I started blogging way back in 2005 and was fairly consistent until I completed my PhD in 2014. My main blog was Freedom Log: the musings of a pastor swimming in the deep waters of political theology. That was a fairly apt description for me at that time. A lot has changed, I am no longer serving as a pastor and while I do consider myself a political theologian, I think I’m somewhat more than just a political theologian. I thought it would be a great exercise to look back at my blogging career and comment on how things have changed. Freedom Log still exists, although I no longer post any new content there. (I will simply use links for those interested in the old posts.)
Let’s start from the beginning. My first post was called “Starting Out…” and gave a brief introduction to myself as a (then) new blogger. I had previously published articles on my personal website (I was an early adopter), but the site no longer exists except maybe in a way back machine.
In my first Freedom Log post I start by describing my role as senior pastor for Freedom Vineyard. Freedom was the second official Vineyard in Ottawa, Ontario and my wife and I currently attend the third official Ottawa Vineyard. Our own church closed a few years back after a good run of 10-11 years (depending on how you measure it). On the whole there is a lot I celebrate about our pastoral work, but there are also a lot of things I would do differently today. Pastoring is not for the faint of heart. I still love encouraging other ministers and do a bit of relief preaching around the city. But we have moved on from traditional pastoral ministry and my main focus these days is my teaching career.
When I talked about my theological interests of course I mentioned my favourite theologian Jürgen Moltmann. That is still true, I am definitely a Moltmann fanboy. My doctoral work put Moltmann in dialogue with evangelical eschatological theologies. I was tickled to see that 2005 is when I first read The Crucified God. I am reading this text again as my Lenten devotion and am amazed at how many ideas in my own theology owe themselves to this text. Some things don’t really change much.
Then in the post I try to sum up a bit about my diverse interests:
I am also a gaming buff – fantasy role playing, miniatures, etc. A philatelist – even though having little kids makes it hard to pull out my albums to work on that. A book collector with something like 500+ titles in my growing theology library. I am also a bit of a hack musician playing guitar, harmonica and a bit of keyboards. I sing also, but really should take some lessons. I have done a bit of song writing but nothing published – another area I still need to work on.
I am still a huge tabletop gaming nerd. In fact, I run the same biweekly D&D (now using Dungeon World) group that I ran in 2005 and now I have another regular group that meets up to play boardgames almost every week. Additionally, I regularly run games at local conventions and most recently have been exploring the educational use of games. I recently did a short presentation on using ethical role playing games in theology which I’ll have to post about here.
I am still a philatelist, but I find that I have a lot less time for stamps these days. Stamps are a great activity for when you want to think deeply about something. Personally I need to do something to occupy a certain part of my brain to be free to ponder, this is simply how I am wired. For example, I read best while I am pacing. When I do pull down my albums it is because I’m doing some thinking work. However, the hobby I spend more time on these days is carpentry.
Carpentry is something I’ve been interested in for a long time but had no easy way to get into. In our old house I had a small workshop, but it wasn’t really a well planned out space, and my workshop was so small that I could not work on an large projects or work with large material. One year I did build an easel for Freedom Vineyard using pre-milled lumber from the Home Depot and treating my friend’s drill press like a router (sorry Tom). The easel turned out quite well all things considered. I remember buying my first table saw although it sat barely used until we bought a house up the street and decided to spend the summer renovating our old home. That was when I got to know my friend Robert Sykes who is still a student at Saint Paul University. Robert is a real carpenter (master carpenter actually) who offered to help with our renos. I learned tonnes and have since gone on to help him with some of the historical restoration projects that he does for a living. I’m on my second (better) table saw and longing for a real shop saw. I have inherited and bought a lot of tools and am learning how to maintain them. I’ve even started to do some maker videos. Carpentry is now my go to hobby when I want to do some serious thinking.
My book collection has continued to grow, by about a 1000 titles. I do try to keep the collection under control, purging out the books that no longer serve me. It is not an easy task though as I think of my books as old friends, many of whom have advised me well through the years.
Finally in terms of music I am still most competent on guitar. Additionally I play hand drums at church (with harmonica when it fits). I did not have regular access to my keyboards for a few years, but now that I am in my new office a keyboard is set up all the time and I’m slowly getting my chops back. I’d love to get a keyboard with weighted keys, but it is hard to justify that kind of expense (my tastes in keyboards are unfortunately a bit pricey). I still haven’t published any of my own music, nor have I taken any singing lessons.
So somethings change, but much of it stays the same. This is what I expected. I do imagine that much of my thinking on specific subjects has changed so this thread of posts will be a great chance for me to see just how much my thinking has changed.
Let me know your thoughts...