My friend Soup mentioned on Facebook that Real Live Preacher (aka Gordon) is hanging up his blog. I’ve been blogging for about 6 years and back in those heady days of blogging, his blog was one of the big ones every Christian blogger seemed to know about.
His writings were always frank and honest, sometimes brutally so, and quite deep. He was not afraid to talk about his very real doubts and reservations swirling in his mind. When he started, he was a preacher, but resigned from that position some time ago.
I wasn’t a regular reader, but when I did stop by I was drawn into his writings, especially the fiction. In fact, his fictional re-tellings of Biblical stories inspired me to write one of my own, though it pales compared to his.. Here’s a taste, hopefully it will inspire you to go and have a read:

Jesus had stopped for a moment and was conferring with his disciples when he suddenly and purposefully made his way toward us. It was as if he was deliberately walking in our direction, almost as if he needed something from us. I would have sworn he briefly looked me right in the eye. As he grew nearer, I could hear him talking with his guys, they were discussing dinner plans, actually, about feeding the whole crowd. They were quite near and had stopped just a stone’s throw away. It seems Jesus expected his men to feed the crowd and they had nothing. Silly fools, caught unprepared. Of course with a crowd this size, as one of them pointed out, it would take a lot of food.
It was then that I noticed Joshua, my oldest at 11. He had our basket in his hand, looking up at me. He had heard the teacher talking. “Daddy,” he said to me, “we could share our lunch.”

Thinking of RLP reminds me of those early blogging days, before the expedients of Facebook and Twitter, when a blog was the easiest way to share your thoughts with the world. I miss those days. The end of RLP is one more reminder that they are gone. But, as he points out in his closing post, everything has a season. The season of ‘blogs’ seems to be passed, but that’s OK.

Jared Wilson points out a fundamental difference between Christianity and other religions:

There are no compulsory pilgrimages in Christianity, no far-flung hoops to jump through. The pilgrimage has been made; God incarnated in man. He comes to us in Spirit.
Every religion beside the true one bids travel for power. In Christianity, power travels to us.
The kingdom is not “out there.” It is “in here.”
The temple is not “there.” It’s “here.”
Christ tabernacles with us.
The gospel that goes into the world and grows and bears fruit goes into the world when we do.

We are on a constant pilgrimage, taking Christ to those who don’t know him. That’s by God’s design. How should that change your daily life?
Go read the whole thing, it’s not long, and if you trust in Jesus, it’ll warm your heart. Oh, and if Jared isn’t in your web routine, your feed reader or your Twitter follow list, repent now in sack cloth and ashes. 😀