an end to an evil monster – War.

Please observe a moment of silence on November 11, 2009 at 11:00 am to remember all who died. Please pray and ask God to grant us world peace.

Lest We Forget.

Jason Postma has been serving as our Pastor of Youth and Outreach since August 2008 but just recently announced that he is taking a new role as Pastor of Youth and Family Ministries in Bethel CRC, Newmarket, Ontario, beginning in December. We thank Jason for his work and wish him God’s blessing in the future as well.

At Aylmer CRC, we’ve been blessed with the faithful service of Pastor Louis Bosma for over 13 years. As our Pastor of Congregational Life, he works hard—often behind the scenes—to come alongside of people who have pastoral needs. We thank the Lord for His diligent work and look forward to his continued work among us.

Obviously the announcement of the departure of two pastors in a short time comes as a surprise to us, but we know it is no surprise to Jesus, the Lord of the church. He knows the plans He has for us and we go forward in the confidence that He is building His church. We pray that the Lord will help us in this time of transition and that, in His perfect time, He will bring the necessary staff to help us carry on our mission and vision to the glory of God.

Certainly since communist rule has taken hold in China, persecution of the Christian church has been widespread. Bibles are not permitted by the government. Chinese Christians must worship in private, often fearing for their lives if the government finds out. Web pages are known to be censored, and heavily tracked by the government so simply spending too much time on the ‘wrong’ website could land a prison term.

Such thoughts are certain to give Christians here, in one of the best places to live in the world, a very heavy heart. We pray for our brothers and sisters through out the world who face such persecution, although admittedly not as often as we should. Many of us also turn our backs on places like China and live our own lives with very little perspective on how good we actually have it.

I’ve spent many hours thinking about China, its government, and its repressed people. In those hours I’ve asked myself many questions. Could I imagine living in a country where I was severely persecuted for my faith? Would I stop going to church because the government said if I don’t, I’ll end up in jail. Would I renounce my faith if my life was endangered?

But in China, Christianity is growing. More and more people are turning to Christ and worshiping Him, even with the threat of persecution. What faith! Here we sit in a county where God has blessed us richly and many are abandoning God. In China many are heavily persecuted and they are turning to God. Why does this happen?

I’m reminded of the persecution that the early Christian church endured, some of which was documented in the Bible. Early Christians suffered immensely for their beliefs, but they continued to hold onto their beliefs. Why? Well, if it was up to human strength ‘Christians’ would fold under the first amount of pressure applied. They would renounce their faith and try to protect themselves from any harm that could possibly come their way. But Christians have the help of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, to help them and uphold them in times of trial. God’s Holy Spirit was working within the early Christian church years ago, and is working within the Christian Church today. The Holy Spirit gives us strength and peace to know that God will always take care of us and uphold us within any trials or persecution we face.

Living in Canada we are very blessed not to have to deal with the severe persecution many Christians have to endure everyday. Let us not forget that this is a gift from God and not something we have managed to do on our own merits. Let us also continually pray for the persecuted church throughout the world. We should also remember that God is strengthening His church by the power of the Holy Spirit each and everyday. Please read an article found in the National Post on October 14, 2009 by clicking here that details some of the wonderful things happening in China. Isn’t it amazing to see God’s church growing? Also check out this website for more information about the persecuted church worldwide and for resources to help commemorate International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on November 8, 2010.