Grandpa Clarence & Grandkids!
Interview with Rev. Clarence Bouwman
Clarence Bouwman is a pastor with a great deal of international experience. Born and raised in rural Ontario, Clarence was ordained in Chilliwack, British Columbia in 1982. Five years later the Lord called him to serve among the Free Reformed Churches in Australia and thus he began an 18 year term of service in two congregations there. He has since answered the call back to Canada where he first served in Yarrow, BC and presently ministers in Smithville, Ontario. He and his wife Arlene are now empty-nesters, enjoying visits with children and grandchildren in various parts of Canada.
During those many years abroad and continuing to this day, Pastor Bouwman fostered an interest in teaching the Reformed faith in several foreign mission settings, taking him to distant countries in Asia. Don’t ask me how, but along the way he also managed to write several books including the recent Leadership for Growing Churches, The Privilege of Parenting, and A Vow to Love. My busy neighbour was also good enough to lend his talents to Christ’s Psalms, Our Psalms, and in this interview shares some of his reflections on it. Enjoy! Peter Holtvlüwer
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PH: Let me start by thanking you for your contribution to Christ’s Psalms, Our Psalms. Besides being invited, what drew you to participate in this project?
CB: I was very much attracted to the concept of a publication that would highlight specifically how Jesus Christ would have internalized the psalms as he sang them, and then how he in his life and death fulfilled them. I recall meeting a brother years ago in Australia who pleaded that the musical versions of the psalms in the Book of Praise [Note: the song book of the churches – PH] should each receive an extra stanza showing how that psalm spoke of Jesus Christ and how Christ fulfilled that psalm. Without endorsing the thought of an extra stanza to each psalm, I have since then always been intrigued by what such a stanza would actually sound like. This project seemed to me to be a first step in that direction. That in itself made me happy to participate.
PH: Which particular psalms did you work on? There was some (limited) choice in psalm assignments – was there anything special about this group for you?
CB: When the invitation came through to participate in the project, I immediately expressed an interest in the Songs of Ascents. For years already the thought had chased itself around in my mind that these fifteen psalms had to be connected in some way beyond being a collection of individual songs bound by 
a common title. Years ago I came across a Dutch book devoted to the Songs of Ascents as a whole, but I never had the opportunity to assess how it proposed to tie these Songs together. When the coordinator of this project, then, invited me to participate, I did not think long on his request; I replied that Yes, I would participate, but only if he would assign to me the Songs of Ascents!
PH: One of the key things you were asked to find were legitimate connections to Jesus Christ in each psalm. How did you find this task (difficult or…)? Did your psalms present any distinctive difficulties in this respect? Did you learn of any connections to Christ that were new to you?
CB: The first challenge I faced was coming to grips with what the collection known as Songs of Ascents was about. Once I was convinced that these fifteen psalms were all in some way connected to the Lord’s command that every male in Israel was to appear before the Lord periodically (Ex 23:14-17), I could then picture Jesus—himself, then, a pilgrim to Jerusalem—singing these psalms as he sought to obey that command. The story line contained in the Songs of Ascents highlights specifically the hostility that the pilgrim would experience in the presence of the Lord, and that, of course, is very much what Jesus experienced time and again as he travelled to the house of his Father in Jerusalem. It was so very encouraging to discover that the Lord Jesus Christ understood from the instruction given to Israel in the Songs of Ascents that he had to persevere in God’s service in the house of God even when he was greatly oppressed. Psalm 129, for example, speaks of the pilgrim having his back plowed by the godless of Jerusalem—something Jesus most certainly experienced when he was flogged before his crucifixion.
PH: You are a full-time minister with plenty of demands on your schedule. How did you manage to work on CPOP alongside of your regular work? Did you encounter any special challenges? What sorts of things did you do to help you complete the assignment?
CB: I had been actively involved in writing books for some years already. With a previous publication just completed, I had space in my agenda for this newest assignment. I planned to preach systematically through the Songs of Ascents at the rate of one psalm per month on the Sunday before the monthly pulpit exchange. That would allow me the first two days of the exchange week to write up the Study 
Resource on each psalm as well as produce the two meditations I was assigned for each psalm, and get the project done in about a year and a half. It turned out that that plan was quite manageable.
PH: How many hours (on average) did you put into each psalm? How did your wife feel about your involvement in Christ’s Psalms, Our Psalms?
CB: To make a free text sermon from scratch always takes me somewhere between 20 and 25 hours. That was true for a sermon on these Songs of Ascents as well. To prepare the Study Resource and the pieces for the Devotional took another 10 to 12 hours. Given that for many years I was busy with writing, my wife did not see less of me than usual. She did, though, notice my frustration when the Study Resource did not come together as smoothly as I would have preferred. Then again, over the course of many years she had learned to live with that bit of extra tension within me—and knew how to push me along.
