Perhaps you just stumbled upon this blog for the first time and perhaps you noticed that my posts skip from April of 2020 to November of 2023. What happened? Come and see.

Introduction

Life from COVID until this past November has been complex. A lot has happened and the Lord has dealt with my heart on a number of issues. In order to understand the full story, I need to back up to 2017.

Building a Platform

In 2017, I wrote a book.

It was a very challenging but rewarding exercise, and I have written more about it here (part 1) and here (part 2).

One of the things that was really conflicting during that process was the constant advice to develop a following and a platform . . . to go about the business of building up oneself.

I don’t really want to take on that industry (because it’s a big one), but it felt icky. I know there are lots of reasons to do it, and I also know there are godly people who do it.

But after I read the back story to the Bible Project, I realized that if God wanted me to have a platform, He could make it so.

So I stopped pursuing building a platform. At some point, I let my website drop, and I even changed the back of my book to say, “Steven has limited time to maintain a robust online presence; so you don’t have to worry about following him or friending him or anything like that.”

The last post I had on the site was from April of 2020 (most of 2018 and 2019 I was trying too hard to create some sort of platform – posting regularly, commenting on the socials, etc.). It was a breath of fresh air to not feel the need to do that anymore.

The Socially Remote

Then, during the pandemic, some friends and I decided to try our hand at a podcast. We called it “The Socially Remote.” It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work. We ultimately decided to drop it due to time constraints (and various things kept happening to each of us . . . keep reading).

The Tree

At the end of October 2020 (actually the day after our last interview on “The Socially Remote“), two trees fell onto and through our house.

We were home at the time, and we are grateful to God that no one was hurt, but the tree started a rather long period of rebuilding, repairing, and reconstructing that lasted through most of 2021 (and 2022 was busy with a project at work that, frankly, did not go well).

Counseling

On top of that, after the tree fell through the house, I had a recurring nightmare that another tree fell through the bedrooms and crushed my wife and kids. So, I started Christian counseling.

Once the nightmares subsided a bit, I decided to continue. For me, it became very close to what the Bible describes as discipleship. It is something that I have come to value tremendously and would highly recommend.

Counseling has allowed me to wrestle through some of my initial expectations and pride around writing the book and building a platform. But I cannot deny that God has created me to write. Communication in general, but writing, in particular, is something to which I feel called.

World Journalism Institute

So, this year (2023), I turned 40. For my birthday, I asked my wife if I could attend the World Journalism Institute. World News Group is a journalism organization that – in my opinion – pursues (and achieves) excellence in communicating the news from a Christian perspective. Their tagline is “sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth.”

At some point in 2022, I began listening to their daily news podcast, The World and Everything in It. I was blown away by the quality and depth of the reporting. World’s mission statement is “Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.”

In order to pursue excellence, if you want to submit anything for publication with World, you have to attend their week-long course – World Journalism Institute. They have a session for “mid-career” professionals (and I just discovered that I’m in the picture of the class in that link).

I attended the week-long training. Here were my takeaways:

• I haven’t really been pushed in my writing in a long time (probably since the book). It was really nice to have other professionals who value writing and can offer solid critique.
• I haven’t worked that hard in a long time. As part of the course, we had to actually hunt down and produce a story during the week (they gave us a day off to do this . . . but the deadline was midnight on our day off).
• I consume most of my media audibly. World has several different media outlets (print, audio, and video); so, about halfway through the week, I pivoted to trying to better understand audio production.
• Writing for audio is very challenging but rewarding. I have been working on a piece for audio since June, and it is just getting published in January: [link to come]

Sunday Night g.r.o.w. Class

Our church – Edwards Road Baptist Church – has different topical classes on Sunday evenings. This semester, one of the classes offered was a writing class that went through the book, Called to Write. I have posted a review of that book here: (link to come).

One of the things the book encouraged writers to do was develop an audience. But the tone was different from the “build your platform” gurus. It was based in mission, and it was not for building your own notoriety. If God has called you to write, then you (may) need readers.

After grappling with that, I decided to reopen this site.

Conclusion

I don’t know what God has in store. Even if it’s nothing big, I’m okay with that. But His call is faithfulness to use the gifts He’s given you (Matthew 25:14-30 . . . we’ve been going through Matthew in Sunday school, and when we got to this passage, I remembered a video that my cousin posted about this passage). In order to write (beyond just journaling and blogging), I at least need a place where people can find me and my writing if they so desire (and if God so blesses).

And we’re back!