For those of you that don’t follow WordPress news, the blogging company has partnered with SocialVibe to use our blogs to help raise money for charity. You will notice on the left that I have a SocialVibe widget that donates money to Stand Up 2 Cancer, a cause with which I (as a cancer survivor) have much sympathy for. JCM is sponsored by Sprint, which means that for every click that my SocialVibe widget receives, Sprint will donate money to Stand Up 2 Cancer! It won’t cost you anything, so please click away and help stand up to cancer!

Some readers may note that I’m tweaking the layout of the blog. I want to make some more resources available to my readers, so I’ve started a Quick Links section. Right now, the only thing available is a link to a paper on my church’s website entitled Discipleship 101.

I think that discipleship is severely lacking in churches today, where the mentality seems to be “baptize ’em and then leave ’em for God to handle.” Great attitude, considering that we’re supposed to “make disciples” of all nations in addition to baptizing them. The paper is a brief, solo Bible study on what to expect once you become a Christian. I highly reccomend it for anyone who has recently become a Christian and has little fellowship.

The second thing that is coming is a major overhaul of my Statement of Faith. While I haven’t dropped completely off the Calvinist landscape, I have recently become much more Arminian in my philosophy and theology, believing that free willed creatures who choose to love and obey God of their own free will are more pleasing to him than automatons, which is what we become under Calvin’s theology.

What I still haven’t figured out is how we are predestined (as Scripture teaches) but also free (as Scripture implies). Perhaps the solution lies in that the church as body and bride of Christ is predestined without mind being paid to its individual membership. Look for issues like this to be explored as I slowly rewrite my Statement of Faith.

Since I now identify strongly with the Fellowship of Grace Breatheren Churches, I will be using their covenant and statement of faith to guide my own writing. I will also be in contact with their leadership and my own pastor to see if Josiah Concept Ministries can get listed on their database of ministries. I won’t ask for financial support; I will still rely on reader contributions for that. But being listed in their blog section could garner some more readers for me and wider exposure for the blog.

I plan to accept additional responsibilities in leadership at my church, starting with facilitating the GriefShare program. I’m also eyeing the position of evangelism coordinator, since that fits very well with my apologetics ministry. The latter position requires me to design and teach classes on evangelism; while the former has me conduct two hour meetings once per week for bereaved people looking for closure to their losses.

Combined with returning to school, raising a daughter, and maintaining my present job, these new moves mean that I’m going to have to make some difficult choices with time. The first casualty is God and Amputees. With zero hits over the last week, and a busiest day of only 23 hits, it has the least potential of any of my writing projects. Therefore, I am officially shutting it down as of next Monday. If anyone would like to take it over, please e-mail me and I will transfer it to you. For those of you who would still like to read a refutation of Why Won’t God Heal Amputees, I recommend P-Dunn’s apologetics refutation here.

God is NOT Imaginary will remain open for business, however I will not update it. I will likely interact in the comments section to thoughtful objections.

I will make it explicit: the monthly newsletter is no longer going to be published. I have no time to create content for it and the website, so I will focus on the website.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Please e-mail them to me or use the comment section to this post.

Tomorrow, February 25, I will begin classes at Kaplan University for a bachelor’s degree in business management. This means that the post frequency will decline sharply as I get acclaimated to the assigned coursework. Hopefully, I will still be able to do two to three posts per week.

This degree is in preparation to go to seminary to get my Masters of Divinity in pastoral counseling, after which I hope to be either a hospital/hospice or corporate chaplain. While I’m doing that, I will return to seminary once again to obtain my Masters of Theology in apologetics, where I will add teaching to my already growing list of careers.

My ultimate vision: Cory Tucholski, M.Div, Th.M. Seeing it in print for the first time is very motivating.

After that I should be done with school for a while.

I have no intention of quitting the blog. In fact, I hope that my degrees will advance the content of the blog, as well as giving me the credibility to write and publish a book or two. So stay with me; that way you can say that you followed me before I was famous.

If you would like to help, consider an item off of my Amazon Wish List.

It worked for James White, I’m going to see if it works for me!

James White posted his Amazon.com Wish List on his website, and within hours, everything on it was purchased. I’m going to see if that works for me. Probably not, but…

If you have been blessed by the work of this ministry, and God leads you to give something back, then please consider an item off of this wish list. Thank you!

With the holidays and family obligations, I didn’t have time to put together a newsletter this month.

Due to lack of interest, I’m considering eliminating that feature. Let me know in comments if I should keep the feature alive or if I should eliminate it.

The November Newsletter is hot off the press.  You can download it here.

If you wish to subscribe to the JCM monthly newsletter, you can send a request to josiahconcept@yahoo.com. Feedback is welcome at the same address, either positive or negative.