{Many Questions and Few Answers Along the Never-Finished Journey of Faith}

3 Years and We’re Blogging Along…

Posted by on Oct 8, 2012 in Faith, Life, The Church | 0 comments

I guess I’m a nostalgic sap sometimes – I can admit that. It’s been 3 years since I began the task of blogging through Covered in the Master’s Dust. What began as a way to process thoughts while in the midst of a seminary education has become the primary medium whereby I try to speak to a variety of audiences. The site has become a place to collect my published works as well as experiment in my writing. It’s also been a tremendous source of communication for church members. I can’t count how many times I’ve had deep conversations on faith with church members based on something from this blog. I’m eternally grateful for those holy moments.

As active readers know, I have a tendency to stay with a topic for multiple posts. For the readers who have stuck in there with me, thank you for your patience. I know how I feel when I hear (or read) someone harping on an issue ad nauseaum. I hope I have exercised the grace of “enough is enough” more times than not. But whether the posts were on topics such as discipleship, evangelism, church decline, or the faith of young adults, folks have interacted with this site in ways that I could never have imagined. I always appreciate good comments and especially good critique.

One of my favorite comments to recieve is how this site helps others find inspiration to write. I think pastors should keep an active blog because it makes us disciplined writers and better thinkers. If you can weave thoughts in writing into some coherent movement, begin with a good hook, and end with a solid ending, then it can only help your preaching. I was inspired to blog by other bloggers and I’m always thrilled to know that my blog has helped another pastor get into the habit.

Below I’m posting the “Top 10 posts” from the blog over the last 3 years. These posts got the most traffic of any of my posts and I wanted to give readers a chance to engage with them again. I haven’t edited any of them so I hope you’ll notice that my writing has improved some over these 3 years. Some of these surprised me because I never thought they would get the traffic they got. Others not on the list surprised me because I felt they were examples of some of my better writing and yet never got the notice other posts got. Go figure.

Top 10 Posts All-Tme 

    1. The Real Meaning of Matthew 25:31-46
    2. General Conference and Coming Clean About Taboo Topics
    3. 10 Things Christians Need to Remember This Election Season
    4. Women’s Witness to the Gospel
    5. Why You Can’t Solve Your Church’s “Young Adult Problem”
    6. It’s Not About You, It’s About Jesus AND the Church
    7. Says Who? The Problem With Claiming Biblical Authority
    8. Discipleship and the Problem of American Individualism
    9. Fundamentalism: My Way or the Highway
    10. Lessons on Being a Young Adult Clergy in the UMC