A New Face and a New Place for my Random Musings

Its time to start doing this with more regularity, so I'm setting up shop here instead of just at the home site for our church. These posts will still be linked there, as many thoughts and entries will be directly related to church life at UBC Houston. But I also expect to write about random things both of the spiritual and the not-so-spiritual sorts, as well as open this up to potential interaction with people both of the spiritual and the not-so-spiritual sorts beyond the confines of UBC Houston.

I have resisted blogging consistently and in an open venue for two totally unrelated reasons: first is the often illustrated tendency for public, nameless, and faceless dialogue to devolve into something less than communication and something more like a bunch of people in a crowded room all yelling to be heard; and second, my own laziness toward the task amidst the busyness of my personal and professional schedules. I'm working hard to alleviate the latter, and I invite any of you who choose to be responders instead of just readers to help me work to alleviate the former.

As I am fond of sharing with our church family, consent on all matters should not be the ultimate goal of those within the church, much less with those outside it, but rather movement toward mutual understanding and respect for views that differ from our own. And so the goal of these posts will not be to gather around a bunch of like-minded people who all look and sound the same (in as much as one can look or sound like anything within the blogosphere). Rather, the goal is to learn to listen, then respond, instead of merely listening and then saying whatever you like. I continue to do this, thoughtfully I hope, with fellow bloggers, news stories, pop culture, church members, and random people I encounter along the way, some of which will inevitably find its way into this blog. And if the posts in this forum are, for you, worthy of being considered "fellow blogger" material, or "random person you encounter along the way," then feel free to chime in.

Steven