August 28 Today in OPC History

Lifelong Orthodox Presbyterian Glenn D. Jerrell married Kathleen Aufrance, the daughter of a Methodist minister, on this day in 1971. They met during the summer of 1971 at the Boardwalk Chapel in New Jersey where Glenn was one of the first two OP interns to serve at the Boardwalk Chapel and Kathie represented Asbury College. Cal Cummings, Sr., and Kathie’s father performed the ceremony. Glenn had been baptized in the Bridgeton OP church, New Jersey, and was a member of Covenant OPC in Vineland, New Jersey. The next year, Glenn graduated with his masters of divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1972. He accepted a call to Winner OPC in Winner, South Dakota, and was ordained by the Presbytery of the Dakotas on October 12, 1973.

In 1977, the OP church of Abilene, Texas, extended a call to Glenn to serve as their associate pastor laboring in Roswell, New Mexico. The Jerrells moved to Roswell on New Year’s Day 1977. Glenn became the Roswell pastor on February 15, 1981, when the mission work became an established OP church. In 1998 he became an evangelist of Grace Reformed Church Fellowship, an independent congregation in Walkerton, Indiana. The church came into the OPC as Grace Reformed OPC in 2000. In 2012, Glenn became the Regional Home Missionary for the Presbytery of Michigan and Ontario, in which he served until his retirement in 2017.

During his years in the Dakotas and Texas, he and Kathie were actively involved in their family conferences and young people’s camps, with Glenn at times serving as director. A middle school language arts teacher, Kathie’s class won state championship at the Indiana Spelling Bowl. She plays the hammered dulcimer and enjoys time with their four sons, a daughter, their spouses, and fifteen grandchildren.