Midnight. Awake. Nothing was wrong, my wife was sleeping, my daughter too. But I couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind flooded with ideas for writing. During our vacation we were trying to practice morning and evening prayer, and I realized that my blog title, ‘Always We Begin Again’ really connected to this practice. Even when we missed a day or time of prayer we would just begin again the next day. This thought lead to the idea that I should write what I’m learning about being a daddy as a pastor and a theologian. With one daughter and another on the way, my thoughts, practices, and desire have increasingly turned toward how to lead and nurture my family in Christ. So, at midnight, two nights into our vacation in Asheville, I realized my vocation as a Pastor-Theologian must be integrated with my vocation as a Daddy.
For the foreseeable future I’m going to use this blog to meditate on and write about being a pastor-daddy-theologian. What I share will primarily arise out of my experience of fatherhood over the last two years, mixed in with some theological reflections, and resource recommendations. While I am sharing from my experience, my hope is that what we do as a family can be easily translatable into other families. I hope to encourage others that, whatever your other vocation may be, being a daddy/mommy theologian is a core aspect of being disciples of Jesus Christ for those who have been called to be parents.
I realize that in blogging on this topic, I’m hitting on something that is deeply personal and potentially alienating. Raising children is difficult, and talking about what we do and don’t do to raise our kids is kind of like treading on sacred ground. I plan on being sensitive to this, while not shying away from trying to share truth in love. This topic can also be very alienating, because many people desire to have kids and don’t. I hope that my thought on raising children in Christ can be translated to the larger family of the church.
One logistical note: to protect my children’s privacy I will be using pseudonyms for them.
I look forward to going on this journey of reflecting on my life as a Pastor-Daddy-Theologian who seeks to serve his family, Christ, and the Church for the Glory of the Triune God.
Always Beginning Again 