by Stephen Rodgers

As we’ve done in years past, we’ll be taking a brief hiatus for the month of July. In case anyone is curious as to the reasons behind that, in no particular order they are:

• This is a time where a number of our members who support the Beacon directly and indirectly are unavailable: many collegians are out of town, summer mission team members are out of the country, etc.
• This is a time where we like to give our pastors, elders, and ministry coordinators a little bit of a break from writing articles. Some use it to catch up, others to get ahead, but they really do appreciate a few weeks off. And this year, some of them are also out on the mission field.
• Last but not least, this gives us on the Beacon staff an opportunity to update, upgrade, and generally tweak some of the code under the hood, without the fear that we’ll inadvertently bring the site down and prevent you from receiving fresh content. (We just inadvertently bring down the site and prevent you from receiving any content whatsoever…just kidding…mostly).

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to take the opportunity to explore and catch up on some past articles you may have missed. Here’s a few of my favorites:

• Since summer missions are usually happening now (this year is an exception), you might want to review either the entire missions category, or the Argentina missions or Czech missions sub-categories. We did a whole series on missions last year, so if you haven’t read that, this is a great chance to catch up.
• An oldie-but-a-goodie is the Peacemaker series. If you haven’t read that book or listened to that Sunday School series, I’d strongly recommend you do so.

And if that’s still not enough for you, then you’re welcome to browse all our various series, check out recommended resources, or find a ministry to join.

That’s it for now. See you in August!

Pro Rege

by Stephen Rodgers

The staff of the Beacon ministry would like to wish you and your family a joyous Christmas. We hope you have a restful and happy time reflecting on the fact that our savior both came into this world, and will return again one day.

We’ll be taking a break for a few weeks to reorganize and make plans for next year, but we’ll be back in 2018. Until then, enjoy the break (and the archives if you just can’t bear to be separated from us for that long).

by Stephen Rodgers

Due to some changes in the world of static web-hosting, we’ve brought Stoogle entirely in-house (see the top menu). Since I’m sure there’s at least one person out there scratching their head and wondering “What’s a Stoogle?” this is probably a good time to explain.

First, I should mention that I didn’t name it. Someone else did, with the intention of making a portmanteau of “Stephen” and “Google.” However, it turns out that “Stoogle” is also a slang term for stalking someone on the internet using a search engine…but by the time we figured that out, it was too late. The thing was already branded.

But what is it, you might still be wondering. Stoogle is a little search engine I built using the Google Custom Search tool a few years ago to aid in my personal study. You use it just like any search engine, but instead of searching the entire internet, it only searches a small subset of websites. It also categorizes these websites into search refinements if you want to further narrow down your results.

This is not to say that these are the only good Christian websites out there. There are many, many more that could have been included, but weren’t for reasons of time, technical challenges, and/or diminishing returns. But generally speaking, these are reliable websites who aren’t going to lead you astray, even if they might disagree with the LBC Statement of Faith in a few places. As I’ve said before:

Just because a source is recommended here does not indicate that every doctrine it professes reflects the beliefs of LBC or it’s leaders (if you are interested, you are welcome to read LBC’s Statement of Faith) or with each other. Faithful men of God have held positions on secondary and tertiary issues that differ from our own, and we hold them no less Christian for doing so. God calls Christians to love Him with their mind (Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27) and to examine every teaching in light of the totality of Scripture (Acts 17:11).

That being said, Stoogle has saved me countless hours by filtering out some of the more rampant craziness that the internet has no shortage of. I hope you’ll find it helpful as well.

by Stephen Rodgers

As we’ve done in years past, we’ll be taking a brief hiatus for the month of July. In case anyone is curious as to the reasons behind that, in no particular order they are:

• This is a time where a number of our members who support the Beacon directly and indirectly are unavailable: many collegians are out of town, summer mission team members are out of the country, etc.
• This is a time where we like to give our pastors, elders, and ministry coordinators a little bit of a break from writing articles. Some use it to catch up, others to get ahead, but they really do appreciate a few weeks off. And this year, some of them are also out on the mission field.
• Last but not least, this gives us on the Beacon staff an opportunity to update, upgrade, and generally tweak some of the code under the hood, without the fear that we’ll inadvertently bring the site down and prevent you from receiving fresh content. (We just inadvertently bring down the site and prevent you from receiving any content whatsoever…just kidding…mostly).

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to take the opportunity to explore and catch up on some past articles you may have missed.  Here’s a few of my favorites:

• As was mentioned earlier today after the introduction-to-Ezra sermon, there’s an introduction-to-Ezra article here on the Beacon that you might want to read. If you liked that, you might want to check out the whole series (thus far).
• Since summer missions are happening now, you might want to review either the entire missions category, or the Argentina missions or Czech missions sub-categories.
• An oldie-but-a-goodie is the Peacemaker series. If you haven’t read that book or listened to that Sunday School series, I’d strongly recommend you do so.
• And if that’s still not enough for you, then you’re welcome to browse all our various series, check out recommended resources, or find a ministry to join.

