Wow. I used to have a blog. And then I didn’t. And then I did again. And then I didn’t. Over and over and over and over again.
So why restart now? Why would the internet possibly need one more middle aged white guy spouting off what he believes into the empty void of interspace?
A few months ago, I started a new gig as the Pastor/Head of Staff at Beulah Presbyterian Church, the church that I grew up attending as a child. It’s been a wild and surreal experience already, walking through the hallways that still smell the way they did when I was a teenager, only now the monkeys are running the circus. It’s been the perfect mix of incredibly nostalgic, but also a really good challenge, being the head of staff and working with a team of people to accomplish our goals together. It’s a wild and wonderful ride, and while there are for sure some challenges that consume a lot of time and energy, is such a beautiful work to walk this Kingdom road with this team that I’m just really happy to be a part of it.
While all of that is true, I’m learning a few things. Firstly, that having a staff and being their leader takes a lot more time than I think I originally had anticipated. Which means that something is always getting bumped back toward the end of the week, and in my case it’s been the sermon and any discipline of writing. The last few weeks in particular, I’ve been writing my sermon on Saturday night, burning the midnight oil and just trying to get words on paper so that I have something to say when I step in to the pulpit the next morning. Let me level with you all: I hate that feeling. Some pastors talk about writing their sermons on Saturday night with a perverse kind of bragging, like there’s some kind of medal for procrastination. If there were, I’d be the undisputed champ, but my soul would absolutely be crushed. I love to write, and I love to write well, and I hate when the writing process is rushed. So, my writing needs some time, some practice, and some intentionality.
Hence the blog.
You, dear reader, are like my first draft in so many ways. My hope is to make a regular habit of writing posts like this, looks at the daily news, prayers like I was writing for a little while there toward the end of the blogs last iteration, and maybe even some other funny ideas kicking around in my head. They will be my first drafts of trying to make sense of the world around me, and how God is active in it. They will be my first drafts of prayers, of trying to express to everyone what I’m most wanting to express to Jesus. And they’ll be my opening reps, an attempt to loosen the ketchup bottle of writing to get things flowing before I’m writing in other places.
I hope you don’t mind!
Of course, I don’t have the best track record to promise that this will keep coming at all, but I hope that we can build something sustainable. As always, and especially since there’s a bit of a new audience around here, feel free to drop a note in the comments and let me know what you’d like to see around here. For now, it’s Thursday, and I’m in a coffee shop, and there’s a sermon to be written. Let’s get cracking!