Author: Tom Schmidt

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, lovely wife Rach!

I love putting Scripture to music.  Over the years I have put different passages of the Bible to music (you can hear some of my songs here and here).  I find that putting Scripture to music is very edifying and encouraging to my own soul. A couple years back I spent a summer studying Titus […]

Why learn a catechism?  What is the point of memorizing a bunch of questions and answers?  Aren’t there better ways to spend our time, effort, and energy?  Here’s 9 reasons why you should learn the New City Catechism (NCC). 1. It will teach you the basics of Christianity.  What do you believe and why do […]

As mentioned in an earlier post, my community group has been going through and learning the  New City Catechism (NCC) together.  The catechism is an excellent resource for small group study.  To help others utilize NCC, my friend Brian Malcom and I have recently begun creating discussion questions for each of the questions. Here’s what […]

The church I attend (Redeemer Fellowship) does a great job of emphasizing the importance of small group gatherings.  We call these gatherings community groups (CG), and the function of each CG is to provide a place to gather for community, fellowship, prayer, and service.  The focus is on the gospel and the groups are biblically […]

Chronicles: Retelling the Story of Israel More than Just a List of Names: 1 Chronicles 1-9  (this post is the second in an series on 1-2 Chronicles, the first found here: http://www.ttschmidt.com/blog/chronicles-an-introduction) Chronicles begins with nine chapters of genealogies, a fact which causes many modern readers to consider the book to be boring, irrelevant, and […]

New City Catechism I want to commend an excellent resource to you today: New City Catechism.  A catechism is a summary of the Christian faith put into question and answer format.  Basically, it is a tool used to teach people about the basics of Christianity.  Typically, individuals memorize the questions and answers as they learn […]

Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. Ps 116:7 Martyn Lloyd Jones and my pastor Joe Thorn are surely right: we need to preach to ourselves. Such a mandate finds its support in Scripture in passages like Ps 116:7: “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for […]

Chronicles: An Introduction I recently began reading 1-2 Chronicles again in my daily devotionals and have been struck by its rich theology and relevance for my life.  My renewed appreciation has led to a fresh study and enjoyment of the book, the result of which I’d like to share in this blog series “Chronicles: Retelling […]

  Rachel and I just returned from a wonderful time in the UK.  In additional to invaluable time spent with family and friends, we saw some beautiful English country side, like the one pictured above (though I cannot take credit for this picture, that goes to Luc B via Compfight). Highlights from the trip: 1. […]