writing

THE SHAPE OF THE RHYTHM

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My daughter, Melanie asked me, the other night at supper what this new life/ ministry rhythm I have been talking about will look like in real time.

I suppose, I am going to really begin learning what it looks like next week, when I return to full time work, but I have been giving some thought to the shape of the rhythm as I walk out these final days of this October sabbatical.

I have never been very successful at fitting ministry into a rigid structure or shape so when I think of the future of my personal ministry rhythm I do not think of it like a triangle, square, cube or pyramid.

Glowing cube and triangular shapes floating amid colorful stars

I have always seen ministry as complex pattern of interconnected threads that move in and through the world I inhabit, some of which I connect directly to and others which I connect to only through a series of other threads that come across mine.

Repeating ornate pattern with peacocks, leaves, vines, paisleys, and glowing accents

Ministry rhythm to me is a battle between math and music. It is structure for a thing that must be limited, for the sake of the one doing it, but that doesn’t want to be limited by time or space.

Fierce musician battling an equation-covered automaton in a magical library

Ministry rhythm is about a schedule but it not JUST about scheduling; It’s about values and distractions, urgent things and important things; It’s about legacy, living in the moment and releasing what’s important into the right hands that will take up the stewardship of things left behind; It’s about the moment and the millennium; It’s about the beat I am currently playing and the acknowledgment that I am working through a whole symphony of movements that I need to be aware of because the whole effects the page of music I am now playing and vice versa.

Two travelers follow glowing musical notes through an enchanted forest toward mountains

OK, that is a fairly chaotic explanation. SO WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF WHAT’S NEXT? Right now this is the best I can come up with.

Surfers and volunteers on boards; visible text reads “VOLUNTEERS” and “3027-2028.”

I suppose that doesn’t help you much… but it helps me a bit.

BIT BY SLOW

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I set myself a goal this year of writing more everyday. My goal was to write at least one blog for each of my WordPress channels everyday. I also wanted to get back to journaling everyday.

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At the time I was not journaling at all and I wasn’t even getting a devotional video made everyday. I hadn’t written beyond devotional material connected to my weekly sermons for months; so the goal was definitely audacious.

Traveler with cloak and staff looking at a spiraling stone staircase leading into the clouds

I have not made the goal I set on January 1. In fact in January I did not make much headway at all. I may have had a few days during the month where I got two blogs done on the same day. I maybe journaled four times. February was much the same. March was a little better. April fell apart completely around Easter.

Now it is May. Something has changed….some things have changed. I am doing better. Several times a week I am spending time in writing sessions where I am completing multiple projects for the coming week. I am journaling once a week now.

My current goals have changed. I am no longer trying to write everyday. I write on Mondays (that has been my service writing day for years). Now I am just elongating the writing time and I am trying not to do other things on this main writing day beyond the obligatory house chores.

Older man feeding chickens in a farmyard with a barn, coop, and dog

I am journaling once a week during my time at TWR on Monday evenings. I am having mini writing sessions before my Jesus 45 meetings at 6 A.M. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I am trying to spend an hour a day writing on Thursdays and Fridays.

This is where I am for the moment. It’s not producing the results I want yet but it is a beginning and what I know about myself is that big audacious goals are best arrived at in steps. I should have been intentional about the step up process from the beginning.

Man climbing upward steps symbolizing progress

HOW HAVE YOU GROWN YOUR WRITING PROCESS OVER THE YEARS?

MANAGING THE WRITING SCHEDULE 2026

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Five years ago I was writing daily. I had managed to finish a book (never published but I is finished). I was also blogging daily and managing to post thoughts daily.

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Then I took on the role of lead pastor at Cornerstone Church. I knew when God brought me to this choice that writing was going to take more of a back seat in my life. I did however think that I would still manage to write daily….That has not happened. Don’t get me wrong I still write A LOT or at least I produce a lot of content. I have managed to keep a daily devotion going for most of those five years Facebook and here at WordPress. And this last year I have managed to increase my content creation quite a bit, but I have not been able to return to the daily writing schedule.

I am learning that there has ton be a new rhythm for writing.

