Gone Fishing

I started this blog six months ago as something of an experiment to see if I (and by extension others) can discover how to write on matters of faith and daily life in a way that would be helpful and even (on a good day!) interesting to everyday Christians.

Five years earlier I had led the team that developed WorkingPreacher.org, a site devoted to preaching resources. Since it’s launch it’s been a huge success, garnering well over a quarter million hits a month. But as I always tell folks, Working Preacher is the “low hanging fruit.” Preachers have to preach sermons each and so they know they can use good resources that are readily available to them.

Lay people – or, as I prefer, “everyday Christians” – however, don’t necessarily sense a need for resources that help them take the faith they profess on Sundays to help them make sense of their lives Monday through Saturday. And if our Sunday-faith isn’t influencing, informing, and infecting our Monday-lives I don’t think church has much of a future.

And so I – and, obviously, many, many others in all kinds of different ways – have been thinking about how to teach and share the faith in a way that makes traditional Christian teaching and theology accessible, understandable, and above all else useful. I decided to do that in two ways – first offering a daily Bible devotional and second by writing a series of more general posts that would touch on just about everything from parenting to movies to money to more traditional church stuff, all in light of our Christian faith.

So “…in the Meantime” began as an experiment, but it’s grown into a surprise. In particular, I have to say that when I started this blog at the beginning of Lent I could never have imagined how much fun it would be. I’ve had, frankly, a complete ball looking for articles and posts that I thought might be interesting to others. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed offering some insights and commentary on our life of faith in the world, and I’ve had a blast discovering a cool video or great talk and sharing why and how I think it connects to our shared faith. And, more than anything, I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging with so many of you via the comments you’ve left on various posts. It’s all been so much more fun and rewarding than I could have imagined, and I deeply appreciate your engagement.

So the blog has been an experiment, and a ton of fun…but also, to be perfectly honest, just a tad exhausting at times. Energizing, to be sure, but also a bit tiring, particularly as I wake up each morning wondering what in the world to write about.

For this reason, I’ve decided to take a short break, a blog-sabbatical, if you will, for the month of August. Actually, I first decided to take a break simply because I will be traveling for much of August and for days at a time have no internet access. Most of that travel will be vacation with my family, and I kind of dreaded waking up early each morning to crank out a blog post or looking for internet cafes where I could post while the kids used the restrooms. 🙂 For a while (okay, about 48 hours), I thought that I could double up on my posting in July and have plenty of material for August, but that, at least for me, isn’t possible.

While I was at first a little bummed by realizing that I couldn’t continue the blog while traveling, a funning thing then happened: I felt this huge sense of relief at the idea of having a breather. And so that’s when I decided to take the full month off, hoping and planning to start writing again on September 1.

I’ll look forward, at that point, to continuing our journey through Mark, to introducing you to some great online Bible-study tools, to taking up questions about church marketing and advertising, to sharing some of what I learned at the Rethinking Stewardship conference, to returning to the topic of prayer, and to anticipating what we can learn from a new season of Mad Men, among other things. (So, as you can see, I’ve still got lots I’d like to write about!) But for now, I’m also ready for a rest. Thanks very much for reading thus far. I hope you have a wonderful August, and I hope to connect again with you in September.

In the meantime, may the peace of Christ keep watch over your hearts and minds.

Yours in Christ,
David