Blog: why?

Why write a blog then, Dave? A lot of the answer comes out of my story, and the process of questioning I've come on. (for that, take a gander at the page called 'Dave: who?')

Questioning beliefs

Since I don't want to just accept things because others believe them, to settle for easy answers, or propagate poor thinking as I teach and lead, I need to be a bit deliberate about shaping my theology. I'm not in a place where I feel the need to knock everything down and start again, but I think we can all usefully be on a process of constant evaluation and re-evaluation.

I can do that in the quietness of my own head, and I often do. I can do that by talking to myself, which I do most days as I'm walking my dog or cycling to work (yes, I get odd looks, but I've made my peace with that). I can do that by talking to my wife, my family, my friends, my colleagues and my pastor, and I do all of that in spades too.

What none of those force me to do is structure my thoughts so they are consistent and make some sort of sense. I can go round and round in circles in my own mind while I walk Ralph, and conversations can fly off in one direction instead of actually wrestling with one topic consistently. What I find writing helps with is to add clarity, and so increase the usefulness of the whole endeavour.

(I'm also hoping something similar is true in the way dialogue works online versus in conversation.)

Questioning practice

In a similar way, this blog will also give me a space to positively and proactively think about the things we as Christians and as churches do, and what we as Christians and as churches could or should do. I don't want this to become a blog that's all about orthodoxy and never leads to orthopraxy. My hope is that both go hand in hand.

It is here in particular that I'm hoping dialogue happens a bit (but we'll see!), to get different perspectives from people with different experiences, backgrounds and practices.

I want to seek to move beyond - though not skip over - 'What do we think about X?' and reach 'What does X mean in the way I live and serve?' and even 'How do I engage with people who disagree about X (or are defined by X)?'

That's the idea, anyway

That's the motivation for the blog. I see that playing itself out in discussions of lots of things - news events, biblical passages, church practice, my own experiences, things that have made me think, topical issues, untopical issues. I don't really see anything as off limits.