Letter from the Pastor February, 10th 2026
INTRODUCTION
“Woe is me,” cried Isaiah when he was given a vision of the reality and holiness of God. We might give the same response as we seek to understand the doctrine of God in the Second London Confession. Chapter 2 of this historic Baptist confession of faith is entitled Of God & the Holy Trinity. Over the next five weeks we’ll walk through the three paragraphs …
For the 2023 year, our church will work through a modified version of the Heidelberg Catechism in our corporate worship services. Click the link below to download a PDF version of the file:
“The first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism is the whole gospel in a nutshell; blessed is he who can repeat it from the heart and hold it fast to the end.”
– Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom
The first book I have read in 2019 may very well be the best book I read all year. Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung is a no-holds-barred argument for the sufficiency of Scripture as the source for understanding God’s will for your life. For too long evangelical Christians have been mired in the confusing and endless bog of “finding the center of God’s will for my life,” and DeYoung apparently had enough of it. …
A new series for this blog in 2017 will be Book Thoughts. A while back a friend and I began sharing the best quotes and thoughts we had from our personal reading. The idea was to give one another greater access to books without having to read as many. If I read a book, my friend could benefit from reading the quotes I pulled out and any thoughts I shared. For 2017, when ever I …
I hate, hate, hate commenting on politics.
But, as a pastor who gets asked a lot of questions about how our faith intersects with the political realm I do feel the need to share some thoughts. I won’t address any candidates here. My goal is the help you understand how I think about politics and in doing so, perhaps, help you think more deeply and critically as well.
Chances are you have Christian friends who …
I love following the ministry of Ray Ortlund. I listen to just about every sermon he preaches from his pulpit at Immanuel Nashville. He recently posted a few thoughts I’d love every church member to hear on God, music, and the gospel. Ray, like me, believes that God gifts all humans with abilities that we, as Christians, can glorify God for and enjoy. Here’s a sample of what he shares:
…“The glory and honor
A chasm stretches between the words “is” and “does”. Unfortunately, we live in a culture far more interested in “does” than “is”, and this interest negatively affects the way we think about the church. If I were to ask the average church member to tell me about the church I would get hundreds of “does” answers.
This morning I responded to an email from a church member who is in a unique position to do gospel ministry. In our area this past month a young boy took his own life. Now people close to the situation are approaching this church member asking searching questions about life and death. She emailed me asking how she should respond. Below is a slightly altered version of my email response. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t …
NERD ALERT: As posts on this site go, this one is in the uber-nerd category. My apologies.
Earlier this week I had to answer the following question in a discussion board for school: Why does the church in NA often struggle with finding a good tension between being in the world but not of it? Other ways to state the question are, “What is the relationship between God and this world” or, “What is the …
