{"id":699,"date":"2007-07-27T12:34:44","date_gmt":"2007-07-27T12:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/im_still_around.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:45:33","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:45:33","slug":"im_still_around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/im_still_around.shtml","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m Still Around"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while, I thought I should post, well, <em>something<\/em>.  I&#8217;ve not been a very good blogger of late.  \ud83d\ude1b<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been busy with things other than posting of late.  I just don&#8217;t have anything on my mind, so I fill my schedule with other things.  Actually, the truth is closer to I&#8217;ve had big things on my mind that I&#8217;ve been avoiding an not knowing how to post about them, I&#8217;ve shrunk back into other minutiae.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve had thoughts of posting on some stuff, but not many.  There are several, many actually, blog posts that I&#8217;ve been meaning to link to as well.  Maybe later.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve spent the last couple of years chasing answers on big questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is church?<\/li>\n<li>What about Kip?<\/li>\n<li>What about the UP?<\/li>\n<li>What about discipling?<\/li>\n<li>etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Throughout all of that, and intertwined with it, is the big questions of What is Christianity? and Who are Christians?  After all these years, I&#8217;m still not quite sure how to treat or think of those outside my historic Restoration Movement circle.  I once knew exactly what to think.  &#8220;If you&#8217;re not for us your against us.&#8217; summed it up.  Judgemental, condescending and harsh are other words for it.<br \/>\nYet in my retreat from those ways, I feel as though I&#8217;ve lost something.  It seems most folks who claim the name &#8216;Christian&#8217; take it at face value when others do as well.  I learned not to do that from the ICOC, but to look for some sort of evidence.  Actually, we would assume that you weren&#8217;t until you passed all our tests.  Clearly, many who claim the name aren&#8217;t, but it&#8217;s not my job to say who, but I simply can&#8217;t just take it at face value when someone claims the name of Christ.  Judgement is not good, but discernment is.  But what does that look like?<br \/>\nSo, where I am now is that I&#8217;ve come to grips with the fact that I just can&#8217;t know all these answers.  It&#8217;s not my job to draw lines in the sand or build walls.  I&#8217;ve come to terms with that truth.  I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve emotionally let go of it quite yet, but I&#8217;m there intellectually.<br \/>\nWhat I haven&#8217;t come to terms with or figured out is what am I supposed to actually <strong><em>do<\/em><\/strong>.  Thousands and thousands claim Christ and I know some of them and meet some more all the time.  Some are clearly in the wrong, either misinformed or in denial.  I&#8217;m most certainly one of them as well.  What do I do about it?  I can&#8217;t in good conscience sit on my hands (although I have been) and yet I&#8217;m not sure it&#8217;s my place to speak.  Who am I, imperfect and wrong as anyone, to say anything?<br \/>\nMy response has been to slowly back away and sit down in the corner and watch.  The questions still swirl in my head, but no answers are forthcoming.  So I fill my time with the trivialities of life and ignore the nagging uncertainties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while, I thought I should post, well, something. I&#8217;ve not been a very good blogger of late. \ud83d\ude1b I&#8217;ve been busy with things other than posting of<a href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/im_still_around.shtml\" class=\"more-link\">Read More <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I&#8217;m Still Around<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I&#039;m Still Around - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/im_still_around.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I&#039;m Still Around - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s been a while, I thought I should post, well, something. 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Avoid it while, ironically, implementing it by failing to post anything of substance. I need to take a break, of sorts, from blogging. I've felt like posting some stuff, felt I should be posting some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Salguod.net stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":319,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/04\/im_tired.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":699,"position":1},"title":"I&#8217;m tired &#8230;","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"April 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing new of significance to post, I'm just feeling pretty blah in general. Tired of trying to make a big deal of things, finding the Big Meaning in things. Work's been stressful, adding to things. One of things that attracted me to my church family some 16 1\/2 years ago\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God and Church&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/02\/well_here_i_am.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":699,"position":2},"title":"Well, Here I am.","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"February 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to my weblog. You may be wondering why anyone in their right mind would start a web site entirely for their own thoughts and ideas. Well, to start with, I've not often been accused of being in my right mind. It does sound a bit egocentric, doesn't it? Who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Salguod.net stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":493,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/05\/blogroll_update_4.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":699,"position":3},"title":"Blogroll Update","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"May 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A quick note, Patrick Mead of Tent Pegs is branching out. He's turning Tent Pegs into a blog about family and parenting issues and posting other stuff about his work at the Rochester Church of Christ at his new blog, creatively titled Patrick Mead. I've added it to the blogroll.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Salguod.net stuff&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":665,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/04\/the_oppression.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":699,"position":4},"title":"The Oppression of Perfection","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"April 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't written much of substance around here of late, aside from my on going Quiet Time Journal study of Ezekiel. That's been a surprisingly enjoyable study thus far and your encouraging words on it are appreciated. I'm at a point where I enjoy my reading and look forward to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God and Church&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":349,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/06\/when_did_i_sit.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":699,"position":5},"title":"When Did I Sit Down?","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"June 22, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"When did I sit down? When did I decide that it was OK to rest, to take a break? When did I decide that the status quo was acceptable? When did keeping silent become the preferred thing to do? This is not what I signed up for, to let the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;God and Church&quot;","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1581,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions\/1581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}