I'm not sure why I'm nervous. Offering my semi-edited thoughts "on the web" feels like some sort of significant venture, as if I'm presenting a new and raw vulnerability to the whole universe. I guess it has more to do with the greater state of anxiety / exhiliration I'm feeling about my ENTIRE LIFE! I'm on the brink of the greatest journey-risk I've ever undertaken. Rephrase: My life as a follower of Jesus has consistently been a risky journey, but the stakes are particularly high right now. Just last week I notified my pastor (and respected friend) that my family will be leaving to 'call out' a new community of believers in Texas.

I am hoping that this blog will give me the chance to verbalize the process of discovery. Yes, for myself. I have been reading and thinking a lot, and I want to gain clarity as I go. But also for the important people in my life - past, present and future. Pretty soon I will be publicly announcing our intentions to move. Then we will be saying some painful good-byes. I hope that my journaling can help my current friends understand more fully the nature of this change, and that they will support me with prayer. There are family members, too, that will assuredly give mixed reviews when they hear the news (any day now?). They will be joyous about our return to the great State and our proximity to them. They will struggle, however, in understanding why we are leaving a place of comfort and financial security to embrace so much uncertainty. They will wonder why we insist on creating new strategies and methodologies for "doing" church (sorry, I can't stand making 'church' a verb - but there it is!). It is also possible that people I haven't even met yet will find this journal helpful in grasping the wonder of this journey from a position somewhere out there in the future...