Easter Sunday prayer

Worshiping with my Trinity family was again a wonderful time of praise, community and joy. What a day for celebration!

I was also struck that our lending library has an essential need that I should share: prayer for the Lord to use these new resources to build His Kingdom workers.

Whatever our motives for having a lending library, whatever our efforts to provide and promote and proffer, they will all be worthless if the Lord does not grace us to read, think and grow through this ministry.

Please pray with me that God will bless this work He began, that His Spirit will move in all our hearts, that we may hunger for His word and His truth -- to His glory.

Alleluia! He is risen.
And through that same power may we too rise to grow and serve.

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This Blog -- a 2-way communication

The neat thing about blogs is you can leave comments for each post and share your thoughts.

Click on the title of the post you want to respond to (such as this post's title, "This Blog -- a 2-way communication").

You'll see the post, and below it, a place to leave comments. Just type in your thoughts, and then click "preview," (if you're wise =), or simply "post" it.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Great Opening Day

It was exciting to see the pieces come together: books and audios that the church family has donated, the gifted cabinet building by Dave Morris, and the church's first inspection of the new ministry.

Two main questions came up today:

1) How do we borrow books? We're using the old card system to do this.

• Pull out the yellow card from the pocket in the front of the book.
• Write in your name and the current date.
• Drop the card into the Check-Out Card envelope you'll find on the top shelf.
• Bring the book back within 3 weeks.

Simple!

2) What are we needing now?

• READERS who will "take responsibility" to use this ministry to grow.
• Some folks have asked about specific titles and authors we're looking for. Click on the right-hand sidebar on "Resources the library seeks." We'll keep that page current. Thanks for asking and helping!

All in all, a terrific day -- and we received some great contributions that we'll be adding to the collection in the coming days.

Let's see how the Lord will have us grow! Can't wait.

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Library debut -- and the brochure

We've been preparing for tomorrow's debut of the new library collection, and we've made a brochure to give an overview of the new ministry. (See the sidebar to the right, and click on "Brochure about the ministry" to see it.)

I continue amazed at the Lord's rich provision for us -- and of our great need to be reading and thinking and growing.

What a great time to be a part of Trinity PCA in Boerne!

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Contributing new books

This week we received several of Tim Keller's most recent books. The interesting twist was that the books were bought new, just for Trinity's library.

One of the first bits of news that we published about our library was a listing of titles and authors that we wanted to have in our collection. The donor checked what we had received, compared that to what we wanted, and was able to help build our library in line with our vision. What a wonderful gift!

If you aren't familiar with Tim Keller, you'll be amazed at the power with which he ministers God's Word and wisdom in a compelling way that is so relevant to our daily life. Keller planted the first PCA church in New York City, and today his ministry reaches around the world, literally.

We will soon have available some audio recordings of his sermons as well as the audio book format for some of the print titles.

We're growing in depth as well as number!

• Keller, Timothy Generous justice: How God's grace makes us just
• Keller, Timothy King's cross:The story of the world in the life of Jesus
• Keller, Timothy The Prodigal God: Recovering the heart of the Christian faith
• Keller, Timothy The Reason for God: Belief in an age of skepticism
• Keller, Timothy Counterfeit Gods:The empty promises of money, sex, and power, and the only hope that matters

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Another Sunday, and more riches contributed

We received another box of books today at church, and I was thrilled to find several of our sought and needed items:

• the 5-volume set of The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (on my own To-Read list!)
• two excellent concordances (an index and listing of key words from the Bible), both a brief reference edition and a large, exhaustive version;
• the 2-volume Bible Knowledge Commentary of the Old and New Testaments;
• and more that will help both Bible study-ers and parents of covenant children.

I am privileged to see God's work to bring together such a ministry for us as a church family. Can't wait to share these with you next Sunday!

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Getting the books ready

It has been so much fun to organize, catalog and prepare some books for next week's debut of our lending library! (for April 10, 2011)

Seeing these beautiful, high quality reading materials has been an encouragement to continue my own spiritual growth.

Theology, Christian living, devotional materials and a smattering of fiction -- there is sure to be something that will interest everyone.

You can see the books that will be the first on our library shelves by clicking on the "Pages" link, "Listing of materials in our library collection."

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