PH: Tell us about one of the most interesting or surprising things that you learned in working on your psalms.
CB: I mentioned above the Dutch book I had picked up long ago on the Songs of Ascents. I set about reading it, and was quickly dismayed that the author treated the 15 Songs of Ascents atomisticly, with each psalm disjointed from the one before and the one after. I picked up numerous other treatments of these Songs, fully expecting that somewhere I would come across a writer who could pull a thread through these 15 Songs where each Song logically followed the previous in an effort to tell a single story. I did not find such a thread anywhere. Yet the Holy Spirit surely did not have an editor assemble these 15 in their existing order for no reason. The most interesting part of the project, then, was to find that story line and see how each Song deliberately builds on the instruction or the experience of the previous psalm.
PH: How did the study of the Psalms impact you personally?
CB: New Testament Christians are pilgrims as much as our Old Testament brothers were, travelling purposefully on to the New Jerusalem. I was delighted to discover that the things we experience as we travel are so very similar to the experiences described in the Songs of Ascents. That means in turn that the 
instruction the Holy Spirit has caught in these Songs speaks directly to us. One example is found in Ps 127, where the pilgrim, in light of the hostility described in the previous Songs, is instructed to simply be faithful in the little things of hearth and home. Specifically, he’s to have a family and raise that family in preparation for the day when the Lord gives relief from the apostasy currently dominating Jerusalem. That thought of just being faithful on the spot where God has put me was again instructive and encouraging.
PH: CPOP Study Resource was developed in part with Christian teachers and preachers in mind. In your mind, what stands out as the most useful features for educators? For ministers?
CB: A couple of very useful features come to mind. The fact that every psalm is treated in the context of the psalms surrounding it is to my mind highly valuable. I think too of what a given psalm says about how the psalmist was working with what God had revealed decades and even centuries earlier, i.e., how was the psalmist actually working with the Bible in his daily life. That, of course, is a vital question also for us. Similarly, how Isaiah years later, or Jesus or Paul, worked with the experience of the psalmist as recorded in a given psalm is again highly instructive for us as we work with God’s Word.
Specifically, of course, what a given psalm meant to Jesus is of great interest to every Christian who trusts in Jesus Christ for his salvation. Christ, after all, experienced every emotion and struggle and disappointment we experience, and the result of his work is our reconciliation with God—even in the continuing brokenness of this earthly life. This is invariably helpful for both teachers in the classroom as well as for ministers in their sermon preparation and in their pastoral work.
PH: How do you think people in your church might use either CPOP’s Study Resource or Devotional? What benefits do you see in this material for ordinary Christians?
CB: The 365 meditations in the Devotional would obviously be a very worthwhile tool for the people of the church, specifically because each devotional points in some way to the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Study Resource could be highly profitable for the Bible study societies. It’s been rightly said that every emotion common to man is caught somewhere in the Psalms—and that’s undoubtedly why the Psalms are favourite readings for so many Christians. I can imagine, then, that one would enjoy working through, say, a dozen psalms consecutively in a study season. In this respect, the questions appended to the Study Resource on every psalm would be very helpful for the societies.
PH: Over the course of your ministry you have served many years both in Canada and Australia. In addition, you are very familiar with mission work in certain Asian countries. Is there a role for CPOP to play in benefitting the larger Reformed communities in Canada/USA and Australia? Would it be of much use on the mission field abroad? Please explain.
CB: The churches in Australia have very similar needs to the churches in Canada. As this project will no doubt be well received in Canada, I’m sure it will be equally well received in Australia, be it in the Christian schools or in Bible study societies.
The biggest challenge facing biblically faithful churches in those Asian nations is finding solid literature that ministers can use for sermon preparation. This particular project would—if the translation hurdle can be overcome—help in two ways. Every Study Resource is a gold mine of information that a minister could use in preparing his sermon. Perhaps more significantly, this project provides a model for how every portion of Scripture needs to be read, namely, in its context and moment within the unfolding drama of history, and then in how Jesus Christ worked with that given portion of Scripture to fulfil it. It would be so beneficial if funds and talents could be found to help spread this unique resource into multiple languages of the world.
PH: Thank-you for taking the time to answer these questions. Did you wish to make any other comments about this project that might interest our readers?
CB: Our readers would be interested to know, I think, that this project was spearheaded by a man of unique vision and singular ability to encourage in excellent work. Were it not for the team leader, this project—and certainly my contribution to it—would not be what it has become. I do not say this simply to put a feather in someone’s cap. A project of this magnitude, both in scope and in depths of insight as to what we’re looking for, requires a special man. I do not doubt that his work will be a distinct blessing to the Lord’s church around the world.
**fini**