The First Post

I have great hesitation about going public with this website and this blog. I have been happily serving Jesus as an attorney and professor for the past several years. I love what I do. I love being able to just be a friend to people without my faith and spirituality being in their face. I love having spiritual conversations with my friends--conversations that flow naturally out of relationship rather than an agenda. So here are the top 10 reasons why I don't want to proceed:

1. I like being invisible, forgettable, ordinary.
2. I don't want my beliefs and opinions to be the only things people know about me.
3. I don't want to be in the middle of controversy. And it is sure to come.
4. I prefer to keep my very strong opinions to myself until I am able to share them at the appropriate time and in the appropriate context.
5. This site forces me to come up with a consistent approach to living and describing all of life. That's a lot harder than filtering offensive or complicated bits from some audiences.
6. Taking this step is committing to following it through to the end at the cost of other things. I like to keep my options open.
7. I don't want to lose my love or opportunities for ministry to my friends.
8. I don't want to become part of the Christian marketing machine.
9. I don't want to become a polished, untouchable caricature of myself.
10. Being a catalyst for conversation--even necessary conversation--is not a comfortable place to be.

And yet, I'm going to go forward. It's important to me that we start talking about emotional barriers to faith. It's important to me that we start considering how to reach the post-modern, post-Christian culture without changing the things that don't need to be changed. It's important to me to encourage other people to walk into the darkness of the world around them and bring the hope and healing of Jesus Christ.