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Life has changed. My life rhythm is completely different now. It is better and more consistent in so many ways. That said, I have struggled with black and white thinking about my writing for all these last years. I told myself if I could not write daily then I just had to give it up.

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I heard somewhere that good writers have to write every single day or they will never succeed. I struggled with that thought for a long time.

But something has changed in me. I am learning to hold opinions more loosely these days.

I cannot write daily, but I can schedule in a few days when I can write and practice this skill. So that is what I am doing. I am scheduling time in each week when I can sit for an hour or two and do the administration of writing. Its not everyday but it is still time well spent.

TELL ME WHAT IS YOUR WRITING SCHEDULE LIKE?

INFINITY LOOP

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I have been feeling like a return to creative writing projects is at hand in 2026. I’ve felt it before, but have not had the resolve or the organization to carry out said projects. I feel it is important just now to make a return to creative writing. I have to admit, I don;t really know why…I just know it is time.

Here is a project I have been working on since Sunday’s sermon, on the Importance of Corporate Prayer, preached b y Jonathan Bauver.

YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

INFINTIY LOOP

The Code is broken.

The program repeating to its origin point.

We are all lines of code injected into the glitching game

Born to sin, repent and repeat.

Even Heaven is stuck in its perpetual “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Leaving us with “Woe is me! I am flying to pieces here!”

And “How long oh Lord?”.

The White Hat Hacker came and wrote a new line,

“0’s and 1’s”…”X’s and O’s”…

“It is finished!” He said,

But the infinity loop,

STILL…STILL…STILL

HOLY…HOLY…HOLY

SIN…REPENT…REPEAT.

Here we wait for the seventh seal to be torn.

Then the unreachable code will be breached and

The loop will terminate.

“It is finished!” will “Behold I make all things new!”

“HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!” will be swallowed in that unprecedented half hour silence of Heaven that marks what is next.

Finally, sin… repent…repeat will be dressed in robes of white and never hunger or thirst again.

At last, infinity will receive eternity.

GENERAL COUNCIL AND NATIONAL YOUTH CONVENTION DAYS 4&5

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This post was started over a week ago when I was still in Florida. Coming back to Massachusetts and a rather unusual work schedule has made it hard to write.

One of the things I was most concerned with when I went to Florida for National Youth Convention/ Fine Arts was that I would lose the rhythm of the sacred office I practice. Honestly, I did not run into any trouble keeping the office until I came back. I expected coming back would be a piece of cake. I thought I would simply resume my old schedule which was pretty well established before I left. That did not happen. I will have to meditate on that and write more about it in the future.

For now, I am just looking back with fondness on those days in Florida in which keeping my sacred rhythm was surprisingly easy. I finished THE HIDING PLACE, by Corrie TenBoom and started this book by Joseph Castleberry on Wednesday and Thursday.

Amanda and I had an opportunity for an early lunch on Wednesday while Sadie and James went to the lazy river at our resort. We had fun taking pictures with Amanda scowling all week long. I will post this photo series we entitled “MURDERY ‘MANDA” at a later date. It started because I got a candid shot of her waiting in a long registration line at Fine Arts festival at the beginning of the week, and so we decided to make a series out of it.

Here is Sadie doing her best impression of Pennywise. Of course she had no idea who Pennywise was, this is just her looking “friendly”.

On Thursday we took the kids to Universal Studios.

While they road rides and shopped.I took some time to cool off in a shaded area of a cafe and pray the twelve o’clock prayer.

WRITING AGAIN

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Back in the fall I made a commitment I didn’t keep. That was to get back to my writing projects here at the Vicarage. There was a time before I became what I am now that I considered being a professional writer. I gave up working on that part of me.

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The other day I was reading an artist’s blog and she was talking about how she had been out of the art scene for a while because of… life. The blog was all about how she had begun reconnecting with her talent in small ways simply by drawing or painting some small object a few times a week.

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I thought, “This is what I am supposed to be doing, but I am not.”

I had to ask myself why. I have concluded that it is because I am not prioritizing even a few brief minutes to the work. I tell myself I am too tired. It’s not important enough to get into my schedule. I have too many other things to do and cannot give myself the time to even exercise my mind in this way.

