Welcome to the Twenty-First Century?

Okay - I've been known as a radical since my early preaching days in High School. I don't think of it as being "radical" as much as I think of it as "being on the cutting edge of change." When I wrote Spilt Grape Juice in the late eighties and it was published in '91, I was the only one proclaiming the New Testament doctrine of 24/7 worship. I was quickly marked "radical" again, and black-listed from many of our Brotherhood spotlight activities. Two more books on worship, both challenging all our traditional thinking on the subject, simply entrenched my position as one of the "radicals" or (and I love this label) "Change-agents" in the church. Praise God! I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus would have been called both of those things by the Pharisees of His day if they had known such words were available. They're actually much nicer than most of the words they called Him. My point is not to rant about labels - though I probably will in the future, but to point out that while I may be a "free-thinking, change promoting, wild-eyed fearless iconoclastic radical" in religious circles, I'm a techno-wimp when it comes to blogging or using any new comupterized communication contraptions.

My kids program my phone for me (they're all married and in their late twenties but I call'em kids as a term of endearment- and to remind them that "I'm the Papa!"). Deborah put my pictures on my phone for me. Elizabeth took me by the hand and showed me how to download my digital camera into my computer. Jonathan had to hook up our widescreeen HDTV and DVD player. And of course, my lovely wife Donna, can program new phone numbers into my phone much faster than I can, so in my pitiful ignorance, I usually hand my phone to her and say, "Honey, could you put their number in my phone for me?" She always does because she's sweet and she knows what a techno-clutz I am.

So why start a blog? I don't know. I'm not even sure as I write this whether or not it will come up on a screen. But sometimes you gotta be courageous and trust the pixels. Actually, I've been thinking about it for a long time and after some encouragement from Elizabeth and my roomate of thirty-four years I decided to jump into the blog and see who cares! My plan for now is to just let it flow on whatever subject I feel like talking about that day. This is not a doctrinal debate blog or a political forum. I want to have fun, share thoughts, challenge some thinking, vent on things I may not preach about, and generally drop some melons from the cerebral tenth floor and see how they splatter. How's that for an intriguing metaphor. I really want to share, with anyone who wants to be part of it, my own journey in seeking a closer relationship with our Father and our best friend, Jesus Christ. I want Him to be pleased with whatever I blog about. He knows blogs! He did the first one in stone on Mt. Sinai and folks are still trying to delete it!

May this honor Him and encourage someone to seek Him. More later - if it works?