Yesterday, we mailed out the first edition of The Reformed Baptist Trumpet, the quarterly e-newsletter of the Reformed Baptist Fellowship of Virginia. Thanks to Judi LaGrange for her work in putting the newsletter together and building our email database. We are still working out a few gmail kinks with the mailing. If you did not get a copy and want to be added to the list, email your request to reformedbaptist.va@gmail.com. Thanks also to Steve Clevenger who has put up a starter website with an announcement about the upcoming Keach Conference.
Below is the opening editorial for the first issue of the RBT. Other articles in this issue include: John Thackway's "Why Good Men Change," a book review of The Dark Side of Christian Counseling, and a Paradosis excerpt from Benjamin Keach titled "A Call to Self-Examination." You can view a pdf of the complete first issue posted on googledocs here (though it's a little grainy):
A New Thing
In Isaiah 43:19 the Lord declares through the prophet Isaiah, “Behold, I will do a new thing….” The Lord continues to do new things among us. For over nine years the “Evangelical Forum” served as an organization promoting fellowship and mutual encouragement for pastors and other servants within Baptist churches in Virginia. Included in the Evangelical Forum ministry was an annual theology and ministry conference each fall that was hosted at various churches. This annual conference featured well respected speakers such as Tom Nettles, Michael Haykin, Greg Barkman, Joseph Pipa, Conrad Mbewe, and Derek Thomas and provided an occasion for fellowship and encouragement.
Early in 2010 the Evangelical Forum steering committee met to reorganize this ministry. For several years we had grown uncomfortable with confusion over the name “Evangelical.” Though appreciating the emphasis on the evangel (gospel), the consensus was that the word has been stretched thin by the wider evangelical movement. As the years have passed those involved in this ministry have become more convinced that the key to authentic and lasting reformation will mean a greater and not a lesser commitment to confessional clarity and unity. We believe, therefore, that the time has come to change the name of this ministry to the Reformed Baptist Fellowship of Virginia.
We also decided to re-christen the annual conference as the “Keach Conference,” after early Particular Baptist minister Benjamin Keach (c. 1640-1704). The conference will be held as originally scheduled on Friday-Saturday, September 24-25, 2010 in Charlottesville. The conference theme will be “Of Creation” following our chapter by chapter series through the Second London Baptist Confession (1689). Our guest speakers will be Tom Ascol and David P. Murray. For more details, see the information in this issue.
Finally, we decided to make some changes with our newsletter, including renaming it The Reformed Baptist Trumpet and moving from a print to an electronic format. We hope to send out issues quarterly.
We hope you will make plans now to join us for the Keach Conference in September as we move forward in this new chapter for the Reformed Baptist Fellowship of Virginia and with the “new thing” God is doing in our midst.
JTR
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