December 19 Today in OPC History

Donald Taws was born on this day in Philadelphia. Growing up as a nominal Presbyterian, Taws came to saving faith through the ministry of Clarence Duff and Francis Mahaffy, while he was stationed in Eritrea in the U. S. Army. He then went on to Calvin College, where he met his wife, the former Jeanette VanStelle, and from there to Westminster Seminary, where he earned his B.D. in 1958.

For three years Don and Jeanette served the OPC mission in what he called the “land of his re-birth,” Eritrea. During a period that he later described as his “thirty-year furlough” from Eritrea, he served OP congregations in Thornton, Colorado, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. and Philipsburg, New Jersey. When the Eritrean mission reopened after the civil war in 1992, he and Jeanette returned for a two-year term to assist in restarting the mission. In his “retirement” beginning in 1994, he has served as part-time regional home missionary for the Presbytery of New Jersey, and as interim pastor for several churches, including Lake Sherwood OPC in Orlando, Florida, and Covenant PCA in Henderson, North Carolina, where he and Jeanette currently reside.

In all of his pastorates, a characteristic emphasis was the stress he laid on the importance of family visitation. In a 1992 New Horizons article Taws wrote: “Closely behind the ministry of the word must come the ministry of visitation. The pastor who cloisters himself in the study, even for the commendable purpose of producing dynamic sermons, and fails to get out among the people is missing a vital part of shepherding the flock. A balance must be sought between books and doorbells. Blessed is that pastor who has a congregation trained to help him in the ministry of visitation. … Pastors need to get out among the people. They need to train members of the congregation to visit and reach out a hand of friendship to those in need. In obedience to the Lord Jesus, we seek to visit the sick, the poor, widows, the fatherless, prisoners and all those who need to be touched by our lives and testimony.”

Picture: Don and Jeanette Taws in Thornton, Colorado