That’s it for now. See you in August!

Pro Rege

by Stephen Rodgers

As we’ve done in years past, we’ll be taking a brief hiatus for the month of July. In case anyone is curious as to the reasons behind that, in no particular order they are:

• This is a time where a number of our members who support the Beacon directly and indirectly are unavailable: many collegians are out of town, summer mission team members are out of the country, etc.
• This is a time where we like to give our pastors, elders, and ministry coordinators a little bit of a break from writing articles. Some use it to catch up, others to get ahead, but they really do appreciate a few weeks off. And this year, some of them are also out on the mission field.
• Last but not least, this gives us on the Beacon staff an opportunity to update, upgrade, and generally tweak some of the code under the hood, without the fear that we’ll inadvertently bring the site down and prevent you from receiving fresh content. (We just inadvertently bring down the site and prevent you from receiving any content whatsoever…just kidding…mostly).

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to take the opportunity to explore and catch up on some past articles you may have missed.  Here’s a few of my favorites:

• Since summer missions are happening now, you might want to review either the entire missions category, or the Argentina missions or Czech missions sub-categories.
• An oldie-but-a-goodie is the Peacemaker series. If you haven’t read that book or listened to that Sunday School series, I’d strongly recommend you do so.
• And if that’s still not enough for you, then you’re welcome to browse all our various series, check out recommended resources, or find a ministry to join.

That’s it for now. See you in August!

Pro Rege

by Stephen Rodgers

Based on some preliminary traffic numbers, it looks like we might see some new faces today. If so, welcome! Let me give you a quick tour and then get out of your way so you can explore.

• Typically the Beacon updates anywhere from 3-4 times per week. Our “regular” articles are updates from our pastor and elders, updates from the various ministries, the “weekly links” where we highlight other articles around the web, and a devotional from Spurgeon on Saturday. We may add some new series in the near future, so keep an eye out!
• As I’ve said before, you can read the Beacon on the web (this page), get updates on Facebook, via the iOS app, via the Android app, or via RSS.
• We’ve collected most of our articles and series in the “Hub Post Directory.” If you’re looking for a series, it’s probably here. Some of the most popular series are on the topics of baptism, the books of the Old Testament, dating, an overview of theology, being a peacemaker, communion, and the charismatic gifts. There are plenty of others as well.
• If you want to do some research on your own, you should check out our page of recommended resources, as well as Stoogle (a custom search engine that is quite helpful).

Feel free to poke around and take a look. If you notice anything that needs fixing or updating, or even if you just have a good idea for an article or series, just let a staff member now. As of the time of this writing, the staff members are Stephen, Richard, and Cesar (although you could probably figure that out since their names are on a lot of the recent articles!).

Thanks for reading!

Pro Rege

by Stephen Rodgers

As we’ve done in years past, we’ll be taking a brief hiatus for the month of July. In case anyone is curious as to the reasons behind that, in no particular order they are:

• This is a time where a number of our members who support the Beacon directly and indirectly are unavailable: many collegians are out of town, summer mission team members are out of the country, etc.
• This is a time where we like to give our pastors, elders, and ministry coordinators a little bit of a break from writing articles. Some use it to catch up, others to get ahead, but they really do appreciate a few weeks off. And this year, some of them are also out on the mission field.
• Last but not least, this gives us on the Beacon staff an opportunity to update, upgrade, and generally tweak some of the code under the hood, without the fear that we’ll inadvertently bring the site down and prevent you from receiving fresh content. (We just inadvertently bring down the site and prevent you from receiving any content whatsoever…just kidding…mostly).

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to take the opportunity to explore and catch up on some past articles you may have missed.  Here’s a few of my favorites:

• Since summer missions are happening now, you might want to review either the entire missions category, or the Argentina missions or Czech missions sub-categories.
• An oldie-but-a-goodie is the Peacemaker series. If you haven’t read that book or listened to that Sunday School series, I’d strongly recommend you do so.
• And if that’s still not enough for you, then you’re welcome to browse all our various series, check out recommended resources, or find a ministry to join.

That’s it for now. See you in August!

Pro Rege

by Stephen Rodgers

This is just a quick note to let you know that the Weekly Links will be posted on Monday instead of today.

In the meantime, I’d encourage you to enjoy and explore the new Beacon website (if you haven’t already), catch up on any articles you might not have read yet, and peruse the links at the top of the page for past and ongoing series, helpful resources and reference materials, and a list of ministries here at LBC that you could join.

See you Monday!