Long before there was a Young, Restless, and Reformed movement, there was a movement of young, settled, and confessionally Reformed pastors and theologians in Heidelberg. It began in the late 1550s and continued until 1576 when they were all ejected—for being Reformed. In those years some of the brightest minds of Reformed theology gathered in one city, a collection that rivaled any in Zürich, Geneva, or Strasbourg. There a great university was pressed into the service of the Reformed churches and Reformed theology, piety, and practice. A monastery became a leading Reformed seminary and a catechism was produced. Though we think of the catechism as a German catechism the rest of the world knew it as a Latin catechism and it was quickly translated into popular European languages and into English. It had a powerful effect in Oxford and Cambridge.
I mention all this because 2013 is the 450th anniversary of the publication of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Selbständige Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche Heidelberg (The Free Evangelical-Reformed Church Heidelberg) is holding a conference July 18-21, 2013. You know the speakers (Horton, Bierma, Payne, Beeke and others) and, of course, the talks will be in English. Heidelberg is a beautiful city and it will be a great opportunity to get to know one of the great centers of the Reformed Reformation first hand.