In my last post, I asked readers if they had any questions that they’d like me to answer.  I got an e-mail within the first several hours with a very good one - the reader wanted to know why I was qualified to run this site.  It’s a fair question, and one that you as readers deserve an answer to from the get-go.  We’ll start with a bit of history.

I taught my first Bible study around 7 or 8 years ago - it was on Romans. Within thirty minutes of beginning our discussion of Romans 8, I realized I was in over my head.  I could clearly articulate my position, and I could back it up with other Scripture, but I wasn’t prepared for the animosity caused by the disagreements over these texts.  I was learning the hard way that there’s more to leading a study than presenting a position - there’s a very real, sometimes unpredictable human element to contend with as well.  There was a lot of conflict in that group, but for the people that stayed to the end, I think God was working there.  He certainly was in me.

A year or so after that study, I volunteered to teach Bible studies in the local jail.  I stayed on there for a couple of years, and I co-developed an 8 session (16 hour) intensive curriculum that gave the students both a foundation for Biblical reliability and an overview of Bible study methods.  More recently, I was involved with my local church’s Awana children’s program as an assistant group leader.  I’ve helped put together church web sites, I’ve cooked at soup kitchens, I’ve volunteered at the Salvation Army.  Through it all, I’ve been developing my leadership skills, defining my theological positions and shaping my worldview in response to challenges and questions posed by students, friends and pastors.

At the end of it all though, I know I’m not “there” yet.  One of the classic principles of the protestant reformation is “semper reformanda”, which is a fancy Latin way of saying “always reforming”.  Just because we think we’ve got a handle on something doesn’t mean we actually do, and we need to be subject to correction via solid Biblical study.

So in the final analysis, what qualifies me to run this site?  I think the answer is partly in that I’ve been down many roads, but mostly that I’ve got many more to travel.  I’m still growing.  I don’t have answers to all the questions, and I don’t pretend to - but I do love the journey and the learning process.

Join my journey….and let’s learn from each other!

2 Comments »

Welcome to my new blog, focused on the topics of Christian theology, worldview, and general Christian living!  I started this blog for several reasons, all of which are explained in detail on the “why this site” page.

Experience tells me that trying to produce something of value to add to a blog every day can be very difficult, sometimes almost impossible. Therefore I’m committing to updating this blog approximately once or twice per week with a useful article, analysis, or other commentary.

I was originally going to have comments closed, but I think I’ve found a solution that eliminates the spam while causing minimal hassle to legitimate commenters.  When you go to leave a comment, you’ll notice that it requires you to type the little numbers in the box - this is to reduce (and hopefully eliminate!) the spam comments that all blogs tend to attract.  If you have a hard time reading the numbers, you can click the button to the right of the image and it will give you a different set to work with.

If there’s anything you’d like to see an article about, if you have any theological questions that you’d like answered, or if you just want to say “hi”, please fill out my contact form or leave a comment - I’d love to hear from you!  If you’re one of the many people that uses RSS, you can also subscribe to my feed and have new posts show up in your reader automatically.

No Comments »