Welcome to BJS

Welcome to the BJS Website

Welcome to the Brothers of John the Steadfast (BJS) website. The Brothers of John the Steadfast has been organized to bring the laity together to support the new Lutheran confessional media and ironically, in the process we are stepping out with our own contribution to new media with this website.

We still have a few loose ends but we are pleased with how much we have accomplished in just a few short months since the cancellation of Issues, Etc. We have

· Launched this website

· Established the framework for the local chapters of BJS

· Published dozens of pages of support material for the local chapters that are sprouting up all over the country

· Published the first issue of the BJS quarterly journal of Lutheran theology and practice for the laity.

This editor’s blog will offer frequent updates and random commentary on the state of confessional Lutheranism. Before getting to that, let me say a word about the new Issues, Etc.

BJS and Issues, Etc.

BJS’s purpose is broader than support of the new Issues however for the next several weeks, months, probably even years to come, it will be the main project that we support. The rise, the death and now the resurrection of Issues is a driving force of confessional theology for thousands of Lutherans. One of BJS’s goals is to make it the driving force of tens of thousands by reaching into congregations to establish local chapters and by reaching into computers to find all those confessional Lutherans trapped in church growth churches but now able to join in the confessional blogosphere community.

How to Use this Website

For the most part the site is intuitive. We currently have 25 active columns and will top out around 40. Most of our columnists post two articles a month. Each time there is a new post it will spend at least one day in one of the feature boxes on the front page. You will also be able to find all the articles archived on the regular columns page.

The Brothers’ Café and Our Bloggers

The Brothers’ Café section of the site is intended to be the place you go each day with your cup of coffee (or if you appreciate the No Pietists Allowed page – your glass of Warsteiner). We will have a monthly letter from Pastor Wilken, regular posts by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway keeping us abreast of the news around confessional Lutheranism, a couple posts a week by Pastor Klemet Preus giving us a look into the confessional pastor/writer’s life, and a monthly cartoon from Pastor Blazek. We hope your visits to the Brothers Café will become a comfortable habit for you, just like your morning coffee.

Thanks for visiting our site. We hope you are edified by it. We also hope you will join the BJS organization. Check out the organization page and see what BJS pledges to you. See how you can make a difference for confessional Lutheranism by joining with your brothers in the true faith in this timely organization. There are many more nooks and crannies of the site that I look forward to sharing with you in the weeks to come. In the meantime, I wish you the same greeting/blessing that we have taken to sharing with one another around the BJS world these last few weeks…

“Steadfast!”

The Reverend Dr. Timothy Rossow

Bethany Lutheran Church and School, Naperville, Illinois

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