If Jesus Had A Website

Well, it’s been a good run, but I’ve decided that after 5 inconsistent years of blogging, I’m going to cease my efforts on IfJesusHadAWebsite.net and let my ownership of the domain expire in October.

While I am a bit sad about finally making this decision, as I’ve put in 220 posts over the years, in the last few years I just haven’t felt the calling to maintain the site.  While I initially inspired to help and guide Christian webmasters, my focuses have changed over the years, and God has been pulling me in other directions.  While I had hoped to keep the blog up, it’s become unfocused.  Therefore, I’m going to hang it up with IJHAW.

Thank you to all those who have supported this site over the years!

I’ve had the beginnings of a few different posts crafted in the past few weeks, but none of them felt right to proceed with because I wasn’t sure people would see where I’m coming from.  In the years that I have been posting on this blog, I realized that I’ve never shared the story of how I came to have faith in the Lord our God, and I think that needs to be stated before I can really move on with my other thoughts.

Going back, when I was a child, my family attended church sporadically.  I can remember sitting in church, and time in Sunday School, but I don’t remember it being a regular thing.  By the time I reached middle school (5th grade for us in Connecticut then), we had stopped going except for Christmas services.

We then moved from Connecticut from Ohio, still didn’t make church a priority, and I happened to become fast friends with a man who is still one of my best friends to this day, Wade Apel.  Wade and his family were very devout Christians, attending church regularly, and he had invited me to go with him on several occasions, and I had always politely declined.

Later on in high school, he talked me into attending a high school Men’s Breakfast where we read through several books.  However, with a very scientific mindset, I had formed a pretty strong deist attitude at that time, and I spent more time fighting and criticizing the books than reading them.  Even though I was getting into some Christian music, I really wasn’t buying into the message.

I then went off to college with little more on my mind than finding a relationship.  Late in the first semester I found a relationship (ironically with a Pastor’s daughter), I was happy, and little else mattered.  However, over that Christmas break, I spent a few weeks down in Florida (one with my family and one with the college swim team), came back, and realized that I hadn’t even thought of my girlfriend while I was gone.  I realized that if I had been able to go a few weeks without thinking about her, she really wasn’t that important to me, and I cut things off with her.

Well, after that I was embarrassed and disgusted with my desperation from the semester before, and combining that with some roommate issues and some great friends I didn’t feel I deserved (and probably a dash of homesickness) I went into a period of mild (self-diagnosed) depression.  The last few weeks of the semester, I took a class that only met on the weekends, and went home for the time in-between.

Returning back home, Wade now invited me to a college student bible study, and I went ahead and tagged along.  The study just happened to be on the Song of Solomon and we went through Tommy Nelson’s video series.  Talk about timing and a wake-up call!  This series not only made me re-think the way I pursued relationships, but just how I treated people in general.  Most importantly, it made God real for me.  He is an active part of our lives, whether we chose to acknowledge Him or not!

I went back to school with a renewed life and enthusiasm (and going back as an RA, no roommates to worry about), and all those friends I didn’t feel I deserved saw it and helped me to nurture it.  I got very involved with the local church, our on-campus ministries, and spent my next three spring breaks traveling the country on mission trips.

I then moved on to Pittsburgh after graduation, and that theme continued.  I ended up meeting my wife (that’s a whole ‘nother funny story) at one of the Christian groups on campus, and I ended up getting involved with the worship team at a local church, eventually becoming the leader of that worship team and a board member before facing some difficult decisions (a whole ‘nother not-so-funny story).

Looking back now, I can see the path that God set me on long ago.  I just didn’t know I was walking it!

So, last week I came across a CNN article about “Unplugged Christians” who basically retreat so they can be with other Christians who share their views and away from the rest of the world.  The group is even called Christian Exodus.

Yea…

Did these people just skip the whole Great Commission part of the Bible?  We are called to share the word of God with the rest of the world, not hide away and horde it for ourselves.  Even “This Little Light of Mine” covers those basics.

So, instead of living by the word of God they are claiming to tout, this and other groups like it are simply misappropriating their faith to justify actions rebelling against a government they don’t agree with.  And as a Christian, that both infuriates and frustrates me to no end, and I’d love the opportunity to discuss with them why they are doing what they are doing.

I just wanted to link to a post I read today, from Bryan at TheyLookLikeTrees.com:

I Shouldn’t Be A Pastor

What a refreshingly honest perspective from a pastor who admits that, at times, he feels as out of place as we all do at times.  I commend you, Bryan, for realizing that, even as a leader, you are not immune to learning and growing.

You may have noticed that some of my postings have dwindled in the past year.  I had attempted the relaunch of the site, which quickly ended up fizzling because I just hadn’t found the time and energy to keep up with it.  There have been several reasons for that, with the greatest being the additional time and energy that fatherhood demands.

However, another big reason for the downturn has been my satisfaction with my previous blogging platform.  It was a ColdFusion-based solution (which I have a bias towards being a ColdFusion developer) which was very solid.  However, I had made a number of customizations to it to meet my needs, which make keeping up with new revisions nearly impossible.  So, I have not been able to take advantage of new fixes and functionality, and have not had the time to redo the adjustments I had put together for previous versions.

