I am at a phase of ministry life in which I know that it's important for me to take much of what I've too arrogantly talked about for too long a time and actually live them out in practice. One observation: that's hard. Uh, o.k., do it anyway. Thankfully, there are days like today where I have little glimmers of hope that what I'm doing is working . . . it's slower than most people would consider successful, but that's part of why it's working.

So my question in the middle of living the gospel out rather than simply talking about it is this: Are there still some good conversations to be had on life in the "emerging" world? Also, is there a newer word than "emerging" that I've missed, thus making me look passe? One thing I've heard over and over again is how isolating the whole church planting gig is, and these conversations are still important to me. Is there a way for me to be firmly planted in the praxis of the nitty gritty ministry calling, and yet still receive the challenge, intellectual stimulation, accountability, and enjoyment that these relationships provide?

Actually, I think my lack of activity in the blogosphere (see my last post) has caused me to be cut off from some of the conversations I had been having. Perhaps the relationships and conversations I need to be developing are within the context of walking out the gospel day to day. Hmmmm, an integrated life/ministry? Nawwww, that would make too much sense.

There was a time when I felt plugged into to the whole blogosphere thing. Now I'm beginning to wonder. Of course this has everything to do with my lack of activity in updating my own blog . . . but I also haven't spent much time surfing other blogs. This, I think is because I'm still in the humble world of dial-up. I find myself concerned that if I spend too much time online that I'll miss phone calls, yada yada yada. Maybe some day I'll have an opportunity to jump into a high speed internet connection, which will give me the freedom to more fully participate in this area of life that I used to enjoy more.

I'm back now . . . ready to hit the ground running once again. I enjoyed the week away with Michelle, and had a couple of days with my family for my birthday, too. I got to do some new things, finish a couple of books, have some good talks with Michelle. I'm much more relaxed and ready to move forward in the small patch of God's Kingdom that I've been led to.