IN MEMORIAM: REV. DR. DERKE P. BERGSMA by R . S C O T T C L A R K
On November 17, 2020, my friend and professor the Rev. Dr. Derke Bergsma went to be with the Lord. You may not know who Derke was but you should. He influenced generations of parishioners, college students, and future pastors. I met him in the fall of 1984 at Westminster Seminary California, where he was my professor. He was also my academic advisor and prayer group leader. It was a smaller seminary then (approx. 75 students) and fairly intimate. I had Derke for all my preaching courses (except one with Bob Godfrey) and for most of my practical theology courses. He was a workhorse who carried an exceptionally large course load. When I returned as a faculty member (and Academic Dean) in 1997, we became colleagues and sometime golfing partners. He was also the faculty advisor regarding all things automotive. Until I met Derke I thought that no man traded cars as often or with as much joy as my late father-in-law, but Derke loved cars and was a great source of wisdom about them. Derke was raised in Wisconsin, a son of the Christian Reformed Church. As a young man he entered the service during World War II where he was seriously injured in Guam. He would spend most of a year in hospital in Hawaii recovering. As a pastor, he entered the Naval Reserves and served for 33 years as a chaplain, retiring with the rank of captain. He looked terrific in his dress whites. He served all over the USA and beyond. The chaplaincy was a rich source of pastoral experience, which he shared with us readily. I am in a better position now to appreciate the sacrifices made by servicemen and women and how valuable it must have been to the men and women to have a faithful minister of God’s Word
to whom they could turn during basic or after deployment. Derke had been through it as an enlisted man and as a veteran, and he understood their experience and their greatest need: the Savior. In his early ministry he served CRC pastorates in Colton, SD (1954–58) and Warren Park, IL (1958–62). After a period of graduate studies in the Netherlands he returned to the USA and served as pastor of the East Muskegon, MI, CRC (1965–67). He also served as associate minister in the Escondido CRC and later in the Escondido URC, where his membership remained in his retirement.
A CHEERFUL PRESENCE
He was, in my experience, relentlessly cheerful. He had a ready smile and an encouraging word. A midwesterner, who earned his spurs on the Plains, he was an endless fount of stories. This was a source of irritation to some of my fellow students, but on the Plains stories are a part of life. I am sure that I learned as much about pastoral ministry from Derke’s stories about ministry as I did from his lectures. I suppose not a day went by in my first years of ministry that I did not think of some maxim or story of Derke’s which helped me somehow. The stories were not mere filler. They were wisdom, hard won during years of experience in working with the sheep. It was he who warned us about turning off the battery on the microphone when leaving the pulpit, to use a (metaphorical) rifle “and not a shotgun!” when heresy hunting. From his stories I learned how to love the flock and how to communicate with them. From Derke I learned that God has ordained to work through ordinary means: the preaching of the gospel, but I
also learned God is free to work as he will, even through irregular means. Among his many projects in the Chicago metro was to help with a Billy Graham Crusade in the 1960s. As a confessionally Reformed pastor he had his doubts, but as a chaplain and a student of world religions he had learned to talk to and even work with people with whom he disagreed. It was his great hope and fervent prayer that people would come to new life and true faith through Graham’s preaching. He was loyal to the Christian Reformed Church—he not only served as a pastor but he also taught at Calvin College and produced a large Christian education program for them—until he could no longer support the direction of the denomination in the wake of their decision, in 1995, to permit the ordination of females. In 1996, he left the CRC to become a minister in the United Reformed Churches in North America; but he did not do so angrily but cheerfully. His ministry in the Escondido United Reformed Church was much appreciated, whether it was in the pulpit, speaking to a Bible study, or working with the consistory on a difficult pastoral issue.
“There are many opportunities in ministry to compromise one’s principles, but Derke taught us to ground our principles in the Word.” 22
UPDATE | SPRING2021
