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My gift of grace on walk to school day.

Published via Pressgram

I created this website nearly three years ago as we were leaving Atlanta and moving to Denver to start New Denver Church. My plan was to create a simple place to share that journey with friends and family around the country and world. Given that my parents told me not long ago that they start their day by going to my website to read my Twitter feed, look at my picture feed, and read any updates I’ve posted, I think the site has accomplished its original goal. Recently I’ve been thinking about expanding the purpose of this site – to begin sharing my thoughts on life, ministry, spiritual formation, and other random topics.

To be fair, I’ve tried this before in fits and starts with limited success. So what’s changed? I think my motivation for writing has changed. When I first started this site I tinkered with the thought of being a regular “blogger.” I talked to people I knew and admired  who had done this well and got some helpful insights into the world of blogging (Scot McKnight and John Saddington were particularly helpful). To be honest it was just too daunting. Watching the volume of writing it takes to make a “successful” blog was just overwhelming. For one, I’m not the most disciplined person in the world, but secondly I just felt like I didn’t have that much to say. But recently I’ve been questioning whether these were barriers that should hold me back. If I can’t write a lot does that mean I should just write nothing? Probably not.

The last three years have been a tremendous period of stretching and growth for me. I feel like I’m learning so much personally and in ministry as a church planter, and I feel like I’m ready to share it. But here’s the big thing that pushed me over the edge –  I need to write it as a part of my own learning process, regardless of whether anyone reads it or not. I discovered years ago that I’m drawn to the learning process, but without some kind of structure or accountability my learning often stagnates. So my hope is that by forcing myself to come here on a regular basis (how regularly? who knows.) to articulate some of the things I’m thinking about and learning, I will learn more in that process.

So this is my public declaration of intent to make this my place to think out loud, even if no one reads it but me (and maybe my mom). 🙂