For the past several months, I've been supposedly preparing a revamping of my blog with different content, different layout, different blogging engine. As it turns out, I've been so cranking busy that that project has been placed on the perpetual back burner. Quite honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if the burner even works at this point . . .

HOWEVER, yesterday, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a good friend (you know who you are) pointed out something that I've been chewing on personally for a few months now. It goes something like this: those of us who run in emerging church circles can be a cranky, angry lot. Oh sure, we might have a better sense of humor and feel more relaxed than when we were in the mainstream of the evangelipseudofundmentlismo factory. But in the midst of all of our critiques of church culture, modernity, consumerism, etc., it's very often easier to know what we oppose, or what we're pissed off about, than what we're for. Sometimes it gets to the point that an outside observer would rightly wonder why we even bother with all this, anyway. As a note to said outside observer: most of us have asked that question more times than we can count.

But really, don't we want to be known for something other than our critiques? Don't we believe in a Story that is so good, so rich, so powerful that we decided to organize our whole lives around it? Isn't our faith in the God-man, Jesus, and his Kingdom vision something that stirs our hearts? Isn't our love for Christ's bride a calling to something good, rather than something we wish we could escape?

Let me be clear: I'm guilty of cranky critique and a bad attitude. I too often get lost in seeing a need for change, and lose my vision for a better way forward. I have a bad attitude.

So perhaps I'll try to launch that new version of my blog after all, except with a more positive mindset. Not some pep-talk, toothless, feel-good mantra fest or anything. And not necessarily a place free from critique. But a place where I can point to the good things that are going on, even in the middle of difficulty. A place I can freely display the hope that I have for the things to come.

That's all.

Labels: blogging, Christendom, emerging church, friends