Re-entering the blogosphere…

First let me wish everyone who reads this the happiest and most blessed of new years! My prayers are for peace, joy, health, and the advancement of the gospel in 2009 in an unprecedented way, both in my own life and church and around the world as well! May you be blessed in 2009!

Now for other matters…I am officially reentering the blogosphere with this post. As you may be able to see from the date of my last post (June 25, 2008), it has been over six months since I wrote. Although I really do love the engagement, interaction, and capacity for communication that blogging allows for, I had to make the choice to put blogging on the back burner for a few months for a number of reasons (which I will mention below). However, in the past two weeks, I have received three inquiries from friends about when I would begin writing again. Honestly, I didn’t really think that there were three people who cared, but apparently I was wrong. So today, with “things” finally slowing down and a new year upon us, I thought it was a good time to reenter the blogosphere and begin a regular regiment of posting again. I do so with a renewed commitment to try to post things that are positive and encouraging rather than focusing on negative things in the SBC today. Believe me, I do think that there are lots of things wrong that I could blog about. Chronicling the so-called “Baptist Identity” or “Anti-Calvinist” agendas, while it would really boost my “daily hits” number, would lead only to greater division and nasty posting back and forth by the same 2-3 dozen people. Spending my time ranting against the political agendas at work within the SBC or pointing out the incessant nepotism and narrowing of parameters would lead to lots of heat, but very little light. Yes, there are problems. Southern Baptist life is not perfect. However, I want to work with my brothers and sisters to make it a better place. I want to work hard to create a positive environment within the SBC in which the world can see the love of Christ at work. Maybe I just don’t have the stomach for the politics of it all, or maybe I just naively trust that truth will win out in the end. Maybe I’m just a coward, afraid anymore that to speak out about some things will only result in bad consequences for me personally. Whatever the case (and they are all options), I hope to bring some things to the table that are positive and encouraging to my small crowd of readers and those within my church who visit the site.

So where have I been for these six months and what has been going on in my life?

Southern Heights Baptist Church, Lexington Kentucky

First, in late August of 2008, my family and I transitioned to Lexington Kentucky where I began a new ministry as pastor of the Southern Heights Baptist Church. We dearly loved the First Baptist Church of Grayson and valued our almost 4 years of ministry in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky, but in the end felt that truly God was leading us to Southern Heights where there were greater opportunities and greater challenges for a young minister like myself. The moving process took a number of weeks. We packed, moved, unpacked, and lived out of boxes until we were finally “settled in” around the end of September. We are still not completely unpacked, but we are comfortable enough to feel that we are truly “home” at our house just down the street from the church.

We absolutely LOVE living in Lexington and we are crazy about our new church family at SHBC. Our church has tremendous potential, sitting right in the middle of a growing residential area in southwest Lexington. Estimates project that there will be almost 80,000 people living within a 3-mile radius of our church by 2013. My challenge is to lead a group of solidly-committed, progressive-minded Christians (about 140 per week at SHBC currently) to become a missional-minded church that is committed to disciple-making through biblically-sound evangelism and discipleship. It is a tough task, but I feel that I am up to it. I am surrounded by wonderful people, a great staff, and a church with a strong history. We are truly preparing to see God work and move in great ways!

Secondly, the last six months were complicated tremendously by the fact that all of this moving and transition took place in the midst of a very demanding semester of Ph.D. work. Doctoral work is always a bear and working full time in the pastorate while attempting a doctorate is even more strenuous. Moving is always difficult as well. But trying to work full-time at a new church, move my family, and complete some of the most strenuous doctoral work to date (including the reading of about 30 books!) proved to be almost too much. Regrettably, many things had to give, including personal health (recreation and exercise), sleep-time, fun-time with family, blogging, and even leisure-reading. Outside of work and school, I have had little time for much else in the past six months. I have just this week begun preparing for my last semester of seminar/ colloquium work this spring at SBTS. My classes are challenging, but I am more excited than ever to be studying in the program that I am in and blessed to be studying under the godly men that I am under. Pray for me this semester to manage my time better.

Third, there were a string of health-related issues that kept my wife and I extremely busy in the past 3 months as well. Our younger two children (Terah and Lucas, 3 and 9 mos) went through rounds of infection, fevers, and viruses, as do so many children. But also, our 7-year old little man, Ethan, has had some serious gastro-intestinal problems all of his life that finally demanded attention back in October. Without getting in to detail, his condition is by no means life-threatening or even dangerous, however it is one that causes him terrible pain and discomfort and has affected his physio-biological growth in some ways. He had to have an overnight procedure in October at the UK Children’s hospital that seems to have helped somewhat with his problem. He has bounced back well since the procedure, but his problem still requires lots of attention and causes us lots of concern.

Following that, on October 11^th, my father was in a life-threatening motorcycle accident. While riding his Harley, he and my step-mother were hit by a deer. It killed the deer and almost killed my dad as well. Though my step-mother walked away with minor injuries, dad had multiple broken-bones, the most serious of which was a crushed pelvis. He was air-lifted to University of Cincinnati hospital where he spent about 2 weeks in intensive care and going through surgeries to reconstruct his pelvis. After UC, he went to rehab for about a week and then came home just before Thanksgiving to complete his recovery. He has been in a wheelchair ever since and will require months of therapy just to walk normally again. Though my step-mother has taken care of him through most of this, we have made some trips north to stay with dad and have spent lots of time and energy helping deal with this trauma. We are just glad that he is alive, well, and recovering. Hopefully, God can use this trauma for his own glory by reminding my dad what the real purpose of life really is, namely to “Love God and keep his commandments.”

So in a nutshell, that is where I have been in the past 6 months. It’s a crazy life…but it’s the only one I got! I hope that things slow down a bit in 2009, but then…wait… no I don’t… I enjoy every minute of the life with which I am blessed just as it is!

I hope to hear from more of you as I re-enter the blogosphere in 2009, and I hope to be a blessing and encouragement as I write!