A New Year’s Eve Letter for Ministry
This post seeks to humbly present the ministry of Faith for Living, with its ministry units, the D. James Kennedy Institute of Reformed Leadership, Bethesda Music, Bethesda Publishing, for your consideration in prayer, and if so led, for support. We have delayed this letter by design. We desire that churches, colleges, seminaries, and other ministries receive the first look for our readers’ prospective support. If the Lord moves on your heart to give, then one day—and even the last day of tax benefits for the prior year—is no hindrance for the Lord of all.
Hence, our letter to you follows.
My Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ:
“Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Timothy 1:2 KJV).
Happy New Year to you and yours. May you know the glory and hope of Paul’s words to the Corinthians; in my mind, a perfect passage for a new beginning:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:17
I hope—no, I do earnestly pray—that you will experience the sublime and supernatural that lies just beyond the Apostle’s words. It is there, at the altar of Paradise, where prayers become providence. In the wink of an eye an ethereal luster of white-light blazes through the dark universe, past galaxies unknown, past the evening stars, from heaven to earth, until time is bent until it splits. Then, under the cover of the mundane, the light reaches its destination: you. At that holy instant, God’s grace alights on the contours of your soul , and a warm glowing fire of the promise of God translates the pain of the past into the promise of tomorrow.
This is my prayer for you.
I wrote this letter to a handful of old friends yesterday. But I wanted to reserve a more public notice until today. We never want to compete, as it were, for offerings. As a pastor I know how important the December offerings are. So, as we head into a new year, we share this letter as if to merely present you our ministry. We have asked the Lord to provide. So, we leave the matter there.
Our ministry team and my family wish you a very happy New Year and pray the Lord‘s blessings on you, most especially the gift of seeing God at work in your lives each day. The year-end signals an opportunity for us to provide an annual report of the ministry. We ask if you will pray about whether the Lord leads you to give to Faith for Living.
There are so many other worthy Christian causes that need your support. Please do not give any gifts to Faith for Living if the joy of your heart is with another ministry.
M. A. Milton
However, we want to, at least, provide you with information about the Ministry. Faith For Living is the anchor ministry for the D James Kennedy Institute of Reformed Leadership, Bethesda Publishing, Bethesda Music, and Faith for Living Counseling and Consulting. We are happy to report that the D James Kennedy Institute, our leading organizational unit under the umbrella of Faith for Living, received significant grant funding for a major initiative: “Reimagining Pastoral Education and Training.” After researching the alarming percentage of pastoral burnout and dropout cases, we have spent several years seeking answers that will stop the wasting of resources and the pain caused to pastoral families and to congregations over this phenomenon. We are happy to unveil “The Pastoral Training Model,“ which is a combination of on-the-job training and higher education. Our research is published here. The goal is to move ministerial candidates and newly ordained ministers from internship to a one-year residency and then to a fellowship following four years of ministry. After that, we are developing a lifelong learning plan that will support clergy as they move through the phases of pastoral ministry.
You can read about this in other ministries that are on our executive summary page,
which is: http://faithforliving.live/home.Faithforliving.live/home
If the Lord leads you to give, you may do so securely at http://faithforliving.live/give. If you prefer to send a check, you may do so at this address: 1167 Carolina Drive, Tryon, NC 28782
Gifts to Faith for Living, Inc., a North Carolina 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation are fully tax-deductible. Please confer with your accountant for details.
We want to also let you know of a collection of essays that has been produced and is in the process of being published as a book, A Strange Land: Public Theology for Faithful Christian Living in the Secular Age. We are thankful to the pastors and scholars such as Drs. John Frame, Peter Lilback, George Grant, Scott Redd, Jr,, RJ Gore, myself, and others who are writing chapters in this timely book. As the Senior Editor, I am deeply concerned and convinced that we must help believers navigate the increasingly dangerous “minefields” of “this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4).
You can learn about these in other initiatives at http://faithforliving.live/home. Be sure to also visit http://djkinstitute.org. There you will learn about the exciting developments going forward at the D James Kennedy Institute.
Now on Substack: Michael A. Milton writes to help Christians faithfully navigate the treacherous shoals of the secular age.
These, and the other ministries of Faith for Living, are directly related to the vision and mission of this Ministry:
Proclaim the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ so that there will be a multitude of souls safe in the arms of Jesus when He comes again 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).
Michael A. Milton
“The Vision Statement:” Faith for Living, Inc.
Thank you for praying about this opportunity to give after you have given to your local church.
Commending you to Christ, and to the Word of His grace, I remain
Yours Faithfully,
+ Mike
Please allow me the privilege of saying thank you to our team (last names withheld for security):
My faithful wife, Mae, and I join to thank Christine, my exeuctive assistant; Dr. Rebecca, editorial assistant.