THE
TRANSPARENT
CHURCH

Why am I here?

Why begin a blog?

When my wife and I meet people, and we’re asked to to talk about who we are and what we do, the most frequent comment we hear is:

“How did you guys turn out the way you turned out?”

At first, we were kind of insulted by the question (try asking your spouse or best friend that and see how they react), until people saw our faces and realized we weren’t understanding what they meant.

“No, I mean, how did you turn out as well as you guys did? You seem so…I don’t know…normal.”

And the more times we recounted our nearly 20-year journey in the breathtaking and backbreaking world of church and ministry, the more people would sort of take a step back and look at us like we were some sort of heard-of-but-never-discovered zoo specimen.

“Look at them: they’re the normal pastors.”

Now, I don’t know whether or not that’s true, or whether or not that ought to be true, or whether I ought to want to be that.

All I know is that Carrie and I, like a lot of people, have had some pretty steep ups and pretty tough downs over the years–only, we seem to have caught more than our fair share of them (can that even be said?).

Finally, enough people told us we ought to start sharing our story and our thoughts that we decided we would.

So, here it comes: The Transparent Church blog.

What can you expect?

The insider scoop, I suppose, into the church world.

Our perspective on life, church, and the way things ought to be.

And occasionally, if we’re lucky, we might stumble along some hard-earned wisdom and pass it along (don’t hold your breath on that one).

No promises; no guarantees; just a lot of honesty and vulnerability, and a whole lot about how the person of Jesus of Nazareth continues to change everything about us.

In general, though, the blog will revolve around three main concepts:

1. The idea of being permanently disillusioned about life and church.

2. The idea of being unashamedly hopeful about life and the church.

3. The idea of being passionately sacrificial about Jesus and the stuff He’s about.

In the end, though, we are here because we believe in the power of story and especially fairy tales, and even more especially fairy tales come true–which have the power to re-make the world.

Truth be told, Carrie and I have lived a fairy tale life of our own.

I think it’s about time we told the tale.

Thanks for reading, and wish us luck.