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Who was Perry F. Rockwood ?

A life well lived: 1917 to March 7, 2008

Pastor Perry F. Rockwood was the founder and host of The Peoples Gospel Hour a half-hour Gospel program with Bible preaching and God-honouring music, and has been broadcasting every week since the first program aired in September of 1947. Prophecy For Today was his 15-minute daily program.

The Peoples Gospel Hour (PGH) is a radio and literature ministry dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the unsaved world and teaching the precepts of the Word of God.

A quote from the Board of Directors of The Peoples Gospel Hour (PGH)
"We who were privileged to work alongside of Pastor Rockwood saw daily his love for his Lord: for the precious inspired, preserved Word of God: for lost souls and believers. He served his Master with great joy and zeal, and wholeheartedly made himself available for God to work in and through him for His glory.

Over the past 60 years and more, the Lord has grown his faith-ministry to reach around the world, ministering to lost souls and encouraging believers in the faith by means of radio and literature. For some time, Pastor Rockwood's desire was for this missionary work to continue, using his voice and message by converting past tape recording to a CD format. This plan has been carried out for several years now and the radio programs and literature will continue to be sent forth as Pastor had planned."

Pastor Perry F. Rockwood

Pastor Perry F. Rockwood was saved as a young man in 1936, and was immediately called of the Lord to preach the Gospel. The Lord burdened his heart for the lost multitudes on the way to Hell. In 1943, he was ordained into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. He was taken up on public trial in 1947 by the presbytery in Halifax for preaching four sermons against the apostasy in the church, and consequently resigned. Pastor Perry F. Rockwood then launched out by faith the same year in starting The Peoples Gospel Hour.

Pastor Rockwood also served as pastor of Missionary Bible Church on Kent Street in Halifax. Pastor Rockwood truly appreciated the prayers of fellow believers on his behalf, for his continued health and strength to carry on in the work of the Lord. When asked, "When will you retire?", Pastor Rockwood likes to respond, "When the Devil retires!"

Pastor Perry F. Rockwood's testimony and life story can be read in his booklet "Triumph in God".

Obituary

ROCKWOOD, Pastor Perry F. - Halifax, loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, went to be with the Lord on March 7, 2008, in the VG Site, QEII, following a brief illness. Born on March 23, 1917, in New Glasgow, to Mark and Violet (Baker) Rockwood.

He was born again to newness of life at 19 years of age. He truly loved his Lord and Saviour whom he served faithfully and joyously, and his last words were of Him. As a beloved radio pastor and pastor of Missionary Bible Church, his greatest desire was to bring lost souls to a saving knowledge of the Saviour and to encourage believers in the faith.

Over the past 60 years, the Lord has grown the faith ministry of The Peoples Gospel Hour in order to enable the Gospel to be sent around the world by means of radio and literature and this work will continue, by God's grace, as Pastor Rockwood had planned.

He was predeceased by his wife, Ena (Coulstan); daughter, Joan; his parents; brother, Emmerson, and sisters, Irene, June and Love. Rejoicing that he is with the Lord are his wife, Julia (Sharp); daughter, Judith (Harry) Thompson; sons, Perry (Nancy) Rockwood and Paul (Sue) Browning; grandchildren, Daniel, Matthew, Danny, Mark, Patricia, Jessica, Sandy, Bill, Jackson and Siobhan; great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews; brother, William Rockwood; mother-in-law, Doris Sharp, and brothers and sisters-in-law. Visitation was held in J.A. Snow Funeral Home on Monday from 4-7:30 p.m.

Funeral service was held at 2 p.m. in Missionary Bible Church with Tom Baker, Ian Anderson and Binny Abraham officiating. Burial followed in Fairview Cemetery. Family flowers only, please. On-line condolences were made. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Romans 1:16

Source: The Halifax Chronicle Herald
http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/announcements/display.php?anntype=obituaries~2008/03/11~16473946

Radio Ministry of Perry F. Rockwood

Pastor Rockwood started the Peoples Gospel Hour radio ministry in 1947. The first radio program aired September 5th over CKCL, a radio station in Truro, Nova Scotia. The Lord has blessed and grown the radio ministry over the past 59 years. On September 7, 2007, a special service will be held at Missionary Bible Church to praise the Lord for 60 years of broadcasting. Currently, we broadcast on local stations across Canada, the United States of America, and on several foreign stations. Our radio programs include: "The Peoples Gospel Hour," a thirty minute Sunday broadcast; and "Prophecy For Today," a fifteen minute daily broadcast that airs Monday to Friday.

