New Blog

I'm about to migrate most of my public blogging life over to a new and fascinating land. As with so much that I've done in the last few weeks, I am starting to make the transition from (generally) private citizen to public figure in the form of pastor. New-form blog is likely to be a bit more engaged, a bit more exegetical, a bit more rockstar. A bit more often updated. That kind of thing.

People have been asking me the last few weeks: "I hear you're not doing the Gospel thing anymore." It's true - that's a part of the move. I am taking on the form of a person whose nickname will be slightly less arrogant. There will always be a portion of my life - college and seminary, mostly, which will be grounded in my time as Gospel. But it's a new era, a new day - I am called to still be Gospel, to live out the Gospel, but not to be called by that name.

The purpose of this post, was, of course, to get me blogging while I thought about a name for the new blog, which I think I've now done. I'll have a weekly alarm, to be sure I get one a week out at least (something to do while I'm not doing job-search things), and I'll pop a link up here when it's ready. But for now, loyal readers (there are none of you, I know, but still), think on this - we are not always who we once were. We will be who we will be. We are who we are.

Brueggemann

The MRT and I were chatting through our homework for Isaiah class, and particularly going over our Brueggemann intro to Second Isaiah. She was distraught by an equation Brueggemann drew between Babylon and our modern consumer culture, and it took us a while to nail down why. Finally, it came down to the fact that we, as putative members of Brueggemann's Israel are also culpable in our exile. We were not captured - we have marched ourselves into captivity with shouts and singing. It does not necessarily change the responsibility of the Lord towards us - but it does mean that we cannot condemn Babylon with quite such vigor as the Israelites had some right to do - we took ourselves there.

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Job Search, Meet Bible

As I've been working on all of this job search nuttiness, I've been finding that I keep coming back to Philippians to talk about my ideal work environment. I keep catching myself writing stuff like "I would like to work in an environment in which we all go about 'of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind' " (Philippians 2:2). I want co-workers who aren't just co-workers, but someone who is "my brother and co-worker and fellow-soldier, your messenger and minister to my need" (Phil. 2:25). I want to work someplace where we all rejoice, just as Paul does in prison.

Now, luckily, I am looking for church jobs, so I can sort of get away with it. And there are worse places to look for models for Christian fellowship and fellow-work than Philippians, so it's not really bad news. Just intriguing.

Where do y'all like to quote in your resumes?

Planning

I've been planning services an awful lot lately. I volunteered to do monthly Taize services at Smirk Church for the year - I also have monthly preludes for Sunday worship there. I'm preaching there next month. And I find that every worship experience I encounter, I analyze and pick it apart - the benefits of taking a series of worship classes.

So when I had a skull session with the Seminary chaplain and music director this afternoon, it was surprising to me that I still had a little bit of a thrill making all the pieces fit - the anthem, the psalm, the hymns...the whole array just sort of collapsed into place.

That gratitude post - the key theme of the service - will wait for another day, but suffice it to say, as I struggle to revive this blog...it's always a blessing to recall that I was called to this crazy job.