Lectori Salutem. These Latin words sound like a somewhat solemn invocation–and there’s a reason for it. After much hesitation, I have come to a decision. This will be my last weekly blog. I don’t know exactly how many pieces I have written since I started, but I estimate the number to be well over 800. I began this project shortly after I became the president of the Dutch Adventist Church, in late 2002. Every week I posted a blog on the website of the Netherlands Union. It proved to be an excellent means of communicating with the church membership. After I retired at the end of 2007, I switched to my own site to put my (almost) weekly blog online. Since then, I have indeed managed to produce something almost every week–at first only in Dutch, but since 2012 also in English.

As my faithful readers know, most of my blogs were about church-related matters. Even when my active role as a church administrator ended, in many ways the church remained the center of my world. Thus far I have been blessed with fairly good health, and most of my time is still spent on activities directly or indirectly related to theology and church. My 2023 calendar is already beginning to fill up, with deadlines for articles and with appointments in the Netherlands and elsewhere for sermons, presentations and teaching. I also hope to begin work on a new book very soon. But as I recently reviewed my future activities, I felt it was time to wind down a few things. Therefore, this will be my last blog.

In my blogs I have always tried to be open and transparent with regard to my opinion on current issues and developments in the church. This was appreciated by most readers of my blogs, but inevitably some questioned my orthodoxy and sometimes my integrity. The latter group was often quite vocal, but fortunately relatively small, as the hostile critics of my blog usually faded away fairly quickly. All in all, the number of positive responses exceeded the number of cranky or downright nasty ones by at least a factor of ten.

Perhaps some of the approximately four thousand regular readers will be disappointed that I am ending what became a weekly tradition. But at some point everything comes to an end. And I must honestly admit that I sometimes lack sufficient inspiration and struggle to find a new topic. And it does at times cause a bit of stress, when after a week I still don’t know exactly what my next piece will be about.

For now, I’ll just leave the blogs on my site. [And maybe I will add another piece, now and then, when I can't resist the urge to respond to something.]

Many thanks to all my faithful readers.
And, of course, I wish all of you a blessed Christmas season and a happy, healthy and creative 2023.

Reinder Bruinsma
Zeewolde, December 14, 2022