Recently I was on the MERCYhouse website ans noticed that Robert is blogging with intentionality, and it has inspired me to do the same. He has a lot more to offer in some sort of concerted teaching effort though, so what I will be doing is going to look a little different.

Over the next semester I plan to sow the seeds for a new MERCYhouse service starting at 7pm and hopefully meeting in the Southwest Residential Area. One of the ways I hope to sow seeds is by starting an evangelically focused house church, of sorts. The idea right no is a "Doubt Night" group. Here's how this thing would work.

Every Wednesday night, or some other day, yet to be determined, I would set up a pizza party in the dorms and invite all the non-Christians to come and ask whatever they want. I see it as a safe place where real questions can receive real answers. There won't be anything that is not allowed. I will answer what I can to the best of my ability, and find out the answers to question I don't know by the next week. I think that this kind of candid intellectual setting will draw in non-Christians, as well as give a safe place for Christians to bring their questioning friends. Food will be provided, and, since we meet every week, people will have the opportunity to build relationships and feel comfortable hanging out church guys. I hope to build a core of people who never went to church before, and through this experience decide to help me with this new service.

More than this, I will be gathering their questions, and then using them as a jumping off point for my sermon series in the Fall. The idea is that if one person asks a certain question, certainly more people have it, and if I preach on it, maybe they will come to here the answer to what their heart has been asking. That is the idea right now, anyway.


What does this have to do with me blog and being more disciplined with it? A lot. See I also intend to use my blog to answer the questions that Umass is asking as well. I will post questions that I received that night, and then through out the week, ( I am aiming for an update on Fridays and Tuesdays) I will answer the questions in a more thoughtful manner that I could during the Doubt Night meeting time. I figure both the Doubt Night, and the subsequent answer time on my blog will stretch me to the point were I am going to have to rely on God for answers.

Also, since the culture around me is very "Electronic", I have plans to let people submit questions on my blog that will be answered both at the group and online. And as I type, I wonder how cool it would be to actually record some of these questions and answers every week and make them a Podcast? That is a lot of work, so I don't intend to do it right away, but maybe someday.

What does this mean for this blog? Well there are a few possibilities. To do the question and answer thing effectively I may need a full website. If that is the case, then I will only be blogging here twice a month or so about my family and stuff to keep all of you in our lives. The theology will be moved to my website, as well as the rants. If, on the other hand, I don't get a website, you can look forward to seeing a lot of crazy conversations happening right here. More than likely there will be some mixture of the two options.

Regardless, I promise to blog more. I really do think it is important to keep all of you informed about what is going on in my life, as well as thought I am having. Thanks for reading.