February 26 Today in OPC History

On this date in 1984, Bruce Hollister was ordained as a gospel minister by Fellowship Bible Church (independent) in Joilet, Illinois. After graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1976, Bruce attended and graduated from Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana, in 1979. That same year he married his college sweetheart, Sue Brashler. Throughout the 1980s as Bruce served as an independent Bible pastor, he was becoming more Reformed in his theology and resigned in 1990. After four years of meeting with families in the Joilet area who also embraced the Reformed faith, Bruce approach the Presbytery of the Midwest in 1994 about his and the families joining the OPC. One year later on May 21, 1995, Bruce was installed as an evangelist of the presbytery to serve as the organizing pastor of New Covenant Community Church. In 2021, he accepted a call to serve as the regional home missionary of the Presbytery of the Midwest.

Picture: Bruce and Sue Hollister and family in the mid-1990s.