I am sitting in my four-windowed office at which time I am enjoying the sun streaming. I love the change of seasons. While you may or may not agree with me, I would have a hard time living in a place where there are no discernible seasons. The buds are just visible. The crocuses are just protruding. Color is returning to God’s creation.

Now while you and I may especially enjoy the seasonal change from winter to spring, I have to admit that I enjoy fall to winter as well. Seasonal change is good. Having said that I want to acknowledge those
who struggle more at the change of seasons.

So whether you enjoy seasonal change like me, or struggle with it like my mother, we all have to admit that God has ordained nature so. In the same way God has ordained the nature of life so. In our church life seasons are changing with: the expected purchase of the Lawrence House for some service mission; the church plant as they move from one to four cell groups and launch their biggest outreach event on Saturday, April 19 (cf. later advertisement:, and the music ministry changes.

Seasonal changes like these bring struggle, sadness and excitement. And, they are part of the way the Creator has made life to be. So let us live them together with the God who promised Noah:

Peace and joy,
Pastor Todd Buurstra

Change and decay in all around I see,
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I often think of those lines in the classic hymn Abide With Me when I go through change. As a matter of fact, my sister-in-law needlepointed the lyrics from the entire hymn on to a wall hanging with a North Branch looking church steeple in the background. It’s framed and hangs above our television so that we can look at it often.

Change and decay in all around I see. You may feel as destabilized by much change as I feel. Our moorings get lost. We can’t tell if we’re going north or south. To change the metaphor, we don’t know where change’s sweeping wave will eventually wash us ashore.

And the older we get the more that change feels like decay. At 48 I am surprised to find myself a little more skeptical about new things and fonder of the old. Not only that, I become more and more convinced that the new is throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Some of that may be true; a lot of it may simply be the difference between 28, 38, and 48.

O Thou who changest not, abide with me. The greatest stabilizing factor in a world that changes at increasing speed is the abiding presence of the Changeless One. Someone said to me recently, why does the church need to change at all?! Can’t anything stay the same? Yes, God stays the same. While the church may need to change her methods to stay relevant to the culture in order to remain vital, our LORD never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

So the trick in change management is twofold:

1. acknowledge the disorientation that you feel; and
2. find your security in the Changeless One.

I pray that for you and I as we go through the changes in life.

Peace and joy,
Pastor Todd Buurstra

Pastor Joy Carroll, our beloved Pastor of Discipleship from July of 2001 until November of 2006, passed suddenly into the nearer presence of God on Saturday, February 23, 2008. She never woke up from a nap.

When arrangements are available they will be posted at NBRC.com. Meanwhile our prayers go out to her family and the North Branch church family in our grief. May we be the hands and feet of Christ to each other in this difficult time.

Todd Buurstra, D. Min.
Pastor of Worship and Witness

As I write this I am preparing to go away for four days to San Antonio, Texas for a denominational conference. While many Reformed Church (RCA) groups will be gathered at this One Thing conference I will be there with the RCA Parenting Church Network. Taking part in the “middle management” of this part of the conference I will be busy, but I anticipate enjoying it immensely. Why?

Just because it will be good to get away? Yes, though I will miss you and my family, absence usually does make the heart grow fonder. But that is not the main reason.

The main reason is that I am excited about North Branch’s participation in what God is doing in the wider church. You know by now that my role in our area Classis churches is to oversee the multiplication of new churches. Through our help the Reading, PA Hispanic church, which Carlos and Carmen pastor, has grown to 60 people on Sundays. They have started their own daughter church in Lebanon, PA, which is now worshiping 30 and anticipates renting a new building soon (cf. picture). Bob and Heidi’s plant in Oxford Valley is now worshiping 60 and is preparing for a grand launch. And then, my personal favorite, our own daughter church, Ignite, is preparing to launch her second cell group. Within each of these new groups there are a high percentage of people who are experiencing Jesus Christ for the first time! I am so blessed to be able to witness a powerful work of the Holy Spirit in these plants!

So to San Antonio I am bringing four other pastors from our Classis to explore giving birth like we have. If even one or two become partners with us in this venture we will no longer be alone! We are in the middle of God’s greatest work to bring new people to Christ through new churches that our Classis has seen in over 100 years!

