A Shout-Out from a Ministry Hero

Sunday night, while waiting in line at a fast food joint, I started checking emails and web surfing on my palm. When I checked out Dr. Ray Pritchard's website, I was suprised to find that he gave given me and Mt. Sinai a shout-out ("Look, ma, I'm hip!") in one of his posts. Dr. Ray Pritchard's sermons and writings have been a great blessing to me over the years. I was introduced to his ministry by his book, In the Shadow of the Cross. I read it and was hooked. Now, I automatically buy a book if it has Ray Pritchard's name on it. Ray Pritchard is one of the first pastors that I knew of to have a weblog. When he served the Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park (Ill), it was posted onto the church's website. And I would check it out several times a week to catch up on him, Calvary, and significant current events in Evangelicalism. I got to the point where I looked forward to hearing his opinion on things. I have been greatly blessed by Dr. Pritchard's ministry. I have never met him, but I feel like I do because of his blog. I think that was the point he was making about me in his post. Here's a portion of what he wrote:

"I'm always happy when I discover a pastor who blogs. H. B. Charles, Jr. is the senior pastor of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, a dynamic, growing congregation in Los Angeles. While surfing the church website, I discovered that Pastor Charles has his own weblog. As I read his entries, I discovered a lot about him. He shares his sermon outlines, discusses how his physical health impacts his preaching (a topic preachers don't talk about much), and gives updates on church life. But the one thing that shines through mostly clearly is that Pastor Charles loves to preach the Word. Most of his entries revolve around his preparation for his messages. Here is a weblog put to very good use. People who read it get to know the pastor in a personal way, even if he is in Los Angeles and the reader is in northeast Mississippi. It's a long way from Tupelo to Los Angeles, but a weblog flattens the world, and a flat world is why Thomas Friedman wrote his book."

Thanks, Dr. Pritchard, for your kind words. They were very encouraging at a vital time for me.

The closing reference to Thomas Friedman is about Friedman's book, The World is Flat, which Dr. Pritchard mentioned at the beginning of the post. I have read several reviews of the book. And it seems to be quite interesting. I look forward to checking it out.