Grace and Peace to all,

I've not been a member for very long, but I have been lurking for a few years and decided it was time to do the introduction. I am currently serving a church in southern WV in the Appalachians. This is like home to me since I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. I attended a mainline seminary and started becoming convicted of the Doctrines of Grace when I began supply preaching at a small church in Southern Illinois during my second year. The Lord used my weekly engagement with Scripture, plus the reading of Calvin, Sproul, and the PB, to open my eyes and heart to the truth of his Word and to sound Biblical doctrine.

Through God's providence I have been blessed to lead a small church who, for the most part, are enjoying a return to Reformed teaching and preaching. We are a distinct minority here in the Southern coalfields of WV. There are churches everywhere and almost everybody has been ordained by some small independent church. We are a small island in an ocean of Freewill Baptists, Pentecostals, and non-denominatal churches. My wife constantly has to defend the church and the Reformed faith where she works as do many of my members. Ironically, we are not attacked because of denominational affiliation, but for things central to the Doctrines of Grace like total depravity and the perseverance of the saints.

Also, I think I am becoming part of a 1% or 2 % minority in the PCUSA. (I choose two percenter as a title, since one percenter generally refers to a member of an outlaw biker motorcycle club.) I am moving toward the KJV/NKJV as my primary teaching and preaching Bible. Recent surveys of PCUSA shows that pastors in the PCUSA who use the KJV/NKJV make up around one to two percent of total pastors. The overwhelming majority use the NRSV, as is the case with most mainliners, and the NIV following a distance second. (I know Grymir here on the PB uses the KJV and is PCUSA.) I do not desire this to be a source of sinful pride, and I pray I am making the right decision (all of our pew Bibles, Sunday School material, and bulletin inserts are NRSV). This is not meant to hijack an introductory thread, and I will probably start a new thread on this issue.

I look forward to interacting on the PB. I seldom get an opportunity to discuss matters of Reformed theology dear to my heart (outside of teaching them in the church), since we are in a fairly remote rural area.

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Chris
Teaching Elder (PCUSA)
West Virginia

Hello and welcome!

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~etexas~

Hello!!!!!!!

I am from West Virginia, in fact I was just "resigned" from being an Inquirer under care of the CPM of the Presbytery of WV at the last Presbytery meeting.

I went to Bluestone and Triennium with a couple kids from Gilbert church growing up. Nice to have you here!!!

(And I am a Big Thundering Herd fan)...

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church

Student of Theology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
My Blog

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

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Chris Poe--Attending Grace Community Baptist Church, Mandeville, LA

"There never was a man in the world without a creed. What is a creed? A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe. That declaration may be oral or it may be committed to writing, but the creed is there either expressed or implied."—B.H. Carroll

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Will Shin
Rockville, MD

Welcome.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Heylo! Welcomies! Glad to have you here.

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Nikki Edmond
New Beginnings Believers Bible Fellowship (Family's Church), Non-Denom
Los Angeles, CA
www.haveatulip.com - Chat Room for Reformed Believers
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Welcome to the Puritan Board!

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"On land, at sea, at home, abroad, / I smoke my pipe and worship God." -- J.S. Bach

I have some family in Clay County.

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Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

This may explain the old adage about Baptists being Methodists with shoes, and Presbyterians being Baptists who can read. To round out the adage, Lutherans might qualify as Presbyterians who drink to excess, and Episcopalians as Lutherans who know when to say when. - D.G. Hart

Welcome! How nice to have you emerge from lurk mode. ;^)

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Anne Ivy
Christ Chapel Bible Church
Fort Worth, Texas

Married to Don, mother of six, grandmother to an ever-increasing brood.

The Ivy Vine (my blog)

Howdy!

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Ben
Sanford, NC
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

Good to meet you.

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Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
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"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
-- John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.

"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk

Chris,



Greetings from Charleston, brother!

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Joshua Wiseman
Riverview PCA
Charleston, WV

"Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings."
- Psalm 17:8

So you're a percenter, huh? I think jaybird (here on the PB) is a percenter at his church too.

David,

Really? Whereabout?

Benjamin,

You had asked me a question in a different thread about Riverview, and I forgot to respond. Riverview is on the Kanawha Boulevard, between Morris and Bradford streets. We meet in a refurbished motel; I think it used to be Marvin's Midtown Motel or something like that (that was before I came). We meet in what used to be the restaurant, and use the rooms for Sunday school, visiting missionaries, etc.

Everyone else,

...

You ain't from around here, are ya'?

::Suspicious sneer::

Know exactly where you are JD. Do you know the circular glass house on the hill? Used to be in my family.

Benjamin,

Actually, I can't think of where it is off the top of my head. Which bothers me, because it means that I've either missed something obvious, or am officially getting old and forgetful.



I'll make sure to look when I'm down there next.

Off to work.

Take care friends!

It is near the UC campus and the old Columbia Gas building on an outcropping.

Welcome sir!

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Ian Kemmerer
Covenant Presbetyrian Church,Reading,PA
Fleetwood,PA

"Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart, And all is darkened in the vale of tears, Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart, Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears. Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay From His own fullness all He takes away."

Howdy and welcome.

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Chris Coldwell
Lakewood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Member
• Naphtali Press: Presbyterian & Reformed Books
• The Confessional Presbyterian, A Journal for Discussion of Presbyterian Doctrine & Practice
• The Blue Banner Archive

When heresy rises in an evangelical body, it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the ‘old dead orthodoxy,’ and on having left behind many of its antiquated errors: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonableness of their accusers, as they ‘differ from it only in words.’ This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. Samuel Miller, Introductory essay, The Articles of the Synod of Dort (1841).

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

Welcome to the party.

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Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)

Has Sirmon taken over the controls again?