Grandpa's Prayer Answered

by DEREK BUIKEMA

The moment I decided to attend Westminster Seminary California remains vivid for me. For months I had been of two minds: uncertain of the correct destination and feeling the heavy weight of the choice. This decision would be one with substantial implications for my formation as a minister, and I wanted to choose wisely. I had two seminaries remaining under consideration: WSC and another.

So I made a trip to the other seminary. It was closer to my home and I was able to attend a weekend they put together for me wherein I would experience classes and a little bit of student life and sit with a professor to find out about what sort of formation I could expect there. The message they decided to craft for this visit was that if I attended this seminary, I could expect cutting edge, relevant instruction and a whole lot of fun.

Now believe me when I tell you that I appreciate relevance and have a great appreciation for fun. But as I drove home from that visit I couldn’t help feeling as though the priorities that had been articulated were askew. I visited the apartment of one of my dearest friends to talk about the weekend. During our discussion, I pulled up the Westminster Seminary California website and was greeted by one simple phrase: For Christ, His Gospel, & His Church.

I read those words and breathed deeply. Now this was a seminary with its priorities in order! It was in that moment that I knew I needed to be formed for ministry at WSC. I knew that if I was to be a faithful and effective minister and preacher, I needed to have my priorities in order. I needed to be a minister who cared about Christ Jesus, the gospel, and the church.

This was the moment I made my decision, but the leadup to the decision to go to Westminster had been facilitated throughout my life by my grandfather, Dr. Derke Bergsma. For as far back as I could remember he would speak to me about the fundamental necessity of trusting and following Jesus and the absolute necessity of being in a church where the pastor preaches Christ. He talked about how this commitment brought him to WSC, where he was asked to give a lecture. After the lecture, Bob Strimple came up to him and exclaimed “You’re so Westminster! You’re so Westminster!” and offered him a job, which my grandpa took and where he felt he did some of his most important work - training men to preach Christ.

No one was happier to hear of my decision than grandpa. He was the biggest fan of the institution I’ve ever met. He was exuberant! And grateful. And certain I had made the correct decision. And he was right.

The best part of being a student at Westminster was being instructed by professors who cared deeply for Christ-centered ministry. “For Christ, his gospel, and his church” was not simply a slogan; it was a lived reality for the professors under whom I sat and from whom I learned. And that important vision for ministry took hold among my fellow students. This was applied most notably in preaching class.

You should have seen us M.Div. students get up to preach for the first time in class, watched us walk to the front of the class - stomach knotted, heart beating a little faster. Clutching our notes that we had run through over and over and over again throughout the semester (and mind you, these were NOTES! Notes I tell you! Not manuscripts. Grandpa would fail you if you brought a manuscript. A minister must communicate his sermon, not bury his head in a manuscript.). We were boys then, just beginning to understand what it meant to exposit a text. Not yet aware of how to make the text sing for the members of the congregations we would be serving. Unsure of how to invite the nurse, attorney, garbageman, teacher, middle schooler, retiree, mother, father, the broken, the mourning, the afraid, the sick, and the downcast into the beautiful world of the text. But standing up certain, because of the instruction of those professors we trusted and the great God who had redeemed us, that as we opened the Bible, we would need to invite people to meet Jesus. To encounter the one of whom the whole scriptures speak. So that, whoever they might be and wherever they might be, they might deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Jesus in obedience and love.

“Strengthened by the faithful instruction I’ve received from my grandfather and my alma mater, I continue on in the power of the Holy Spirit for the cause of Christ Jesus.”