• home
• Information
• Theme
• Activities
• Registration
• location
• Photos
•  

Main Speaker - Eric Watkins

Pastor Eric Watkins Below you will find an article from the New Horizons about Pastor Watkins.  You will also find his Bio on the right column of this page (below additional links).

A Long Road

"Men always ought to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1 NKJV) is the Holy Spirit's introduction to Jesus' parable of the importunate widow. Persistent prayer on the part of a few people is often the first chapter in the history of a new church's development. 

Such is the case with Reformation Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Oviedo, Florida.

Oviedo is on the northeastern side of Orlando. Lake Sherwood OPC is on the western side. Families living on the eastern side had a long drive to worship and would pay up to eighteen dollars in highway tolls to attend morning and evening worship. The hope for an OP church nearer to their home was nurtured in their hearts.

Pastor Larry Mininger and the people of Lake Sherwood came to share the desire to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ more effectively on the east side of Orlando. With the establishment of the Orlando campus of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Oviedo, that desire became stronger.

Over the last eight years, as prayers were offered up to the Lord, momentum was growing to establish a daughter congregation. Several false starts were discouraging, but the people of Lake Sherwood persisted.

With the arrival of Eric Watkins as associate pastor in 2001, it seemed that God was opening the way for the start of a daughter congregation—four or five years further down the road. However, God seemed to have another timetable. In short order, the families on the east side began to coalesce as a unit.

The Lake Sherwood session, seeing this providence of God, made plans for a new church plant. In September 2003, Reformation OPC began meeting in Oviedo to worship the Lord. With the start of the mission work, God's answer to those prayers for the establishment of an OP church on the east side of Orlando was becoming clearer.

The launching of the mission work was a great step of faith for Lake Sherwood. She was sending off men, women, and children integral to her ministry. Among them were her associate pastor and John Muether, the librarian at RTS, who was serving on the session. Planting a daughter church means sacrifice and pain.

Eric's path to becoming an Orthodox Presbyterian church planter is a testimony to God's grace. As the Grateful Dead gave concerts across the country, Eric followed them from North Carolina to California. Then deciding that he had had enough, he boarded a bus home. As he stepped on, a Bible was put in his hand. For two solid days, he played his guitar. When his fingers couldn't handle any more, he pulled the Bible out of his pack where he had stuck it. Since his brother's name is Mark, he decided to start reading there. By the time he got to Christ's resurrection in chapter sixteen, he was a new man. Christ had drawn him to himself.

Eventually the Lord led him into a Bible-teaching church. When asked to lead the youth group, it took him only a few weeks to realize that the youth knew more about Christ and the Bible than he did. In response to his hunger to know more, the church sent him off to Florida Bible College, where he not only learned more about the Scriptures, but also met and married Heather, the president's daughter.

Having attended some Ligonier conferences, he wanted to go to a seminary that was strong in covenant theology and the biblical languages. A place near some good surf wouldn't hurt either. So God directed his steps to Westminster Theological Seminary in California. There he moved from church to church until the dean of students steered him toward Harvest OPC. Eric says, "Coming to Harvest was like the plane landing. The congregation wrapped their arms around us and welcomed us in."

Through the encouragement of Dean Carson, Eric also attended his first Readiness for Ministry in the OPC Seminar.

By God's grace, Reformation OPC is seeking to become a faithful Orthodox Presbyterian congregation. She wants to be a church committed to the Word, the sacraments, prayer, and simple, Reformed worship. The people are committed to the Reformed faith and Presbyterian church government. Their mission is twofold. They desire to proclaim Christ to the lost and also to seek Christ's scattered sheep who need to be fed and nurtured.

Some faculty members and students from RTS are attending worship at Reformation, especially in the evenings. The two OP congregations are the only Reformed churches in the Orlando area with an evening worship service.

The transition from a large, well-developed congregation with a variety of ministries and a wonderful building in a scenic location to a mission work of thirty-five people meeting in a middle school in Oviedo has not been easy for the families of Reformation OPC. But God is sufficient, and they are relying on him to establish another well-developed Orthodox Presbyterian church in the Orlando area.

Richard R. Gerber  (from New Horizons, April 2004)