This is the first entry for the new pastor’s blog feature on the Grace Baptist website. I suppose some of you are very familiar with Grace Baptist, while others of you perhaps stumbled onto this portion of the website and know nothing of Grace Baptist nor myself. My name is Pastor Tom Baran, and I am the Senior Pastor here at Grace Baptist. We are a community-based church located in Bristol, CT. Simply put we love Jesus and we love our community. We are part of a bigger group of churches and belong to Converge (formerly called the Baptist General Conference). As part of Converge we work together with our sister churches to reach the world for Christ. As do all churches in Converge we adhere to a group statement of faith, but each of the churches are run independently. If you want more information on Grace or Converge please feel free to look at our website. If you still have questions, please reach out to us.
As far as myself, who will be the writer of these blogs, unless otherwise stated, I have been the pastor here since February of 2019. I attended Liberty University for an undergraduate degree in Religion and completed my Master of Divinity at Liberty. Many years prior to my Liberty days I had also attended Manchester Community College and Villanova University, where I studied Culinary Arts and Business Management. This blog did not set out to be about me so I will wrap up this portion by stating that I am ordained through Converge.
I am excited about this blog as it gives me an opportunity for a place to put some of the items I have written, share my observations with you, expound on Scripture, and generally let us explore our life in Christ together. Initially my writing will be a lot of my observations from my personal study of the Bible. I read the Bible for my personal time in a very methodical way. Many years ago, I started at the beginning and began reading it through. I was never one to set a timeframe of completion, but rather I wanted to know God in a greater way and how God’s Word applied to my life. Each time I sat down to read I would highlight the passages or portions of passages that stood out. After reading I would go back through my highlights and write my thoughts on how God’s Word spoke to me. I have always looked to keep this personal time very separate from my sermon preparation and my time spent in study for the variety of teachings that I do here at the church.
So, in conclusion of this first blog posting, you may be wondering what will be here in the future. Good question, I have been debating that as well. I would say that you will see postings about two to three days per week (don’t hold me to that as it could be more, and it could be less). The contents will be about God’s Word, everyday occurrences, and observations that I make. The next few postings will be based on my study of Ezekiel. I was particularly struck this morning by how Ezekiel must have felt when in such a close period he saw the presence of God’s Glory in the temple, only moments later to witness God’s Glory leaving the temple. But, stay tuned, we will get to that. For now, God Bless each one of you who took some time to read this and thank you for even considering reading the next post. Pastor Tom