A few months ago in the process of writing the monthly newsletter, I shared the following personal journal entry with the congregation.  I don't write in my journal every day, but do find it regularly helpful to take thoughts of mind and heart, turn them into prayers, and put them on paper.

I reflected that a "blog" is in some ways a personal journal made public.  So I am willing to experiment with this mode of communication if it proves helpful to my soul as I write and to others who might want to read.

To Our Members and Friends,

            This morning in the midst of journaling and remembering that I needed to write a congregational letter, I thought I might try to combine the two.  Some have encouraged me to become a "blogger."  I suppose I could consider a blog as a public journal.  In any case here goes...

            "Dear Father (I have learned to relish the salutation from the childlike prayers of Martin Luther), I awake alert this morning – sermon sentences from yesterday reverberating in my mind.  I have deep convictions about the veracity of what we believe, but how it puts us in the minority, not only of Americans, but of professing Christians!  These things we hold dear:

(1)  A Calvinistic understanding of salvation, maintaining the essential nature of both Law and Gospel, under a banner of divine sovereignty;

(2)  The baptism of the infant children of believing parents because of a covenantal understanding of Scripture;

(3)  The exclusion of women from ordained officer-ship in the governance of the church because of clear Biblical instruction;

(4)  Not being given over to entertainment and man-centeredness in the worship of God, using historic hymns and creeds, and hearing sermons with substantial Biblical content;

(5)  Differing significantly in our beliefs from the common dispensational understanding of much of evangelical theology and redemptive history;

(6)  Attempting to practice church discipline and personal accountability in the midst of a very permissive culture;

(7)  Believing that the strength of the church lies not in the bigness of the numbers in budgets and attendance, but in the composite godliness and holiness of the families.  I think it would be more honoring to God and His Kingdom to have 10 really spiritually healthy congregations of 100 people than to have 1 congregation of a thousand.

(8)  Being convinced that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ truly is the power of God for salvation to all who believe it, and trusting that as the Holy Spirit works through the Word, there really will continue to be elect souls brought into the Kingdom of the Lord Christ.

All of these characteristics go against the flow of our society.  If we flourish, it can only be by Your blessing.  O, Lord, how long can I, can we, continue to endure this swim against the tide of contemporary culture? 

"You have need of endurance...  My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him."  (Heb. 10:35-39)

I need mental and spiritual toughness, not to forsake the way, to give in, as Francis Schaeffer used the term, to "accommodation" with the world.

O, Lord, is it worth being that different?  But which one of the 8 things listed above can be negotiable and we still remain Biblically faithful?  Are any of those characteristics optional in Your eyes?

On the other hand, Father, I can err with a prideful Elijah-like complex, ‘We're the only ones left.'  No, You preserve a remnant of Your choosing that does not bow the knee to Baal.

Strengthen me, strengthen us, in faithfulness.  We will reap a harvest of righteousness in due season if we do not give up."

If this were a real interactive blog, I suppose any of you readers could comment.

I love you all, and desire God's best for each of you.  May He shape us together into a Bride fit for the Redeemer and multiply the effect of our ministry into the souls of many.

Pastor Steve