Bethlen Naptár, 1987 (Ligonier)
Kálvin Egyházkerület
1987 195 transfer. We hope they are going to be happy with their decision. Naturally it affected the life of the Classis, even though it may not have influenced the life in the congregations. The assurances that we are still brothers and Christian brothers were accepted by the Classis and the Conference and — hopefully — by the congregation that transferred to another Conference. Perhaps because of the transfer our brotherly relationship with the far away churches of our Classis Kalamazoo and Flint became more important. We had a workshop at Kalamazoo on January 18, and for the first time in the history of the Classis we held our Spring meeting on April 5th at Kalamazoo, MI. One of the most successful of the works of the Conference is the Youth Camp. Last year — according to the reports — there were even more campers than the previous year, even though Western Classis was scarcely represented at the camp. There were a number of young people who expressed desire to attend Youth camp. We were able to find reasonable transportation to the camp but the number of participants dwindled to four three weeks before camp started, which made transportation unreasonably high. Hopefully this year we will be able to send campers to the Youth Camp. Even though our efforts in effecting church growth slowed down we have not abandoned our efforts. We realized that church growth is a very complex undertaking. Depending on the location of the local church, possibilities for church growth may differ so much that the same formula cannot be applied to churches in different locations. The new effort to find a common denominator culminated in the formulation of a survey applied to each of our congregations according to the local framework. The survey was carried through in most of our congregations. Hopefully, the congregations will finish the survey by the time of the Synodical meeting. The coordinator of the survey is Rev. Victor Orth, pastor of our Lynwood congregation. At the present time we have two student pastors among the ministers of Western Classis. It is a great deal of joy to report that their ordination will be in the near future when the certificates from their respective schools are presented to the bishop. We can also be proud — as Western Classis — of the help extended to our South American brethren. Even though we are the smallest or the second smallest — in size — of the Classes of the Conference we have contributed and are contributing more in financial help to the South American churches than any of the other classes. The past year also emphasized some of the problems we are facing as a Classis and also as a conference. We know that each of our congregations, depending on their location, faces different or — at least — somewhat different problems, and each church will
