June 2 Today in OPC History

At 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 2, 1999, the Sixty-sixth General Assembly of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church meeting at Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was called to order by the Rev. Ross W. Graham, moderator of the Sixty-fifth General Assembly. The next morning, the Assembly elected the Rev. Larry Mininger, pastor of Lake Sherwood OPC, Orlando, Florida as moderator.

Among the business of the Assembly was considering an overture from the Presbytery of the Midwest to divide, with the 11 congregations in Michigan and Ontario forming a new presbytery. The congregations were Little Farms Chapel, Coopersville, MI; Oakland Hills Community, Farmington Hills, MI; Spencer Mills, Gowen, MI: Harvest, Grand Rapids, MI; Mill Creek, Grand Rapids, MI; Grace, Holt, MI; Community, Kalamazoo, MI; Meadow Springs, Kentwood, MI; Pilgrim, Metamora, MI; Rockford Springs Community, Rockford, MI; and Providence, Royal Oak, MI. Mission works also included in the presbytery were Redeemer, Ada, MI; Chain O'Lakes, Central Lake, MI; New Life Fellowship, Holland, MI; Covenant, London, Ontario, and missions in Hartland and Manistee, MI and Shedden, Ontario. The Assembly approved the overture, but took four ballots to name the new presbytery, "Michigan and Ontario."

In the annual survey of commissioners regarding their date of ordination, the largest group (34) were ordained in the 1990s. Two commissioners, John Galbraith and Lawrence Eyres, were ordained in the 1930s.

Picture: Ross Graham (left) and Larry Mininger at the exchange of the gavel at Sixty-sixth (1999) GA.