The Preface

The resting place of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife Edith - 11/16/2023

Every beginning starts at an end.

So here I am, preparing and praying for this new season God has assigned. As is always the case, this new assignment comes with context of the story I find myself in. But before I even attempt to begin at unpacking that, I first and foremost want to say welcome to all who are reading this. Welcome into this new adventure, this new story, welcome to my journey (and my journal). While I want to be conscious of my audience, I should preface “The Preface” of my journal entries by letting you know my goal is to simply write. This will often result in over explaining things that, for some of you who know me personally or intimately, will have already heard me express for a long time, while for others reading, you might feel I am leaving you with a severe lack of context. But as my dad would say, “Bear with me!”

My primary goal in this journal is to allow myself the freedom to share my story (past, present, future), my faith, my feelings, and my mission, while also allowing those of you who are donors of my ministry or impacted by my ministry or curious about my ministry, and for my friends and family, to keep up with whats going on in and around my life. These journal entires will range from “What’s happened this week” to “My thoughts on the 21st century church’s presentation of salvation” to “Our vacation in Oxford” (set for June btw!). So sit tight, try not to get too hung up on the little things, and feel free to let me know what types entries or parts of entries you find most interesting.

Now where was I…

Until I was around 18 years old, I never knew ‘The Hobbit’ was Tolkien’s first book he published of the journey that we now know as the ‘Lord of the Rings’ books/universe. In this way, ‘The Hobbit’ is not a prequel but the primary story from which the beloved sequel was written. Now I think its quite easy to say the The Lord of the Rings is the primary thing Tolkien was remembered for, and the works that transformed writing fantasy as we know it. However, we cannot discount where this story came from even if the story itself is eclipsed by the sequel.

I relate to this as I look forward to what is clearly the beginnings of a new story, a new season, and a new assignment. But only in the light of the story that comes before it can I or any of you understand the context for what comes next. For this reason, my first few journal entries will be my attempt at a thorough and deep reflection on the last two years of my life that I would define as the most difficult, painful, fulfilling, transformative, challenging, joy filled, mundane, exciting, confusing, intentional, (are you getting the picture yet?) season of my life thus far. I hope you might patiently walk with me as I try to share.

I’m still relatively new to creating this website, figuring out how to have people “subscribe” to the blog post and such. So if there is a button somewhere on the main page of this page, please subscribe if you’d like an email when each entry goes live. Thanks!