A year of adhering

Today is the anniversary of my first post on this blog. It feels slightly strange - I am not particularly successful at maintaining writing projects, and I am a little surprised to have got this far. I am even more surprised at the readership. 

I started writing shortly after the decision not to be a soldier in the Salvation Army - a decision taken on doctrinal grounds. I decided that I had to stick at adherent, but that I would be the most active adherent I could possibly be, trying to use my gifts to the full, within the limitations of a lot of work and a long commute. That long commute sounds the death knell to much midweek involvement in the corps to which Sarah and I belong; it is however, precisely the long commute that has generated the writing time for the blog. I am on a train as I type this. 

Over the year the Adherent has had 69 posts and nearly 13 000 page views. Of these, the large majority have been in the UK, with the USA, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Germany, France and Brazil following after. A surprising number of apparent hits from Russia make me wonder if I am being tracked by Putin's secret service! A number of factors seem to have propelled particular posts to a wide readership:

- Posting a picture of the WBC cadets - massive exposure guaranteed due to the popularity of said bods. Content of article irrelevant. The fact that my wife took the photo gives me no satisfaction. ;-)

- Posting stuff that has to do with bringing up children, especially after conversations with my daughter about her lovely trio of girls.
 

- Posting polemical stuff that strikes a chord with people in the Salvation Army.

 - Posting articles that are of interest to particular church readerships: I know that The quiet bloke at the back and A visit to Inspire were looked at especially by people from Longmeadow and Inspire churches specifically. 

- Posting material of a strongly personal and transparent nature - The quiet bloke at the back and Letters to a shipwrecked minister being examples.
 

Material that does not get easily looked at tends to be:

- Historical - I have given up the "On this day" series. 

- Simply biblical or theological material of no especially polemical nature. This I will not stop writing.

 

I want to thank everyone who has read my blog, and especially people who have shared articles or who have joined in the discussion by commenting on the blog itself, on Facebook or in other media. With God's help I hope to carry on, although I will say quite frankly that my heart is really in the spoken word, and I am so looking forward to some preaching and teaching opportunities in the coming year. 

God bless you in 2016!

The need of the hour

You need a reason to start a blog at this time of verbal cacophony. We are surrounded by a storm of words, more than ever before - anyone can write an article, publish it, see it read, shared, tweeted and retweeted. Controversy and argument, radical idea and reactionary answer are the stuff of life. We align ourselves a dozen times a day - we like, we share, we comment, we refute.

This is the case in general conversation, but also within the church. Exactly the same patterns of divisive argument, of side-taking, of aggressive stances, lack of patience, kindness, self-control pervade in our discussions. 

I don't want to write a simply controversial and argumentative blog. I know that topical and provocative articles generate a lot of hits, but I want to be content to write without pretension to greatness, for whoever may happen to find a few words useful. 

And I think that the need of the hour is to hear Christian truth spoken quietly. To refamiliarise with the basic biblical message, the Bible's main themes. This may at times be prompted by a topical or current theme - last week's atrocity in Paris, for instance. And to state Christian truth is hardly to avoid controversy, in this day and age! But my starting place and basic mentality is to talk about Jesus and his love. 

I have not lost my courage or withdrawn from battle. It is my conviction that the only reason why anyone gives houseroom to so much of the wave of trendy, deconstructionalist, totally-committed-to-vagueness material currently popular, in the SA in particular, is simply unfamiliarity with the Gospel. The gurus of postmodernism have entered the church and found that no one knows enough Bible to spot what is actually poison. They have found seats and tables to sit at and a chance to even make a bob or two. 

And only the real Jesus will have the guts to oppose them. And only his gospel of grace will have the truth-power to throw them out. The church needs to be filled again with truth on fire, with the message of the Cross.