Back
in 2002 my friend Michael and I discussed our mutually perceived need to "minister"
and the most obvious path for doing that, for me, was to publish commentary on
the current culture as represented and conveyed through the breaking news and
entertainment media. I'd been a working journalist since my teens and had done
my graduate work in the field, and my thesis was published as a Christian-trade
book marketed as what was then the only available Christian theory of mass communication.
After that I worked for 15 years in a campus ministry/media-oriented institute,
publishing a variety of Christian publications with that same concept: Christian
analysis of the current culture, developing Christian worldview through analysis....
I'd given up that formal ministry during a personal crisis, but once on stable
footing again felt the need to do what I could to use the talents the Lord had
entrusted to me. Thus, in Feburary 2002, Xnmp came to be. But a year
ago I got my first mass-market book writing project, and after that came out earlier
this year, I got an offer to do a second. It seems the investment of my talent
had been reaping some return. But (while still employed in a fulltime job
in high technology) book writing and news/media blogging have come to seem an
imperfect fit. I want to concentrate on books and the thinking that leads to the
kinds of books I want to write, Christian perspectives on topics that have mass
market appeal and develop Christ-centered worldview, but not so much oriented
toward breaking news events, entertainment, and editorials. So I'm looking for
a new way to cast this blog. I think it may end up being a repository for my author's
"overflow," things I learn in the course of writing about Jesus or C.
S. Lewis, or whatever comes next, but don't quite fit, or aren't quite ready for,
the book at hand. A place to ask you to sharpen my thinking by making comments
on ideas I throw out from my own thinking or from my reading. Things like last
month's "Groking PostModernism." Please
stay posted, and—please—keep me posted. | 
