I Used To Be A Pastor

I used to be a pastor.  Depending on how you look at it, I might still be one.  No matter the validity of those two statements,  I will definitely be one again.


The last 2 and some odd years have been...well...something.  I have been beaten down and built back up.  Betrayed and beloved.  Lost and found.  Marred and married.  Depressed and delighted.  Anxious and at peace.  The details of the last few years are really not the point, even if sometimes they are.  The point is what I have learned, am learning and will yet learn in the days, weeks, months and year to come.  While I am probably never going to be "not a pastor," I am also not currently a pastor.  Confused yet?

I was ordained in September of 2011, therefore, I am a pastor.  I recently left/ was forced out of my most recent call in Fulton, IL, therefore I am no longer a pastor.  I, with the support of my incredible wife, Megan, have made the decision to actively NOT seek a call for one year.  That's what this blog is mostly going to discuss.  This year.  This 365 ( now 351) days with out the title "Pastor" before my name.  But, who am I kidding afterall, it will also be about the last few years from time to time.

This is what this blog will be.  Rambling.  Coherent.  Daily. Less than daily.  Biased. Balanced.  Filled with pain.  Filled with rapturous joy.  Grammatically correct.  Except for when it isn't.  Happy.  Sad.  Everything in between.  Dog pictures.  Drawings.  Music.  Prose.  Maybe a poem or two.  Maybe more.  Lifting successes.  Also failures.  Hiking and climbing.  The writing style will often be best described as "pretty good for a middle schooler," or maybe it is just "artistic."  Probably the first one, though.  Sometimes the entries will be good and sometimes they will be god awful.

 True.  Always true.  I very likely could have saved you some time by just starting there.  Sorry about that.

God has called me and my family into a great unknown adventure.  A year can bring incredible, almost unbelievable, amounts of change.  A year can be good, it can be bad, it can be ugly and it can be all three at once or none of them at all.  This blog is intended to be a study of what a year can be and what God can do in 365 (351 at this point) days.  It will probably just end up being a collection of pictures of my dog and my wife, weights I lift and mountains I climb.  It will probably not be any of that most of the time.

Tune in tomorrow, or as soon as I get to it, for more on how this year came about.  Tune in the next day, or whenever I get to it,  for more about what I hope this year will be.  Tune in the day after that, or...well, you get the point...for pictures of Tillman in the woods.

Until whenever "tomorrow" ends up being, know that we are okay and will be even better next year.  How do I know that?  Because I have seen a glimpse of what God can do, and I know that he can and will do it again and again.  Always and forever.  Forever and always.  Whether any of us deserve it or not.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

(That's my wife and my dog. Outside of Jesus, they are about the only "things" that matter to me right now.  Them and lifting really heavy things.)