As opposed to nostalgia as I am (here and here. Better yet, check out The Way We Never Were.), can I admit to you that I kind of miss the days when I would post something more regularly?
Once upon a time, I posted here 3-5 times a week. That’s been almost my monthly average for the last couple of years.
Why, you might ask, have I dropped the volume? Here are the main reasons:
1. Two Kids. I’ve got two kids under five. I want to spend as much quality time with them as possible. Work wasn’t likely to yield time, so the blogging has. In my mind, blogging is a comfortable mix of work and pleasure. A lot of the things I’ve blogged about have proven good sermon fodder. Many have otherwise informed, shaped, inspired my ministry.
When I first started blogging, it was at an invitation by my brother Richard to share a blog. For several months, I posted only after he reminded me we were sharing a blog. Eventually, I would post every week or two. As I had been writing a weekly column for the local paper for a few years already, this seemed like a natural transition.
Finally, in 2006 or 07, I determined to blog as a spiritual discipline. I would comment on current events sometimes, but mostly I would share something, or some combination of things that were stirring within me. The practice was good for me.
Getting married in 2007 didn’t harm that. Having one child in 2010 didn’t phase that rhythm for long. Having a second child in 2012 really brought change – more in routine than in focus.
2. I changed jobs. In 2012 I left the Methodist Children’s Home, where I had served as Chaplain for 5 1/2 years, and was appointed Senior Pastor at Euless First United Methodist Church. While it would be wrong to say this is more work, for me, at least, it has been very different, and in many ways, more taxing.
I’ve felt it important to pour even more of myself into sermon preparation and worship planning. Thus, much of the energy that once flowed into and through my blog was now channeled in a different direction.
The blogs serve me well for several years. Thought I’m not quite ready to give up totally in the practice, the creativity and spark I once found here I now find in other places, through other media,
Tomorrow, the third and decidedly most powerful reason for my recent decline in blogging, and what I intend to do about it.
everyday theology 