“I have a blog.”

Of all the things I thought I would never say, this is it. I have enjoyed journaling for much of my adult life. I don’t journal daily, but I have always enjoyed writing prayers, capturing thoughts and clarifying whatever happens to be filling my mind and heart at the time. But blogging is different to me. I have often thought that if I ever began to blog, my first post would be about how useless the practice is. (How ironic to be eating that crow.) When I say useless, I exclude from that description every blog that I currently read, all three of them. I am quickly reminded how little I like blogs when I read the comments section and despise wanting to be ‘one of those’ blog commenters. So, to say “I have a blog” is no small issue. But as I have too often allowed in my life, I have too long allowed the muck and mire to overshadow the value and benefit.

Here is what I hope to accomplish through my blog:

• I want to help people. I am confident of God’s call on my life. Helping other people know and understand God, grow in their spiritual lives, pursue his will and call, and experience a greater sense of purpose and satisfaction in life is at the heart of that call.
• I want to raise up and equip leaders. Few things are as satisfying as being able to help someone find their strengths and gifting to serve or discern their call to lead in ministry. I love to see ministry grow and mission multiplied because a new leader has been empowered to lead.
• I want to resource LifePoint Church to impact the world, neighbor to nation, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Along with raising up leaders, I am hoping this blog will become a resource to help equip the church for ministry and mission. Every week in sermon prep I find myself cutting material that I would really like to include, but I either don’t have time to use it or need to further refine the point I am making. This will be a great place to add content for weekly help.
• I want to expose the meaning and purpose of God’s Word to make all of this a reality. This is the foundation of all I have mentioned. This motivates me more than any other single objective.

One of my personal goals is to better learn the discipline of and hone my skill of writing. I make no claims about my abilities here, except to say that I want to see them improve. This will be my biggest personal challenge.

My plan is to submit two or three posts a week. The early post of the week will be a responsive post from LifePoint’s Sunday gatherings. The main post for the week will be more extensive covering a particular topic that I am currently studying. The third post will remain open to be used at my discretion. I hope and pray this will help accomplish these objectives for the glory of God and the good of those who read it and find it useful.