Wednesday, January 29, 2014

I'm Back?

It's a little hard to believe that's been nearly two years since I've last blogged.

TL;DR Had a kid, moved for a new job.

Longer version: I think I mentioned the kid already. She's now a bright, engaging toddler and has taken well to our new life in Cleveland. Most of you (all three of you) are probably friends with me on Facebook so you've seen the pictures and heard the stories. We're having a blast with the parenting thing, most of the time. As of this writing, I've also run for 31 days straight and am laying the foundation to run the Cleveland 1/2 Marathon with some other UCC 2030 clergy.

The new job is more interesting. I'm now working for our denominational headquarters, which is incredibly fulfilling, and really, really different from working in a local congregation. Some of the plusses to this include: a pretty "regular" schedule with minimal evening meetings; coworkers!; reliable, awesome public transportation; getting to do really interesting work engaging with all different kinds of ministers in the UCC; travel; getting to revise the Manual on Ministry (!!!!); developing programs that can be used throughout the life of the church.

Some of the minuses include: travel; not getting to work with cool funeral directors; no funerals in general; I miss the people in Red Oak; and BackBencher still has to commute 25 miles to work each day.

But, you know, it's important work, and while I'm not serving in a parish now, we are actively engaged in the life of a local church, and that's proving to be a positive experience for our family.

I hope to write here more regularly in 2014. It's not a resolution, but a hope. I'm also blogging semi-regularly over at Practicing Families, so you can find me there (as well as a ton of other great folk!).