05′ recap:

– I’ll be repenting for the next 60-70 years for not trusting God to bring the perfect woman for me into my life (He did it!)
– silencing your conscience is a dangerous thing.
– some relationships were meant to end.

– some relationships NEEDED to end.
– it’s a beautiful thing to see someone who once cussed you out now call you brother .
– it’s even beautifulER to embrace same person as a beloved sister.
– there are quite a few marriage-able and marriage-ready women out there. That doesn’t mean I’m meant to be with them or they with me. They’ll make some blessed man a good wife one day (hi Rosie, Beth, Cora and Janeen!).
– I see what they say by older women know how to treat you better. I picked up on that off just one date.
– a little anger can go a long way toward losing a job.

– God even uses stupid mistakes to bless His kids.
– I absolutely do NOT deserve my new job, the respect and trust I have at my new job, my new car or my new girlfriend. God is really merciful and gracious.
– it was fun to sit for a month, read, make copies of my resumé and fax it off to other school districts, write, prepare and grow spiritually because I got kicked out of my old classroom and still collect the same paycheck.
– face it – you can’t keep a sparkling reputation with everyone. SOMEONE’s going to ‘not like’ you.

– relationships change, promises sometimes must be broken.
– the difference in growth or stagnation is often the difference between one church and another.
– who says you can’t resurrect old talents for a good purpose ? (see post prior to this one)
– I’m in my second renaissance. Look out.

One last bit of business to take care of:

To Pastor Fuller and All Folks At New Song Bible Fellowship

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Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Some of you remember my leaving NSBF earlier this year. I did a short blogpost about it back in May. Apparently, some folks brought either portions of the post or all of the post to Pastor Fuller’s attention and they as well as he had problems with it.

Let me go on record as stating that I have no ill will toward NSBF, I believe it is a sound church and that people can and do grow there. My post as to why I left NSBF was not meant as a slam on NSBF or anything of the sort. To those offended, I offer my humble and sincere apologies to you publicly. Only one person has privately approached me (per Matthew 18). I’m still waiting on the rest of the offended to come forward instead of holding onto your grudges quietly.

I have a few short statements and observations while I’m here. I hope they will give you (and whomever else) some insight into the motives of my heart for writing. As always, there’s the link below to leave comments – they get published immediately and everyone can read them. Unless you decide to be slanderous and downright insulting (as some past nemesieseses of mine decided to be), I don’t delete or modify comments. So feel free to post if you have anything to say in response.

1. I do not believe that ‘method’ is neutral (you can teach a child a stove is hot by either telling them or sticking their hand in the flame….but one ‘method’ will get you jail time) – as a result, I know that for me personally, I need expositional preaching and a certain type of fellowship, level of contact and consistency and I did not find that at NSBF. Others have and still do to this day. As I have grown in my theology and as the Lord has been working in my heart to move forward in terms of opportunities for leadership, mentoring, discipleship and training, I found it necessary to be somewhere that all of these things would be properly nutured in me or a wider scale and found more of them in the Free Church than at New Song.

These were the basic points of my initial post. I let several folks (Calvinist and non-Calvinist including one NSBF member) read through them and none of them found them (with the exception of possibly one or two of my comments) to be offensive, malignant, slanderous or otherwise. In fact, they applauded me for the way I still said I would not bash NSBF on the net and how I believed that the church was still a solid church, though not a reformed church. For the sake of the offended brethren, I have removed the previous blog post on why I left NSBF from public view on this blog. I do this in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 6:7 – “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?”

2. I do not believe that speaking these things constitutes ‘speaking against God’s work’, as I was told. I could rattle off page after page of financial, spiritual and other blessings that I have had since leaving NSBF, but it could come across as boasting. Instead, I will simply treasure them amongst my friends and those who have been privy to them (which you can easily glean by reading my blog) and give all glory, praise and thanks to God alone for them, as He has been tremendously merciful and gracious toward me. I will boast only in the cross and the God who gives the gifts, because I recognize the God who gives them does so for His glory. I recognize my times of struggle (financial, spiritual and otherwise) as sometimes being a part of God’s pruning of me. The ‘molding’ process in the Master’s hands is not always easy and not always painLESS, but at the end a man is made to shine forth the image of Christ in his/her life. I praise God for the times when I did struggle – they taught me much. I glory in them because ‘before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your commandments’ (Psalm 119:67). Praise Him that He does not deal with us as our sins deserve.

I do thank NSBF for being there for me at some of my rough times. Through prayer, some words of encouragement and other areas of support, I can truly say without a doubt that NSBF has been there for me. Thank you, Pastor Fuller, for those times you had set aside for me where we talked and where you gave me some godly advice. Thank you for driving me around to Sears in Virginia when my battery died on the road on the way home from Men’s Retreat a few years ago. It was God’s Sovereignty that you just happened to have left 2-4 miles behind me on the road so that it wasn’t completely out of the way for you on the way back home.

3. I would still recommend people to NSBF as a good church in the area. There are plenty of things at New Song that are worthy of praise and contrary to what some may think, I don’t believe God has extinguished the lampstand that is NSBF. I pray for God’s continued blessings upon NSBF, as the church has grown in leaps and bounds since its’ inception a decade and a half ago, the church is financially stable, you’re able to do outreach to the community, disciple folks and spur folks onto maturity in Christ. These things are all good and in line with the scriptures and I can say nothing bad about them.

More could be said, but I think this will suffice. I pray that you all are continually blessed and grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord during 2006 and that in all things, you continuously seek to give Him glory. This is and always has been the intention of my heart toward NSBF. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me.

Your Fellow Servant and Brother,
Kerry Gilliard