So, I made the pretty radical decision to completely change platforms for my blog, to a more widely used application that I allows me to make customizations, but still keep up with version changes going forward.

However, the one big drawback to this is that I lost all comments on my posts (my new platform did not support importing them from my old platform), which is kind of a downer.  I do still have them all in backups, but have no easy way to tie them into the new setup.

Yet, I think the transition will be worth it.  I’ll have the time to focus more on writing and less on trying to maintain my old hack-and-slash solution, which is what I’d like to do anyway.

Living in a major city, I am often exposed to other cultures and faiths.  I consider this a good thing because learning about the backgrounds and beliefs of others allows me to learn about my own as well.  After all, it's only when we get pushed that we realize where we stand.

Anyway, the other day I was noting how often it is that culture and faith are often wrapped into a single package.  For example, I've heard more than a few non-practicing Jews refer to themselves as “Jewish”.  Technially, they're not “Jewish” if they're not practicing, but “Jewish” is how they define the culture that they were raised with.  Furthermore, most people familiar with Jewish culture would understand that background whether or not the individual still practiced their faith.

That got me to thinking about how the Christian culture is defined.  How are “Christians” generally viewed culturally?  When you call yourself a “Christian” in a room of strangers, what is the first image that pops into their head?  How are “Christians” generally portrayed by the media?

These are legitimate questions to ask, because we need to understand how we are being viewed in order to know how to reach out to others when we speak about our faith.  The answers to these questions reflect where they are coming from, which is likely a far cry from where we are in our faith.

Here are some of my thoughts about how “Christians” are portrayed in general:

• Puritanical – Strict, Witch-Burning, Judgmental Fire and Brimstone Preachers
• Bible-Thumpers – More Interested In Telling You Why You're Sinning Than Reaching Out To Bring Sinners To The Lord
• Naive or Stupid – Can't Accept Or Understand Science (After All, “Christian Scientist” Is An Osymoron, Right?)
• Sissies – Overrun With Hyper-Emotional, Weak Men

These are just a few that come to mind.

How else are we portrayed in the world as Christians?  Are we unfairly stigmatized in relation to other faiths?  How do we go about changing this perception to accurately portray how we live our lives as Christians?

What are your thoughts?

Back in February, my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our first son, Graem.  Here are just a few thoughts I've had in the time since then:

• While the first few months have been a blur thanks to altered schedules
  and getting over the “wow, I'm actually a father” stage, as I now begin
  to see bits and pieces of my son's personality emerge, I begin to think
  about the kind of father I want to be and the values I want to instill
  in my him.
• Has it really been five months already?
• All that time and energy I had to invest in preparing our first home (that we purchased last August) just isn't there any more.  Most days, I wish it was…
• I already miss the long nights of just sitting and holding Graem as an infant when he only slept a few hours at a time.
• When I think back to my upbringing (because I like to think I turned out OK), I see the careful balance of rules, boundaries, and freedoms that my parents set for my siblings and I.  They managed to teach us to say “Please” and “Thank You” without making them chores, and allowed us the freedom to pursue our interests, and now I have to figure out how to turn that around and pass it on to my son.
• We are very thankful for friends who helped us out with some great hand-me-downs.
• It's probably because he's a boy, but even I can get excited about baby clothes.
• Some days are very difficult, and I wish he could just tell us what he needs.
• Thankfully, we are not on our own.  I pray almost daily for God's guidance for both us and him.
• No matter how much he cries or fusses, that smile will always melt my heart…

I'm sure they'll be plenty more to follow…

Wow…it's already been a year, hasn't it?  (Well, at least since I legitimately updated IfJesusHadAWebsite.net.)

The reason?  Well, I simply lost my inspiration for the site.  It had been over a year since I had done any church website work, and it was becoming harder to write from the perspective of the church webmaster.  Week-to-week, I just wasn't sure what to write about any more, and just didn't feel called to keep writing.  So I started to let the blog fade into the background…

That is until a few weeks ago when I got inspired again.  However, the song of inspiration was different this time…

So now, If Jesus Had A Website is relaunching as a Christian life blog, aiming to write about the lives we live and how they are and should be influenced by our faith. 

Yes, I realize that that is a rather broad topic, but my thoughts range all across the spectrum anyway, so that's probably a good thing for you and I both.  I've also toyed with the idea of bringing in some guest writers as well to help represent a variety of perspectives to the blog and provide more food for thought to us all.

So, welcome to the new If Jesus Had A Website, and I hope you enjoy the new material and perspectives we have coming…

[P.S. - All the old posts are still around, if you're looking for them.  They've been relegated to the archives, but can still be found by searching!]

Once again, I have chosen to participate in Pink For October,
to honor my mother who fought breast cancer bravely, but ultimately
succumbed to it when it metastasized into her brain a year and a half
ago.  I encourage you to do your part in honoring and helping those
many who have been affected by this ailment.

Yesterday, my father lost his job as his company did not get their contract renewed.  Please pray for him, as he's taking it pretty hard, especially with everything that's gone on the last 15 months.  I know he'll land on his feet, but unemployment is never a good place to be in.

Thanks for your prayers, and if you know of a need for .NET or C# developers in the Pittsburgh area, let me know and I can pass it along to my dad.