After a six-month trial period, the consistory of Trinity Reformed Church (URCNA) in Lethbridge, AB, has decided to discontinue its preaching station effort in Medicine Hat.

The work began in September of 2012, primarily out of consideration for four families from the Medicine Hat area, who regularly drove two hours to worship in Lethbridge. It was identified as a “preaching station” because it duplicated Trinity’s worship services in another location. Trinity’s two ministers, Rev. Hank Van der Woerd and Rev. Wybren Oord, took turns preaching on most alternate Sundays with an elder reading a sermon once per month.

Newspaper and radio advertising, including broadcasts of R.C. Sproul’s Renewing Your Mind, failed to garner any additional members long-term.

“The original intent was to try this for six months,” explains Rev. Oord. “Three people came for a brief time, but didn’t come back.”

“After six months,” he adds, “it seemed the lack of response didn’t justify either continuing this format or going to the next level of installing a church planter.”

The above article by Glenda Mathes appeared in the May 1, 2013, issue of Christian Renewal.