In the September/October 2008 Discernment Newsletter the well-known Christian writer Warren Smith introduced his friend Pastor Larry DeBruyn to the wider discernment world, describing him as his “brother in the Lord [who] has become a friend and a confidant.” Discernment Ministries had just scheduled Pastor Larry to be a keynote speaker at their “Transformation of the Church Conference” at the Michiana Christian Embassy in Niles, Michigan on October 10-11th. Warren thought it would be nice to give him a stellar recommendation: 

“Over the last three years, Larry has written many articles on various theological, apologetic and spiritual issues. From a biblical perspective, his incisive writings discuss many complex and deceptive influences facing today’s believers….. 

“I believe Larry is a man God has raised up to expound His truth in these last days, a task that God has literally kept Larry alive to do. Less than two years ago, while teaching at the Word of Life Bible Institute in Hungary, he contracted a severe case of the flu, became severely dehydrated, formed blood clots, and suffered a massive heart attack. While on the hour and half ride in an ambulance to the hospital in Budapest, his heart stopped, and he had to be defibrillated, seven times. Literally, he and others believe that God rescued him from death’s door and kept him alive to continue to do ministry. While he may not have the stamina he did as a 23-year-old youth who, along with his lifelong friend Pastor Bob Gifford of Dale City, Virginia, bicycled across the United States in 1968, God continues to perfect His strength in Larry’s weakness. I am proud to consider him my friend.”

Warren Smith then brought Larry DeBruyn into our Discernment Research Group, the research team behind the publishing on the Herescope blog. He spurred Pastor Larry to begin to write detailed research articles on pressing New Age heresies. Larry was perfectly suited for the task, approaching these issues with theological integrity and scholary acumen. He quickly became an integral member and prolific writer for our team. He began by submitting articles and devotionals that were published not only on the blog but also in the Discernment Newsletter and on their website. Other active members of our Discernment Research Group at that time period included Pastor Ken Silva, Susan J. Conway, Jewel Grewe, Kim Treweek, Barbara Wilhelm, Dr. Orrel Steinkamp and Dr. Martin Erdmann. We often networked with other outstanding discernment ministries, especially Sandy Simpson at https://www.deceptioninthechurch.com, Mike Oppenheimer at www.letusreason.org and Berit Kjos at http://www.crossroad.to. 

Pastor Larry was instrumental in adding Gaylene Goodroad to our team. In 2007 she had attended a Discernment Women’s Conference in Lafayette, Indiana. When she learned about Pastor Larry through Discernment Ministries she discovered that his Franklin Road Baptist Church was nearby, so she and husband Steve enthusiastically began attending. Gaylene has been recognized as a gifted researcher and talented writer specializing in Eastern Mysticism, which was her background before being saved. 

Our blog writing process was atypical: it was almost always a group project. On a daily basis our researchers dug up current controversial theological issues entering the evangelical church world. Our writers then collaborated: one of us would draft something and pass it along to the others for review, correction, commentary and additional research. Pastor Larry assumed the role of our group’s pastor, overseeing our work with with his godly wisdom and biblical foundation. Ever present in the background was Pastor Gifford, Pastor Larry’s best friend whose wise counsel was valued. 

It was a joy to work with Pastor Larry. He would normally phone me each day about 10 AM and read the latest paragraphs he was working on. Revision after revision, edit after edit… and a few days or weeks later he would send in the final copy. But it was never the final copy! Larry repeatedly submitted changes even after we had posted it on the blog! My email archives contain hundreds of emails back and forth as he tweaked his text. Some he would dictate entire paragraphs of updates over the phone. And then I’d hear from him again in the next 24 hours, and then again a few days later, until he was (sort of) satisifed with the final result. The upshot, he would inform me, is that the only affirmatively final copy of any article would be what he published in his books and booklets.

The Lord put together Pastor Larry and Pastor Ken Silva of https://www.apprising.org. Both men possessed a great sense of humor and they began working together on evangelical satire. Whenever the latest evangelical craze would come out, Pastor Ken would send us the documentation with the cynical notation: “when truth is stranger than fiction.” Evangelical elites had been inventing new terminologies and theologies for decades and it was only getting worse, so to illustrate the absurdity of their heresies we decided to invent our own new satirical words and terminologies. Larry would launch into a satirical idea, then phone me, and with a deep belly laugh he’d try to start reading his first draft. He’d have to stop because he was laughing so hard. By then we were both in stitches, unable to speak! We wrote and re-wrote, and then sent it off to Pastor Ken who developed creative graphics and put the final polish on our post. Some of Pastor Larry’s satire was published exclusively on Ken Silva’s website, which we will list here. These are the most precious memories I have of working with these two pastors, faithful servants of God now in glory. 

Truly Pastor Larry had received a second calling of the Lord upon his life. After years of humbly pastoring a local church God moved him onto the global scene where he became well known. At our Herescope blog, where almost all of his writings were published, he frequently received letters from other pastors around the world thanking him for doing the in-depth research and biblical apologetics that they were ill-equipped to do on the latest evangelical heresy. Jewel Grewe and the Discernment Ministries board of directors recognized his extraordinary giftings, and we began to schedule Pastor Larry on our conference circuit, not only in the United States but for missionary trips overseas to teach at Bible schools. His travels included Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Hungary, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other countries. Some of his work is recorded in the Discernment Newsletters. 

Meanwhile Pastor Larry was also prolifically writing articles on Herescope, including in-depth series, some of which he published into books and small booklets. He was adamant that all the profits from these sales be used exclusively for the specific missionary work he supported. Pastor Gifford’s church helped Larry to set up a website and maintained it until recently. Pastor Larry selectively posted many of his key writings at his website, again freely available to the public at no cost. 

Pastor Larry especially ministered to me and Gaylene Goodroad. There was more than one occasion when we women were maligned for the hard-hitting articles we were writing. Besides our two husbands, Larry became our staunchest defender! He encouraged us and pushed us to continue working on our articles. Pastor Gifford supported us with kind words of edification and encouragement, especially after Pastor Larry passed on to glory. We have truly been blessed to have these men shepherding our work. 

We will be concurrently featuring Gaylene Goodroad as a writer. She authored more than fifty articles on this site. This includes all the articles that were co-written by our blog team. May you all be blessed to have easy access to this treasure trove of Gospel truth to refute the current heresies in the church world.