Why I Haven’t Had Anything to Say Lately
Last month a Facebook acquaintance, who posts on the web as the Not So Hostile Pentecostal, had some nice things to say about this blog and web site in a post entitled Top Ten Blogs that You (Probably) Haven’t Checked Out Yet. The words of appreciation were a great encouragement to me. But it also caused me to reflect again on how silent I have become on this blog.
Here is what he said:
Commonplace Holiness is the blog of Craig L. Adams. Adams was a longtime United Methodist minister and now is a lay minister and servant at his current church, Mars Hill Bible Church. Adams is regularly a guest speaker at different United Methodist Churches and his blog still reflects the richness of the Methodistic-Wesleyan tradition. Although Adams blogs on a number of topics, I have been most interested in his thoughts on Entire Sanctification and holiness. Adams’ understanding of entire sanctification is refreshing to anyone who has only been exposed to the prideful and legalistic side of Wesleyanism. In fact, Adams is anything but legalistic or prideful. It was both Adams’ demeanor and his theological insights during our Facebook conversations that were influential in my conversion to a Wesleyan approach to sanctification. Additionally, Adams also takes old Methodist/Holiness books by authors such as Thomas C. Upham and Daniel Steele, and that are no longer in print (and are now in public domain), and types them out into an electronic format so that they are available for free to anyone. If you want to check out some great posts from a progressive Wesleyan and the people who have fed his soul, check out Commonplace Holiness here: https://craigladams.com/blog/
Lately I’ve mostly gone silent on this blog. It’s nice to know that those old posts have been helpful to him — and I suppose they may also have been to others. However, for a long time now I have been overcome by a sense that I just don’t have anything to say right now. I especially to do not have any strong desire to convince anyone of anything. And, that (I’m afraid) really does drive a lot of blogging — at least in the Christian world.
There are reasons that I feel I have nothing to say: some unresolved issues in my own mind. And, some of them are things I can identify and talk about a bit. So, here goes. (more…)
The Summer Slump
Well, my summer blogging slump has arrived. I didn’t think it would — but it clearly has. Taking a break from blogging is often a good thing — but I hadn’t thought it would happen this year. We will have to see how it goes.
In other years I’ve had to take a hiatus from updating this blog during the summer. This is because I am busy with other things during the summer — and last year it was because of my struggle with Menier’s Disease. I am much better now, and expect to be able to be more active at this site — but, (as I said) we’ll see how that goes.
I worked outside ar0und the house on Friday last week — which was great, but I think I overdid it. I felt a little dizziness coming on Saturday, and was slightly dizzy on Sunday when I got up. Dizziness is a serious issue with me and I don’t take it casually. Because staring at the computer screen makes me extrememly dizzy when I am in that state, I’ve stayed away from it. So, nothing is “in the pipeline” to be automatically posted this week.
While I expect to post some at the beginning of this week, I will be attending the 2014 Session of West Michigan Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in the later part of the week. I always look forward to seeing old and new friends there — but I no longer care about the “issues.” The United Methodist Church is, generally speaking, in a very bad place — aging, declining, and fractured over sexuality issues. It may not be possible to pull it out of self-destruct mode. I know I can’t help much. Nonetheless, I love the Wesleyan tradition and appreciate the many people who are faithfully serving within the denomination. (more…)