.:6 years of writing:.
I started blogging in Oct. 2002. (in a different URL) I've moved my blog twice to it's current location. I remember when I started if I would keep it up. There were times when I took breaks. For months at a time. But for the most part, blogging has been a part of my life for 3 years. For me, blogging started as a tool to ask questions and test the waters of a new found life, within a new life in Christ. I'd been following Jesus for quite a long time. In 2000 I resigned from my position at Asbury UMC in here in Tulsa to find ways to get myself healthy again. I had become a work-a-holic youth pastor in "the fast lane" of youth ministry. I loved the adrenaline. I love the crazy work schedule. But I hated what it was doing to my family. Around the time I had been rethinking my work life, a situation occured within the congregation that led to me being a bit disallusioned with the institution. The church had fallen short, I caught the brunt of it and I didn't know how to handle it. I got angry. I started writing. At that point I started writing for theooze.com Eventually this became a weekly column of sorts. Titled "Riddle's Rants". This was before ranting was cool or common. Sure Dennis Miller did it. Andy Rooney too. But ranting in the church wasn't well accepted.(which on one hand is very sad.) Why did I rant? Was I angry? Someone. Dissinfranchised would be a better word. The church I read about in scripture,the people who walk with Jesus and follow him and the church as I had experienced were very different things. Ranting was excorism for me. I'm not talking about real demons here. I'm talking detox. I'm talking about every belief about the church, every concession and compromise I swallowed to stay in the system. That needed to come out. As I identified this poisons my personal method for ridding my body of them was writing. My writing on theooze.com became a significant part of my public and somewhat communal rehab. What was intriguing at the time was how my rants, were connecting with the souls of my people.
more later.
I started blogging in Oct. 2002. (in a different URL) I've moved my blog twice to it's current location. I remember when I started if I would keep it up. There were times when I took breaks. For months at a time. But for the most part, blogging has been a part of my life for 3 years. For me, blogging started as a tool to ask questions and test the waters of a new found life, within a new life in Christ. I'd been following Jesus for quite a long time. In 2000 I resigned from my position at Asbury UMC in here in Tulsa to find ways to get myself healthy again. I had become a work-a-holic youth pastor in "the fast lane" of youth ministry. I loved the adrenaline. I love the crazy work schedule. But I hated what it was doing to my family. Around the time I had been rethinking my work life, a situation occured within the congregation that led to me being a bit disallusioned with the institution. The church had fallen short, I caught the brunt of it and I didn't know how to handle it. I got angry. I started writing. At that point I started writing for theooze.com Eventually this became a weekly column of sorts. Titled "Riddle's Rants". This was before ranting was cool or common. Sure Dennis Miller did it. Andy Rooney too. But ranting in the church wasn't well accepted.(which on one hand is very sad.) Why did I rant? Was I angry? Someone. Dissinfranchised would be a better word. The church I read about in scripture,the people who walk with Jesus and follow him and the church as I had experienced were very different things. Ranting was excorism for me. I'm not talking about real demons here. I'm talking detox. I'm talking about every belief about the church, every concession and compromise I swallowed to stay in the system. That needed to come out. As I identified this poisons my personal method for ridding my body of them was writing. My writing on theooze.com became a significant part of my public and somewhat communal rehab. What was intriguing at the time was how my rants, were connecting with the souls of my people.
more later.
posted by mark at
11:03 AM
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