We're moving to Austin, which means we have to find a new place to live. We wrestled through all the normal options - house or apartment? rent or buy? in town or out of town? Honestly, I think I'd rather be sitting in a dentist's chair with a dull drill in my mouth than look for houses and apartments. So we finally narrowed it down to renting an apartment... so that we could get to know Austin, and most of all get to know new friends. And that way we could make a wise and informed decision about the future.

So I started looking... and looking... and looking. I've looked at so many floorplans, and square footage, and landscapes, and amenities, and kitchens, and living rooms... I thoroughly analyzed EVERYTHING...

Everything, except for my motivation.

Do you know what was motivating me? Most space for the least amount of money. Sounds inocuous, right? It doesn't matter where you live just as long as you can get the best deal. The "how much" drives all the other factors. It's all about the good deal. It's all about how much space I can consume for the lowest cost.

And then it hit me. You are such a consumer. That's your grid. That's your ideology. That's your instinct.

So now I'm in the process of subverting my own instincts. I'm rethinking my motivation and my paradigm. Is consuming what it is all about? I don't think so. But I've got to retrain myself to have a different grid. One that better reflects the heart of God the giver, not me the consumer.

We've got change and transition on the horizon. We will be moving to Austin, Texas to join the staff of the Austin Stone Community Church. This is an exciting transition for us... more details to come later about all that it entails. I will still be blogging, although pretty spotty over the next few weeks.

As a family, we've really been going through a paradigm shift. We've really been wrestling through what it means to live in community, to be strategic neighbors, to simplify our lives for the sake of relationships, and to live in a way that subverts individualism, isolationism and consumerism that is so rampant in our Western culture. More on this as well... later...

Another shift that's happening personally... God has created me to be a passionate person. I get so fired up about Christ, theology, living missionally, anything having to do with redemption (hence the name of this blog - "exagorazo" - one of the New Testament Greek words for redemption...) God has just made me to be a passionate person about the big things in life. I feel like I am beginning to recover some of those passions, and am excited about how God will both channel those and align those with this next season of life. More on this later...

We would appreciate your prayers as we transition rather rapidly into this next phase of ministry...

stew

I've been taking a little break from blogging lately, and will continue to take this break for the next few days or weeks. In the meantime, you may want to enjoy some of the most popular links on this blog:

What missional North Americans need to read

Missional Church series

Wow, that's pretty narcissistic self-referencing there... Here are some sites/articles that you may find interesting as well:

Gospel and Our Culture Network
(it's been updated for your enjoyment...)

Missiology.org