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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 09 January 2009 22:10 |
1998 - Present
 Dr. Mike Renihan is the present pastor at Heritage Baptist Church. He studied at Worcester State College (B.A. in History); Reformed Theological Seminary (MA); Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, and the University of Coventry, England (M. Phil and PhD). He is an Adjunct Professor of History at Worcester State College. For many years he served on the Executive Committee of the New England Reformed Fellowship (NERF). He serves on the Administrative Council of the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America (ARBCA), where he also chairs the Theology Committee. Mike enjoys digital photography, playing the concertina and autoharp, reading, preaching, and his morning coffee (decaf please). Mike is most passionate about his work as Executive Director of Mission::Ireland. The prospects of long-term reform across the Emerald Isle are looking better and better. He holds Irish citizenship and travels on an Irish passport. (Who needs a magic carpet when you have an Irish passport?) Mike has been married to Sue for 27 years and they have six wonderful and fun-loving children. (Their names have been withheld to protect the innocent).
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 09 January 2009 22:14 |
1995 - 1998
 Dr. Jim Renihan, his wife, Lynne, and their children began attending Heritage Baptist Church in July 1994. Beginning with the first Lord's Day of January 1995, Jim taught Sunday School, and was asked to begin preaching on a regular basis at the end of May 1995. Jim served as organizing pastor of the church, working closely with his good friend Harry Maples. In 1998, the family moved to Escondido California where Jim serves as Dean and Professor of Historical Theology at the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies. He is an elder at Escondido Reformed Baptist Church. Jim and Lynne have 5 children and 1.5 grandchildren. Jim has served as a pastor in churches in Massachusetts, New York and California. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Seminary of the East in Worcester, and his Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 09 January 2009 22:13 |
2001-2004
 Pastor Ron Baines was born in Massachusetts, raised marginally Roman Catholic, and was saved at 19 years old while serving in the US Navy. Upon completing Naval duty he spent eight months on a missions trip in Zambia Africa where he met his wife, Joan. He then served in a small church in a support capacity for four years in Joan's hometown of Rossland, British Columbia, Canada, before taking up duties as an engineer in the aerospace industry in Connecticut. In 1989 he was called to bi-vocationally pastor Westfield Reformed Baptist Fellowship in Massachusetts. It was during these years that Ron came to understand more fully the basics of Reformed Theology and also came to know Harry Maples, Jim and Mike Renihan, and Heritage Baptist Church. After 10 years, the work in Westfield closed and Ron, Joan, and their four children moved to Worcester to assist Pastor Mike in the public ministry of the Word. In early 2001, Ron became Co-Pastor with Mike and continued until late 2004 when he received the call to pastor Grace Community Church of West Bath, Maine.
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 09 January 2009 22:15 |
1993-1995
 Harry Maples was born into a Christian home in North Carolina and raised in a small-town Southern Baptist church. At the age of 28, God was pleased to save his soul. Five years later he received his Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and then began work to plant a church in Carthage, NY. Using dark providences, God compelled Harry to abandon the methodologies he'd learned in seminary, and he sought God's pleasure for the well being of this fragile church. In 1984 his prayers were answered when he was introduced to the doctrines of grace at a church Jim Renihan pastored. Harry labored for the next seven years to learn and teach these doctrines to the church. In 1993, he was invited to Worcester to start a Southern Baptist church where a work had previously failed. The small Heritage Baptist Church was gathered within a year and was soon joined by Jim Renihan and his family. Harry resigned as pastor in 1995 after his long struggle concerning his qualifications as an elder, and after receiving wise counsel from trusted and proven pastors. God mercifully provided Jim Renihan to shepherd the church where it continued to prosper and grow. In 2004, Harry moved back to North Carolina to care for his dying father.
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