Invitation

Today I am starting a new venture in my blog, and I have not yet mapped out its path. In retirement, I have plenty of time to think about my forty years in pastoral ministry, to look over the lessons I taught, especially in confirmation courses, and to re-read my old sermons (yes, I actually do some of that). I don’t believe I’m quite finished yet – finished, that is, with ministry in some form.

The immediate stimulus for this new blogging adventure has come from re-reading Douglas John Hall’s trilogy, Theology in a North American Context. Having finished volumes one and two, Thinking the Faith and Professing the Faith, and begun digging into volume three, Confessing the Faith, I feel the need to bring his teaching and my thinking together, then go forward with something I can press myself to wrestle with. Ever since Jacob, people and congregations have found themselves forced to wrestle with God, and retirement brings no exemption.

It would be wonderful to get responses, whether questions, comments, or objections. But whether or not responses come, I’m going ahead with this project, and I’ll see where it leads me.

I’ve written my first piece in this venture, and I’ll post it soon. Where I’ll go from there, I’ll discover as I walk (I don’t run often these days, especially since popping a calf muscle). I invite you, whoever you are, to walk with me for a while and see what turns up.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet,
And whither then? I cannot say.
(Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings)