When I started this blog back in December of 2006, I was in an interesting place in my life. I had been blogging for quite a while at that point anonymously at the Nameless Youth Pastors site (sadly, the original site is no longer there and all that I wrote under the name Resilient is gone), and with my change in situation began to write less anonymously. This blog was a great way for me to begin to emerge from ministry burnout and prepare for the next stage of my life.

Over the past couple of years this blog has been neglected… not because I have nothing to say, but more because this just does not feel like the right place to express what I am thinking now. That said, I am currently working towards starting a new project… not necessarily a true blog, but more of a place to bring together all that I am reading and comment on it… I hope that it will be useful to readers…

churchthought.com will be up and running soon

This year Preakness weekend snuck up on me. In the midst of orchestrating a short notice move to Long Island It just kind of hit us. But as I have done every Preakness for the last two decades I found myself a spot in front of a television a little after six to watch the singing of Maryland, My Maryland, the parade of the horses, and the run for the Black Eyed Susans. It has always brought me a bit of comfort and a sense of home.

Last night Theresa and I were walking around Bolton Hill and realizing that soon we will no longer be living here. We are sad. Sad about the circumstances, yes, but sad that we are leaving a beautiful neighborhood. The architecture, the people, the way that people just know everyone… we will miss this place. While we tell everyone that we are making a “temporary move of indefinite length” and hope to return to Bolton Hill, we know that as we pack up that we are leaving our first home together… and that experience will be hard to replace.

Over the past week we both began to realize what that it was that we are being called to now.

Last week Theresa’s father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. While the doctors have expressed hope about the possibilities of remission, he will begin chemotherapy before the end of the month. In order to care well for her father, Theresa and I will be moving to Long Island by month’s end to walk with him through the chemotherapy.

Through the last six months, and even the last eighteen months, I have seen God moving in ways where I can not help but see his mercy, and he has been teaching me more and more about the differences between joy and happiness, I hope to share a little bit about that in the near future… until then, I would ask you to be praying for us as we have until the end of the month to pack up our life in Baltimore, and move to Long Island.

Shrink the church has a great post on why you need to underprogram your church. I am starting to think that the reason our churches do so much stuff, which creates silos and burns people out, is because of laziness in leadership.

Vince Parker has a great (and simple!) model for leadership development.

Carlos Whittaker is hosting a very interesting conversation on his blog about people’s church activity (or inactivity). It is interesting for me to read people’s thoughts on this kind of thing, and see it discussed without judgement. There is something huge to learn from conversations like this… I just need to figure out what it is.

The new American suburb. How is your church preparing to serve these kinds of communities?

Ron Edmondson encouraging church leaders: Don’t Quit!

More Michael Hyatt goodness: The world’s first leadership consultant on delegation. What Jethro taught Moses. A great reminder to do what only you can do… AND he uses a picture from Air Force Football!

Incentivizing teacher pay… an interesting concept, I would love to hear the thoughts of my teacher friends on this kind of thinking.

Great idea to get fresh foods to those neighborhoods not served by grocery stores. Would love to see a local church partner with a program like this (Oh, the possibilities!).

The lost art of concentration. We are killing ourselves by trying to multitask. Where was I?

Jeff Elkins is beginning a conversation on church and culture over on his blog… You ought to check it out.

Joel Rainey concludes a very fair treatment of the Great Commission Resurgance. I appreciate his heart in this, and would love to see some of what he is suggesting come to pass.

Matt Chandler has had quite the journey, and it is a difficult one to fully process. This is an example of why we need to be teaching our churches about suffering.

Seth Godin continues to impress me as one of our best thinkers. He has been asking a lot of questions that should be forcing people to rethink normal.

James MacDonald walks through James 1:2 and hits me right where I am at right now.

Working Class USA, RIP. Dundalk has always fascinated me. A neighborhood that was shaped by, and dependent upon, Bethlehem Steel… and now is suffering from the lack of replacement jobs that were lost over thirty years ago.

9 Questions to ask before reworking your organizations messaging.

Joel Rainey gives a very fair critique of the Great Commission Resurgance. Make sure to read the whole series.

James MacDonald walks through the pain that a mother church endures when birthing a church plant. I love his heart in this.

Seth Godin on the value of focusing on responsibilities instead of rights. Churches need to hear this!

John Piper’s recent decision is to step back took guts. I pray that I would have the same courage were I in that situation.

Michael Metzger discusses the Protestant Church as the anti-institution. My question: how has our All-American disdain for institutions shaped the church over the last several decades for the better, and worse?

Monday Morning Insight discussion on Thom Ranier’s study on the habits of effective church Pastors. Keep in mind that the study considers “effective churches” to be in the top 5% when it comes to conversion growth. I think that this list will be both helpful and convicting to many.

The importance of developing an online strategy for your organization. This blog is aimed primarily at non-profits, but has a lot of great information that can be transferred to the church context.

Study Hacks: Beware of the competence trap!

Tall Skinny Kiwi on how to deal with the watchdog blogs… great advice for dealing with online critics.

Baltimore City helps fund a non-profit acting as a Black Guerrilla Family front to the tune of nearly $400,000.

Barry Whitlow shares five church planting lessons he learned from flying.

Seth Godin’s lessons from the iPad launch… big time application for the church on this one.

Sotto Sopra’s $1 pasta night! What a bargain!

Enter, the Norwegian Gem. We were able to score a ridiculously cheap deal on a cruise ship… it seems when they have empty rooms, they nearly give them away, and we were headed for Florida and the Bahamas. We were incredibly fortunate to have spent eight days and seven nights watching incredible sunsets, Space Shuttle launches (that was pretty cool), snorkeling in the Caribbean, and walking around Nassau. But most importantly, I was able to spend the time laughing and playing with Theresa. This was a much needed rest for us.

So now that I am back, it is my intention to start getting more intentional about blogging again. In the crush of the last several months, I have missed the discipline of blogging, and have missed how it helps me to organize my thinking on different subjects. I look forward to wrestling through things with you once again.

I also am going to start using this as a repository for the links that I continue to stumble across. Most of these I will tweet as well, but I wanted to have one place where I could find them if I want to reference them again. I am going to play around with the format that I use for those, so bear with me.

So here we go, I look forward to once again journeying with you…