Make a New Normal

changing my name

Maybe I shouldn’t, but I just did.  I changed the name of this blog.  Same address, new name.

The Original Name
When I first started blogging with WordPress, I began with a simple notion: that our approach as the church in planning for the future was MAD (mutually-assured destruction).  My argument (which I still believe) was that we all collude to maintain an ineffective status quo.  For some, the argument goes that we haven’t worked hard enough to transform the entire world to orthodoxy.  For others, it is attachment to a mid-20th Century approach to church to the exclusion of all other visions.  And for still others, it is simple ignorance to the simple truth that there are other options.  Our collusion may not be intentional, but it is still there.  So I called the blog “uncollusion”.

This spring, life for me changed.

The New Name
I did not retire.
I am still active in ministry.
I just don’t have a church home.

My position at the church vanished and suddenly I became a stay-at-home Dad while also discerning a call to new ministry with a new congregation.

The tradition tells me I shouldn’t write about this.  It also says that I should have a job before I look for one…and yet that ship has sailed.  The tradition wants me to at least pretend to be some power-player, glad-hander whose ministerial chops are unassailable.  We all know that’s bologna.  What we need is a bit more candor and a bit more introspection.  Because everything about transition ministry is terrifying and challenging for everyone involved and we pretend its not.

And yet, where can we find more hope than in a beginning; a new relationship?

I won’t write about my previous church, nor will I write about my daughter, who deserves her anonymity.  What I will discuss is my experience and the challenges I am facing.  So, for the foreseeable future, this is a blog about being a minister searching for ministry and a Dad stretched to the limit.

If you want to follow, I think things are about to get bumpy.

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