And this is just our Classis. Throughout the other 45 Classes of the RCA in North America over 100 churches have been born since we launched our ten-year goal to plant 400. For the first time in a half a century God has blessed the old RCA with growth!
So I ask you to pray that God might inspire and challenge our denomination, the oldest in America, to help bring our nation to a deeper commitment to Christ.

Peace and joy,
Pastor Todd Buurstra

Want to start the new year in a new way?  Looking for more passion in your spiritual life?  As we have for the last several years, we will begin the new year (January 6-February 10) with sermons and small groups on a religious bestseller.  This year we have chosen Phillip Yancey’s book on Prayer.  You may enjoy it in book or DVD form.  To give you an idea of how stimulating this book is I have copied a few of the chapter-beginning quotes:

When a doctoral student at Princeton asked, “What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?” Albert Einstein replied, “Find out about prayer.  Somebody must find out about prayer.”

Will you follow Einstein’s advice?

The prayer preceding all prayers is “May it be the real I who speaks.  May it be the real Thou that I speak to.”

C. S. Lewis

How real is your prayer life?

Prayers like gravel flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention…

R. S. Thomas

Surely you have felt that you had to do something dramatic to get divine attention.

Biblical prayer is…more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church.

Walter Wink

Have you been Jewish in your prayer life lately?

As you can see, by listening to Sunday sermons and by discussing the book in a class—Sunday morning (10:15 AM) or Wednesday evening (7:30 PM)—or a small group, the Holy Spirit will grow you in your prayer life.

Pastor Todd

“I think we made a very good choice!” said one of the youth sponsors that was able to spend a little time with Mark Swart this past Sunday. “I agree,” I replied. So I want to use my article this month to help introduce Mark as I am getting to know him because I believe him to be God’s choice for North Branch. And, as of this writing, it looks like he’ll be here in early November.
Mark is…
…passionate about youth. Three months ago I would have thought, That’s nice, but having spent the last two months with the Senior High youth group, I think this quality is critical. God has given us this abundant blessing of many youth in our church. We need one pastor who is deeply committed to stewarding this gift. For these young people need godly guidance.
…comfortable in his own skin. I’m sure that preaching on Sunday, and meeting so many new people might have been somewhat nerve-wracking for him, but I was impressed how he stayed within himself. He didn’t seem to try to be anyone that God hadn’t created him to be. He came to the ‘Ville football game on Friday night when he wanted to meet people, and he turned down an offer on Monday night to eat supper with us because he needed alone time. I like and respect that.
I also found that “skin” is a significant part of his theology since I would describe it as incarnational theology. That is, one of the organizing principles of his thought is that the church needs to be the body of Christ as the hands and feet of Jesus today. Reminds me of that 99.1 song, if we are the body…
…trained as a teacher. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe his undergraduate focus was on teaching. At least I know that he thought about teaching as a calling for a while. When I hear him preach, I see a teacher. One way we probably complement each other is that when I preach I often seek to inspire, I think that he may seek to teach.
…enjoys sports. Especially the same teams that I root for from Michigan. Go blue! He played tennis in college and has coached the game. I could see that he understood football strategy really well as we watched the game Friday night. Connect over sports, if you can.
Look forward to getting to know him better; for in getting to know each other better we get to know Christ better. And Mark, above all, will help us know Christ better.
Peace and joy,
Pastor Todd

If you were in worship on Sunday, September 16, you may remember that I did my annual anniversary/vision sermon. In it I used the waterfall picture here displayed to talk about the blessings that God is constantly pouring into our lives. However, to take full advantage of God’s blessing we need to walk boldly into God’s waterfall to receive the blessings for ourselves and to let them flow out to all around us. I then went on to enumerate some bold changes, or moves, or experiments that I envision God calling us to. More about that at the end.

What I didn’t take time to say is how thankful I am for the bold visions that we have accomplished over the last 8 years. One of the things about serving Christ at North Branch that I most enjoy is your ability to try bold change.

When I look back over the years between 1999-2004 I praise God for your bold vision to:

• Restore the sanctuary with “Victorian elegance and modern relevance;”
• Purchase the Sunrise House to use for the mission of housing the homeless;
• And increase mission giving to 20% of the budget.

(We accomplished all three if you count the debt retirement line item for the Sunrise House as mission money.)

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