Canadian Radio stations airing "The Peoples Gospel Hour"

Canadian Radio stations airing "Prophecy for Today"

Publishing Ministry of Perry F. Rockwood

Pastor Rockwood also published many books for Bible study and messages on Christian living and "how to be saved".

Comments About Perry F. Rockwood

• "Perry F. Rockwood is widely known for The Peoples Gospel Hour radio and literature ministry he founded more than six decades ago. He vaulted to fame that same year, 1947, when the Presbyterian Church in Canada defrocked the fiery pastor for preaching four sermons against the apostasy of the denomination that ordained him.
  A self-declared and practising fundamentalist, Rockwood spent a lifetime encouraging personal holiness and �the separated walk [of believers], free from all compromises.� No one ever rightly accused Rockwood of being compromising. His worldwide radio ministry and Halifax church were renowned for warning against diluted forms of Christian faith.
  His many battles included a crusade in favour of the King James Version of the Bible (only!) and against ecumenism of any sort. The charismatic movement was dangerous. Neo-evangelicals like Billy Graham were guilty of increasing compromise which gave the devil a foothold in the Church. Rockwood said "he would no more think of accepting Roman Catholics as Christians than the man on the moon".
  At the same time, he was a gifted Bible teacher loved by many. Perry F. Rockwood died just a few days shy of his 91st birthday. The board of the Peoples Gospel Hour is committed to uphold the KJV and to follow the old paths, being careful not to remove the ancient landmarks."
  - Doug Koop, Editorial Director of Christian Week Newspaper
  Source: http://www.christianweek.org/stories.php?id=115&cat=record

News and Media Reports About Perry F. Rockwood

• Time Magazine - Monday, Mar. 17, 1947
  Presbyterian theologians "don't believe in the Genesis story any more. They claim that the virgin birth of Christ is a myth, also the bodily resurrection of Christ. The Church, as a result, has lost its punch."
  So preached young (29) Presbyterian Minister Perry F. Rockwood in sermon after angry sermon in his little fieldstone church in Truro, Nova Scotia. "Hell," he told his flock, "is a place just as much as Truro is a place. It is not a condition Hell is a place of terrible pain, anguish and suffering. . . . Those who die in their sins must burn and burn and burn forevermore."
  Three years of persistent Pastor Rockwood's fundamentalism was too much for the 173,152-member Presbyterian Church in Canada. Last week a presbytery court convicted him of "following a divisive course."
  Presumably hoping that Pastor Rockwood would change his tune, the court postponed sentence (admonition, suspension or excommunication) until next May. But militant Minister Rockwood promptly resigned. He said that he would "go out on the streets and from house to house like the apostles of old. . . ." At week's end, he was looking for a hall in which to start a church of his own.
  Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,793425,00.html
• The Toronto Star - March 10, 2008
  Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1943, Rockwood suffered a bitter break from the church a few years later after charging the faith's leaders with apostasy during a four-sermon series. The split made front-page news across Canada.
  The fundamentalist preacher soon founded a radio program called the Peoples Gospel Hour, which first aired Sept. 5, 1947, on CKCL Radio in Truro, N.S. Aside from that program, which airs Sundays, Rockwood's project has grown to include Monday through Friday radio broadcasts and the publication of religious booklets.
  His radio programs have been heard on stations in Canada, the United States and throughout the world, including Africa, Asia and Europe.
  Source:http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/331870

Contact The Peoples Gospel Hour

The Peoples Gospel Hour
P. O. Box 1660,
Halifax, NS B3J 3A1 CANADA

phone: 902423-5540

http://www.tpgh.org