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First Thoughts

Three Initiatives from First Baptist in 2022

The mission of First Baptist is to reach all of Jacksonville with all of Jesus for all of life. This vision is big and bold. It is a wide vision that includes everything in life – all of life. Whether it is washing dishes, selling property, sharing the gospel, voting, or approaching death, we want to bring every part of our lives under submission to the Lordship of Jesus. All of life includes doing everything in life to the praise of God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31; Ephesians 1:12).

Each week at First Baptist, we seek to accomplish this mission through the preaching and singing of God’s word. We teach the Bible every week in our Sunday School Classes and Life Groups. We are delivering biblical content to our church with the goal of transforming lives. Yet there is only so much that we can cover each week when we gather.

We want to address topics and deliver content that we cannot cover in the normal rhythms of the church calendar. If we are pursuing Jesus for all of life, we have a lot of life to address.

We have seen and felt the need to be more ambitious than ever for the gospel. This has led us to launching three new initiatives in 2022.

Starting this week, we are creating a blog that features writings from the pastors at First Baptist. This blog is called First Thoughts and a new post will be released every Monday.

What does God think about the various details of our lives? What should we think about current events? We will answer these relevant questions each week. We want to think biblically and not be conformed to the world (Romans 12:1-2). As the old hymn, “Be Thou My Vision” beautifully sings, God is our best thought, and he should be our first thought.

We want your first thoughts each day to be God-saturated instead of self-saturated. The first thoughts that come into our minds about an issue in life are typically negative and ungodly. We want to tackle that head on. We want the high king of heaven to sit on the throne of our mind and direct all our thoughts.

This weekly blog will cover topics that range from personal spiritual growth to politics and the state of everything in between. You can read the blog here on our website or visit www.firstthoughts.com for easy access.

In addition to this blog, our church is also producing two new podcasts in 2022. The first is a podcast called First Preaching. It will highlight expository sermons from Sunday mornings at First Baptist. It will walk you from start to finish through books of the Bible. The goal is to provide new and old sermons in an easily accessible and consistent format. You can start this week listening to Love and Glory: A Sermon Series Through the Entire Bible with our Senior Pastor Heath Lambert. An episode will release every Monday and go through books of the Bible verse by verse.

The second podcast is a weekly podcast called Marked by Grace hosted by Pastor Heath. He will be connecting the grace of Christ to all of life. The goal is the same as the First Thoughts blog, but the content will be unique and in a different medium. The podcast will be available each Monday in time for your weekly commute. The topics will be obviously relevant and imminently practical.

We have a big and bold goal as a church and these three new methods of communication are one part of our mission. It is our prayer that this content helps you know Christ deeper and further equip you to reach all of Jacksonville. We invite you to read, listen, and share this content every week, so Christ might have our first thoughts and be first in our hearts.


Sean Perron (Ph.D. in Applied Theology from Midwestern Seminary and M.Div., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as the Associate Pastor.  He is the co-author of three books: Letters to a Romantic: On DatingLetters to a Romantic: On Marriage, and Letters to a Romantic: The First Years. 

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