An Open Letter and An Invitation

I expect you agree

by Ben Howard

When I started this blog I had almost no concept of what I wanted it to be. I knew that I wanted to write and I wanted to watch a lot of TV and I had some vague notions about explaining God and the meaning of life. You know, everyday stuff.

To be honest, I expected that I'd probably write two or three posts and then let things fade to black. That's what I have a tendency to do. No one has ever mistaken me for an overachiever.

But something else happened instead. I'd love to chalk it up to a new found sense of will power, but that's just not the case. No, this blog became my therapy. It allows me to explore questions and emotions, to be eccentric and strange. It allows me dig at issues of significance without having to take things too seriously.

It allows me to be vulnerable. You allow me to be vulnerable.

There are too many places on the internet, too many places in real life for that matter, that make us stay on our guard. There are so many venues where questions are treated with hostility, where eccentricities are met with judgment, where vulnerability is an invitation of abuse.

I promise you that this place, this blog, will not be one of them.

And with that promise, I also offer an invitation. I invite you to become part of the conversation. I invite you, my friends, to ask questions and challenge assumptions. I invite you to laugh with us, cry with us, think with us, and wander with us through the maze of life. I invite you to be vulnerable with us.

Can you feel the love tonight...wait, wrong movie.

While there have been many other voices highlighted here in the past nine months, mine has been the dominate one. I will still be writing regularly, but I've also been working behind the scenes for the last few weeks to bring in a great group of outside writers who will be contributing regularly. Some of them will be familiar, some of them will be new. Some of them you've already been introduced to over the past two weeks.

I'm saying all this because I don't want this space to be about me. I want it to be about us. I want to offer to you what you have all so graciously offered to me.

I want this to be a community. A community that loves each other, accepts each other, and tells each other the truth, even if we don't want to hear it. I want this to be a community that plays together, that creates together, and that helps each other work toward that never-ending goal of shalom.

You have been my friends and I invite you, we invite you, to become our family.

Peace,

Ben

You can contact me via Twitter @BenHoward87 or via email at onpoptheology [at] gmail.com.

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