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In the end I realize these are all excuses. I am not too tired. I am letting laziness rule me. This work is important. It was once important enough that I considered making it an income stream. I am learning that the more I exercise my mind with healthy hobbies the more productive I become at the work of my calling, so there is no good reason not to begin exercising my writing muscles again.

These are just exercises in thinking and putting thoughts to keyboard; So last night I took a few minutes and began jotting down some words, flow of thought. The piece is below and it is about me and my father.

PRACTICE WRITING 2-12-2025

SABBATICAL DAY 5: CONFERENCING

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This sabbatical feels different from my last. During the last sabbatical my mother was just entering the most intensive part of her medical need. Travel was not really an option. Now Mom is gone. I guess I could go anywhere I want, but I don’t really have any desire to go anywhere.

I know many people think of sabbatical as a vacation. I don’t. I see it as a necessary change of life rhythm for the purpose of clarifying vision. I really need that. I feel more deeply than ever before that I need to see what is coming down the road. More than that I feel like I am commanded to it.

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One thing I did learn about sabbatical from last time was that the rhythm and events of sabbatical are only truly determined by God. I made intricate plans last time and God intervened heavily in my plans to change them. I didn’t get done all that was on my list, but I know now I did get done what I needed to do.

This time my plans are not as detailed, but I feel like I have come closer to matching God’s plans for this sabbatical. This first week of sabbatical was given to prayer and conferences. I attended several prayer services at TWR House of Prayer as they held their annual growth conference. Yesterday I was at Liberty Church in Shrewsbury MA for their L2L conference. Today I was at my own church for our Better Man Conference. I have pages of notes to pray through this next week as I seek vision from them for our church.

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This next week I am spending time in deep prayer, in working around the Vicarage, and in planning administratively for the church: I have budgets to do; missions job descriptions to update; and infrastructure plans to consider; I also think it is time to fill out the paperwork for the next step in my ministry licensing process.

My son and his wife are signing papers this week on a condo so I am beginning a big fall cleaning as they prepare to move at the end of the month. It feels like threads are coming together and I am beginning to see the tapestry, streams are blending in a divine confluence. I certainly am not the only one sensing this. I don’t even understand the bigger parts of it, but I am very clear on the fact that I need to understand my own small part of the stream. I think much depends on it.

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DO YOU FEEL THIS NEXT YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT THAN THE LAST?

IN SEARCH OF THE WORDS AGAIN

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I have written here about the projects going on with the physical property of The Vicarage and the micro-forest gardens. I have written about some of the projects going on at Cornerstone Church. All of those are still in process. If time allows today and the rains hold off I will be working on the chicken paddock and bringing in some more of the fall harvest (which is not huge but is keeping us in healthy vegetables just now). I also have a plant shelf to set up sometime this week and an office to clean. Today I am also putting together a worship set for THE WORSHIP ROOM HOUSE OF PRAYER and I am writing my sermon for Sunday.

That said, there are other projects I have shelved for years now that I am finally taking down and dusting off.

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I am talking about my writing projects. When I took on the lead pastorate at Cornerstone and then when Mom’s health failed, I just didn’t have the brain space to keep up with writing regularly. Life has changed, now, and I am seeing my way clear to what I think my next steps in life are supposed to be.

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The rhythm of prayer and ministry is the constant anchor of life drawing me continually to my Divine Center in Christ. Cornerstone Church, The Vicarage and its gardens are the launching pad from which my life goes forth. These places are the earthly center from which I currently work. They create a context for me. But I think that I have long neglected the part of my life which brings me so much joy. That is the story telling. That part of me feels like it is coming back to life even as I reorient in this new phase of living.

This blog and my other blog LILLIE-PUT are becoming part of that storytelling work. I have been enjoying editing NOTES FROM THE VICARAGE over the last several weeks. I have added pages in the heading and I have begun going through old posts, deleting those that do not lend themselves to the story and figuring out what I really want to say here in the days to come. I have come up with an intentional writing strategy that I have begun to practice. I am not successfully writing everyday yet, but I am closer to that goal than I have been in years.

Searching for the words again is giving me great joy. I am having fun with life right now and all its many projects.

WHAT IS BRINGING YOU JOY THESE DAYS?