Good morning! Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include a nice little collection from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: Tell God the Unvarnished Story)
Four Compelling Reasons I Am Pro-Life
“While much more could be said, these four reasons I am pro-life are reasons that I want to be on the tip of my tongue and that I hope will be on yours, also.”
Let the Little Children Come
This one from Madelyn is one the same theme of abortion.
How can I grow in my experiential knowledge of God?
How can we grow in our experiential knowledge of God? Here’s an answer from several theologians.
Josef Tson: What His Suffering for Christ in Communist Romania Taught Him, and Can Teach Us
Randy Alcorn: “God convicted Josef. As a pastor he refused to glorify communist leaders and started to speak out boldly for Christ. Interrogators threatened him with death every day for six months. Finally he told them, ‘Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. My preaching will speak ten times louder after you kill me.’”
How to Patiently Prepare for Missionary Work Among the Unreached and Unengaged
How can someone prepare to serve among the unreached and unengaged? This article offers some wisdom.
The Case for (Slightly) Shorter Sermons
I don’t agree with everything here, but I do think he’s on to something when he points out that it’s much easier to write a long, bad sermon than a short, good one. Concision has a way of keeping us honest.
Flashback: Why My Family Doesn’t Do Sleepovers
As I got older I learned of several people I knew who had been taken advantage of during sleepovers, and it wasn’t a perverse father in most cases, but a predatory older brother or sister or cousin. Sometimes it was even the friend himself.

The only fortune worth anything that you can give your child is the fortune you put in his head and heart. —DeWitt Talmage

This week the blog is sponsored by New Covenant OPC and is written by Michael Grasso, Pastor of New Covenant OPC.
Our church, New Covenant OPC, recently started a building campaign to build a new place to worship because we have outgrown our current facilities.  I have been told several times about the difficulties of such an undertaking, which are made even more daunting in light of our location: the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive areas in the country.  Though the process is challenging, we believe that this project will advance the kingdom of God and that supporting it is akin to supporting missions in some important ways.
The Bay Area is not only one of the most expensive places in the country but also one of the darkest.  Certainly, the past decade has seen a general spiritual decline throughout the US and the West as a whole, but for this area, the darkness has been thick for decades.  Another OPC church in San Francisco faced lawsuits, vandalism, and firebombing in the late 1970s and early 80s over the issue of homosexuality.  (You can read more about this here).  If there was anywhere in the US that could be considered a mission field, surely San Francisco would be it.
In the midst of this darkness, those who are standing up for the truth are few and far between.  The vast majority of churches have compromised the truth.  It was common for churches in our area to caution against celebration at the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision in 2022.  Even in the relatively conservative homeschool groups, my family is a part of many of the families told stories of how their churches wanted to make space for those who might be grieving a legal decision that saves the unborn.  Faithful, expository preaching is the vanishingly small exception to the general rule of compromise.
In this darkness, we at New Covenant are trying to hold forth the Word of life faithfully to a lost and dying generation.  I myself am a relatively new pastor, being in my fifth year of service.  We moved from Greenville, South Carolina because we wanted to serve in a place where the gospel was needed, and we can say that God has blessed the ministry.  The church has grown by the grace of God, and what we’ve found is that much of the growth has been from people new to the Reformed faith and expository preaching.  It has been a fairly regular occurrence that new members are excited merely that the Bible is preached.  That is often the main thing that draws people to our church and is so different from what’s happening around us.
Faithful, expository preaching is the vanishingly small exception to the general rule of compromise.Michael GrassoShare
Because of our growth, we are at the point of needing new facilities, a problem for which we thank God.  Most churches would probably think that the new building we are proposing would still make us a small church, but this illustrates how serious our problem is.  We can currently only fit 72 people in our main worship area.  We make use of an overflow room with closed-circuit TV upstairs, but if we were to use every room in our building (which would require some work to set up on our end) the most we could reasonably hope to accommodate is about 90-100.  Our current attendance is anywhere from 65-75.
On top of this, we live in one of the most expensive areas in the country.  It is difficult for the congregation at its current size even to support me as the pastor given the cost of housing in the area, let alone seek to build a new place to worship in such an area.  Our problem is that we cannot accommodate the growth required to be able to support a building project.  We need the building to grow, but we need to grow to have the building.
Hence our appeal.
Our church has historically been one in need of aid, but we hope to become one that gives it through church planting.  By the grace of God we’ve seen growth and regularly put before the congregation the vision of planting another church in the Bay Area.  Our new facility, which would be able to accommodate 160 in the main worship area, would enable us to accommodate enough growth to begin thinking about planting more Bible-preaching, Reformed churches in the Bay Area, churches that are committed to standing for the truth in the face of great darkness.
Hence missions.
What is missions but to labor for the advancement of the gospel and the planting of churches in areas that don’t have it?  Having a church building that can accommodate more growth is a crucial strategic step in being able to plant another church, not to mention the added ministry opportunities a new building could facilitate.
And so, here is our appeal: would you consider supporting our new building project so that more people might be able to sit under the preaching of the Word in a dark area?  Our current goal is to raise $500,000 from sources outside the congregation.  The total project cost is $2.4 million.  Any gift is helpful.  If many people give $100 or $1,000 this adds up.  If you are a person of means, we would ask you to consider giving a more substantial gift to help us.  If you’d like to partner with us for the long haul, consider giving a monthly gift.  Whether or not you give, please join us in praying for the advancement of God’s kingdom in the Bay Area.
To give, visit our Gofundme page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/newcovenantopc.
You can also send gifts via Zelle using the email: [email protected]

This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Zondervan Reflective, who also sponsored the blog this week. They are giving away FIVE copies of Michael Horton’s new book, Recovering Our Sanity.

Here’s more about the book:
How cultivating a healthy fear of God liberates us from our fear of others, our fear of the future, and even our fear of death itself.
At times the world feels like it’s losing its mind. From politics to the pandemic, we live with an ever-increasing uncertainty, and many of us have grown to fear the rapid disintegration of our society and our own lives.
Recovering Our Sanity is not another self-help book about how to beat your daily fears for a better life. It’s a book that will show you the gravity and glory of a God who’s worthy of our fear. It’s a book that will reveal how these two biblical phrases—Fear God and Do Not Be Afraid—are not contradictory but actually one coherent message.
Michael Horton—Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary—shows us that we cannot fight our fears by seeking the absence of fear altogether, but by living with a fear of God that drives out the fear of everything else. Horton will walk you through the case for the fear of God by:

Developing what it means to fear God, biblically and theologically, and what this kind of fear looks like in practice.
Categorizing different types of fears—from cultural anxiety to pain and hardship—and what they stem from.
Focusing on how to confront our earthly fears with our hope in Christ, rooted in the gospel.
Reminding us that God does not exist for us; we exist for God.

Humbling, thought-provoking, and hope-igniting, Recovering Our Sanity delivers a timely message that will help you shift your focus from a human-centered obsession with self-preservation to a fixation on Christ and his salvation.
Rather than clinging to false securities and promises of immediate gratification, you can gain the lasting joy of knowing the One who has given himself to save us and who says to us, “Do not be afraid.”
Enter Here
Again, there are five books to win. And all you need to do to enter the draw is to drop your name and email address in the form below.
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon. If you are viewing this through email, click to visit my site and enter there.