• On Sunday July 12 we will all meet together in one worship service at 10:00am. That is also the Sunday we will be ordaining officers. I was speaking recently with the worship leader at another church, and he encouraged us to consider meeting together as one body once a quarter in order to strengthen and unify the church. The elders have agreed, so we’ll begin two weeks from this Sunday. July is a low attendance month for us, so we should fit. For the future we’re looking at Pickering Barn.
• On such an incredible early summer day, so filled with light and beauty, I’m sorry to have to ask for your prayers for this. We may be in the last week of Jeanie Stacy’s sojourn in “the wilderness of this world,” as Bunyan put it. Her entire family is in town and with her. The elders are praying with her and the family tonight. You will know how to pray for this. Please do so. And remember, soon she will be in that city that “has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light” (Rev 21:23).
• Don’t despair of the Supreme Court decision regarding marriage. It is God’s doing, and God’s alone, that “a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife” (Gen 2:24). The way that God has ordered the world, and the lives of his creatures, is timeless and permanent. In Acts 3:21 Peter says of Jesus, “Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” That time will come and all will be restored. In the meantime, the most powerful protest we can make in this world is to show the beauty of a Christ-filled marriage. We are ambassadors sent to a foreign land, representing the one true King. Let your life speak of his love and grace. Truth will win.
• I thought Jason Helopoulos (Assoc. pastor to Kevin DeYoung at University Reformed Church) offered a nice summary of the 43rd General Assembly on the TGC website. You can find it here. I disagree with him, though, on the danger posed by paedocommunion, which in no way revokes Paul’s urging us to “examine” ourselves.