Personal Updates

I have a lot going on right now and wanted to share some of it. First of all, I have started a new blog with my friend Josh. It won’t take the place of this one, but will be another place where some of my work comes through to the public. We’re doing a co-operative blog, spawned out of the many email conversations we’ve had over the past several years, as well as the time we taught high school Sunday school together (and Josh is still teaching that class). You can keep up with it at The Hearts of Men. We’ll be doing several things there: first, we’ll be reading and reviewing books together, and the first one we’re starting this week is Rob Bell’s “Love Wins.” We’ll also be doing the same thing with books of the Bible, as well as putting up other stuff we work through together. We’re both very excited about this and a lot of it will be more dialogue than just one guy talking, so it should be very interesting.

Secondly, I’m slowly working on memorizing the entire book of Colossians. I am not putting this out there to boast, but rather to keep myself accountable. I was doing really good the first three weeks, then faltered, and have struggled to get the fourth piece memorized and move on. It’s a 52-week plan, so in the course of a year, I would memorize the entire book. So far, it’s been a very enriching experience, but I need to keep up with it! But concurrent with that, I am also studying through Matt Chandler’s “Colossians” series on his Village Church podcast. I think there are 20 or so sermons from that, so it should run relatively well with my memorization.

And finally, I have decided to write a book. Easier said than done however. I began really considering this at the beginning of the year, thought I had a good idea, chased that around for a while and then just recently decided on a change of course. I have a pretty good idea in hand, but there’s a LOT of work that needs to be done in order to start getting a lot of words on paper. I’ve only written a tiny portion of test material for this, and had a lot of thoughts. But progress is being made. I have no idea when (or IF!) I’ll finish, but hopefully I will by the end of next year. On the one hand, this seems incredibly foolish on my part - I have no formal training as a writer, have no idea what 3rd person limited is, and don’t know what it takes to write a book. On the other hand, I feel I have a really good, God-inspired idea that I have been passionate about for a while, and I think it will be exciting to read, and I have nothing to lose by trying. AND I have several friends around me that have been highly instrumental in helping me along the way. So, I’m giving it a try. I can tell you this - the book will be Christian fiction, and probably of the dystopian genre.

Other than that, it’s hunting season, and we’re having a baby in 3 months, so those interests will occupy the remainder of my free time. Enjoying life, and thanking God every day for the numerous blessings found along the way!