Fifteenth Year Reviewed
With the gradual lifting of pandemic fear, we enjoyed the fellowship of our friends at the 2022 Graduation Week activities. All that gathered were blessed, and smiles were seen among the folks.
The completion of our fifteenth year saw many preachers present during Alumni Week, which encouraged the heart of the young people and the teachers. The Alumni Fish Fry, the Spring Banquet, the Wednesday Church Rally, and the closing service brought together many friends of Heritage.
As we reflect on the eleventh year at the Hopewell campus, we are so grateful to all those that partner with us. The Banquet Offering exceeded the goal of $10,000, besides monies given towards student scholarships. Thank you! Your support is richly appreciated for the vital ministry of training the next generation.
The President’s Perspective
Bill Shirey was a dear friend of our family, and a friend of Bible college students. Last December, he went home to heaven. Over the years we traveled out to visit him, and every time he loved to take us fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.
On our first fishing trip, now over 20 years ago, he took my young sons and I deep water fishing. It cost us our lunch, but I learned a great lesson. With the sun beating down, eighty-year-old Captain Ben guided the 27 foot boat to a destination fourteen miles offshore. When we finally arrived at the “fishing hole”, we were well out of sight of land.
Soon, the wind picked up and the choppy water became rough seas. The captain smiled and said,” You can now say that you have been in rough water.” It got to the point that we were literally holding onto the boat.
As we tried to fish, rolling and tossing with the waves, our talk focused on which direction was land. I looked at the electronic equipment, but the old captain looked at the compass and pointed. With a smile, the captain’s son, Burton, also an experienced charter boat captain, spoke out, “My father taught me years ago, if you don’t trust your compass, you might as well jump overboard.”
Here was a seasoned captain taking boats out to sea for 50 years, with his reliance on one instrument, his compass.
What do Christians have to guide them? The Bible - which in Psalm 119 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (v. 105). God’s Word is settled forever in Heaven (v. 89). It is true from the beginning (v. 160). It will keep me from sin (v. 11). It will cleanse my way (v. 9).
How foolish for a Christian not to trust the Bible...for any reason.
As Heritage Baptist College emerges from the Covid trauma, we are also trusting the Lord to meet needs. The challenge to train men and women for the Lord’s work always comes with a price.
Throughout the pandemic God marvelously supplied our needs by raising up churches and individuals to fund the continuance of this ministry. At present, we are facing a unique opportunity with the prospect to once again witness what only the Lord can accomplish.
Jump overboard?
No, let us trust the Lord and His Word!
Training with a Vision for the Future
On the outside back corner of the old Hopewell Meeting House in New Jersey, stands the marker for preacher, Issac Eaton. He did on July 4, 1772, exactly four years before America declared its Independence.
Although the preacher did not live to see the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he left a legacy of young patriots to follow in his footsteps. Hopewell became a bastion of freedom.
Isaac Eaton was born into the home of a Baptist preacher, Joseph Eaton. Besides pastoring his own congregation, Joseph Eaton helped establish the Baptist church at Hopewell, NJ, where for 15 years he would preach once a month in private homes. The church eventually built a building, and at age 24, the son, Isaac Eaton became their pastor. He would remain there until his death.
Isaac Eaton sought to set in motion a plan for the Bible education of future preachers. With the aid of one tutor, he started on a very small scale. Even with tuition at low prices, and small salaries for the instructors, the school was not able to defray the costs.
In the fall of 1756, Baptist pastors stepped in to help, and sent out a petition to the churches and among friends. A godly widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Hobbs, decided to leave her estate “to assist poor candidates for the ministry to obtain a liberal education.”
Isaac Eaton ran his little school for only about 16 years, but look how this preacher and his training impacted our country: David Jones - Brigade Chaplain at Valley Forge, Hezekiah Smith - Brigade Chaplain, Charles Thompson - Brigade Chaplain James Manning - First President of Brown University, John Gano - George Washing- ton’s Chaplain, John Hart - Only Baptist Signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Back then, churches and people gave sacrificially to train their next generation, and we in America reaped the benefits.
Today, training young people for ministry faces the same challenges. Tuition only pays about 1⁄4 of the necessary funding for education. The balance of that need primarily is supplied in four ways: 1) Regular giving (monthly, quarterly) by churches and individuals to the college, 2) Funding of projects, 3) Estate giving (wills & trusts), 4) Gifts to the college scholarship fund.
Who knows how the students of Hopewell, Indiana will impact the next generation for Christ and for Christian liberty?
We have been blessed with another year watching our daughter learn and grow. After Lilliana’s first week of life, with lots of tests, Rhonda and I were told to expect only days or weeks with our little baby girl. So confident were the doctors in their diagnosis, that on Day 9, when they released Lilliana to go home, they gave each of us a letter stating that Lilliana was expected to die. The lead doctor instructed us to always keep our letter with us and give it to the police when she died. Eleven year later, I still have my copy of that letter, and once a year or so I pull it out of the file and reread it.
The letter reminds me:
1)A diagnosis is not a prognosis.Lilliana’s doctors, though compas- sionate, resigned her to die.
2)God hears & answers prayer.Hundreds have prayed for Lilliana.
3)God lives outside the box,and He can “show Himself strong” II Chr. 16:9. We serve a Great God!
We are so thankful for all those who have prayed and watched God display His Grace through Lilliana.
You are invited to attend
Heritage Baptist Bible Fellowship Fall Meeting in Franklin Furnace, OH October 16-18, 2022 at
Franklin Furnace Independent Baptist Church
We will have special music and preaching each morning and evening.
Mark you Calendar!