September 18 Today in OPC History

On September 18, 1987, the Committee on Diaconal Ministries of the OPC held a banquet in honor of its retiring secretary-treasurer, the Rev. Lester R. Bachman, drawing to a close his thirty years of service on that committee.

The committee observed that the work of CDM had expanded considerably under his leadership: “This ministry and the personal ministry of Mr. Bachman have touched untold lives. His spirited presentation of the concerns on his heart has moved almost everyone he has contacted. … [A]ll have been persuaded by his evident passion for the suffering and the needy.”

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on November 29, 1912, Bachman graduated from Asbury College in Kentucky, and then he attended Boston University School of Theology and Princeton Seminary before earning his bachelor of divinity from Faith Theological Seminary. After five years in the Bible Presbyterian Church he was received by the Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1949 and served OP churches in Grove City, Philadelphia, and Kirkwood, Pennsylvania. Struck by a debilitating illness, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, he was forced to retire from the ministry at age fifty-six. Though the disease proved eventually crippling, he continued to serve the Committee on Diaconal Ministries for nearly two more decades.

Bachman joined the church triumphant on November 5, 1997. In a memorial on the pages of New Horizons John Galbraith wrote: “The [Diaconal] Committee’s present prominence in the life of our church is due mainly to his devoted service. Through it, he has achieved a significant place in the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.”