Three Year Blogiversary!

Wow…three years? Yup. First public post was in April 2008, a few weeks before General Conference 2008. Wild.

Here’s a stroll down memory lane for longtime readers and a few new reading pieces for newcomers.

Favorite posts from the first year:

• Mission Holiness Rankings of UM Seminaries [snarky piece making fun of Andrew Thompson that he received well and got HX onto the Methobloggers’ radars]
• What the Church can Learn from Wikipedia [became a UMReporter article]
• The Bible Illuminated (review) [review that got us on NPR and changed my ideas on illustrated bibles]

Favorite posts from the second year:

• Call for a People-powered Hymnal [response to the UMC’s abandonment of a new hymnal and seeking out what a new one might look like]
• Seeing Communion Again for the First Time [my re-introduction to the standard communion liturgy and my response]
• Purpose-Driven Genocide [critique of Rick Warren and his lack of prophetic action regarding Uganda]
• Glenn Beck declares war on United Methodists [featured on UMC.org and the single highest number of comments and flamewars on this blog]

Favorite posts from the third year (excluding the Pastor’s 24 and Call To Action craziness):

• What if small churches sell out to Corporate Churches? [emerging critique of franchised churches and ponderings on the movement to multi-site churches]
• The Psychology of Altar Calls [refusing to embrace fear as a conversion tool]
• Could Discipleship become an RPG? [emerging critique of gamification in the church]
• Here, there be Dragons for Young Clergy [advice for clergy who are still under scrutiny on how to talk about justice]

What you can look forward to in the fourth year as I try to better balance inward facing posts (church critiques), outward-facing posts (gospel to geeks), and spiritual reflections (sermons and devotionals):

• A long-running series on Gamification, or the influence of game mechanics on the church and how it might embrace/reject it. I’ve seriously got about 12 different blog posts being tinkered with, so this will be a persistent conversation.
• More posts on the Geek Gospel, or talking about parallels to Science Fiction and Gaming for the nerds that read this blog.
• A potentially interesting series as I have conversations with a preaching partner that may be surprising to readers.
• More support and guidance to young clergy. You wouldn’t believe the conversations I’ve had where I get asked “how did a person like you get ordained and keep your integrity?” I think this is a role I need to be more vocal about.

We’ll look forward to Year Four as being a great year for spiritual conversation, Star Wars humor, reflections on nerdy areas, and ever-present hacking of Christian systems to give the Spirit more room to breathe new life into our Church.

Thanks for being on this journey…and have a cupcake.

(Photo Credit: LA Weekly)