This is going to be the last post on this blog for the indefinite future. Over the last few months, I've been thinking about taking some time to focus my attention elsewhere, particularly on some more in-depth theological study and more focused and substantial writing projects. The time afforded by temporarily giving up blogging will help me achieve this goal.

Blogging has been a very beneficial exercise for me over the past years. I've used it as a forum to think through a number of different things, and it has helped me improve my writing a great deal. I will certainly return to it in the future, but for now I'm not sure when that will be.

My online presence will really be limited to Twitter from this point forward, so you are welcome to follow me there. I would deactivate my Facebook account, but I manage our church's Facebook page and can't deactivate without also losing the ability to manage that page. As a result, I will have to just limit my Facebook usage as much as possible.

To all of you who read this blog and have contributed to the conversations over the years, I thank you. I will look forward to resuming those conversations at some point in the future.

I don't typically do personal posts here, but I thought a year-end reflection might be worthwhile, even if only for my family and friends who read this blog. Be warned, though – when I do foray into more personal, introspective posts, they tend to be quite long, so get a cup of coffee if you're thinking of reading this all the way through.

Robin and I began 2010 with a great deal of uncertainty, still waiting for visas to process for us to move to the United Kingdom. To be honest, by January, we were seriously beginning to think it wouldn't happen. We both had jobs we did not particularly enjoy, and we had a lot of uncertainty about the future. The visas did come, however. On my birthday in February, we got the news that the church here had finally been approved to sponsor us. From there, the next few steps moved on comparatively quickly, and by May, we had the visas in hand.

Our remaining time in Florida was really a time of blessing, though. Relationships with our church family at River Oaks Church deepened, and I continued to have many opportunites to partake in the church's ministry. As we were leaving and saying goodbye to all the wonderful people there, we found that words could not express how blessed we were to have spent our four years in Florida sharing our lives with them.

We did a quite a bit of travelling last year. In early May we took a road trip across the southern United States and into Texas, going as far as San Antonio, and in June, we took another road trip on our way out of the United States, first heading west to visit some friends in Mississippi, and then north to visit Robin's family in Michigan and mine in Ontario, before flying from Toronto to Gatwick, and driving from Gatwick to Hull. Since arriving in England, we've been able to visit some of the sights here, including York and London.

Packing up all our stuff in Florida was an adventure in itself. Our move to Florida when we got married was a big move, but we didn't have a lot of stuff at the time. Moving to another continent, though, accessible only by air or sea, was going to be interesting. We had to sort through all kinds of stuff, and we managed to get rid of a lot. We ended up getting a 20-ft. shipping container to move our belongings to England. During our three weeks between leaving Florida and arriving in England, I enjoyed tracking the container and learning about the shipping container business. In the end, the process couldn't have gone smoother; everything arrived right on schedule and nothing was damaged.

The biggest event of the year was, of course, the actual move to England. This photo summarises our life for about three weeks in the middle of last year – going from place to place living out of suitcases. It was taken at Gatwick Airport in the carpark where we picked up the car we hired to drive to Hull. Robin says she gets dizzy looking at this photo because by that point, we were exhausted from travelling, and both nervous and excited because we were about to make the final journey to our new home.

We weren't really sure what it was going to be like living in a new country and a new culture, but our initial experience was very good. The church family at St John's was so warm and welcoming, and they were eager to make us feel at home quickly. And they succeeded – this is the fourth time I've moved in my life, and this has by far been the easiest transition. After being here about three months, I was beginning to get tired of people asking me, "How are you settling in?" because I felt that the process was over and that we had settled.

People often ask us to point out the differences between North America and England, but I always find this question hard to answer. There are little differences – terminology, the way houses are constructed, different cars, some unique foods – but I'm hard-pressed to make any sweeping observations about how these two places differ. I'm well aware that we are in a different culture, but it's not so radically different that I can be specific about it. People here are like everywhere else, in one sense – concerned about providing for themselves and their families, desiring relationships with others, spending their time watching television or going shopping or taking a walk. Maybe it will take time before I'm able to make more observations about the differences.

We moved to England so I could take up a position as an assistant minister at the church. My official title is "Assistant Minister – Community Action," meaning that half my role is sharing in the preaching and other pastoral responsibilities, and the other half is developing and coordinating the church's community outreach work. The first part of the role has gone well. The 'pastoral' side of the role is new to me, and while I'm still getting used to people unloading on me – seemingly without inhibition – I'm learning quickly. I have more experience preaching, although not a great deal, but I continue to be challenged by it and enjoy it, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it far more regularly now.

The community action side of the role is new, though, both to me and to the church. When I got offered the position, I was told it would be up to me to give shape to it. Starting almost from scratch, as it were, the first few months were a difficult. I spent a lot of time trying to get to know this city and thinking about how we wanted to approach this work. Within a few months, though, I felt much more confident about the role, having seen some things unfold and fall into place. I now understand myself to be doing three things – articulating a biblical and theological basis for our community work, developing and coordinating community projects, and equipping people in our church to participate in these projects and to live as Christians in their communities. I am excited to see how this will play out further in this new year.

For now, though, thinking back over the past year and looking forward, I'm reminded again of how blessed we are. While the year began with uncertainty, we now look back and clearly see God's hand guiding us. Yet at the same time, I'm aware that the uncertainty we experienced is nothing compared to what others around the world have faced, especially those who have suffered greatly in this past year from famine, war, natural disasters, and whatever other terrible things sin has wrought on creation. I mourn with them, and earnestly pray that 2012 will be a more peaceful year.

But Christ is still enthroned as King over heaven and earth, and as we move into another year it's again my hope and prayer that he will return to conquer sin and death and fulfil all his promises to his people.

Until then, let us continue to faithfully bear witness to the Kingdom of God, offering to the world the hope, joy, and peace that are only found in Jesus Christ.

May God richly bless all of you in 2012.

(NB: We're beginning the year with a short holiday. There is one post set to publish on the 4th, but aside from that, posting will not resume regularly until the 10th of January.)

I know the blog has been silent for quite some time, but if you've been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you'll know that we have arrived safely in England and have been busy getting adjusted to our new life here. Our trip over was uneventful, although there was a delay in the flight and about a forty-five minute wait at immigration. But we are here now, adjusted to the new time zone, and so far enjoying the much cooler weather (except for the day we arrived in the UK when it was 27°C, we've not seen over 20°C). Robin has started a blog to keep people up to date on our new life here.

The most enjoyable part of our trip for me was driving our hired Peugeot 207 from London Gatwick airport to Hull. This was my first time driving a right-hand drive vehicle, but I found the switch rather easy. The car was good to drive too; I've never driven a Peugeot before (I don't think you can even buy them in North America unless they've been imported by someone), but I have heard they have a reputation for being solid, reliable cars. The 207 we had was certainly a good little package, fitted with a 1.6L diesel and a 5-speed transmission. Even with the stop-and-go-but-mostly-stop on the London carpark (otherwise known as the M25), and congestion on parts of the M1, the car returned a fantastic 54mpg.

The church family at St John's has been so very welcoming, which has been a tremendous blessing. We have met so many people in these first two weeks, and we have been very encouraged by their faith and unity, and are excited to be a part of this community of believers. 

Yesterday, I began work here by spending the day with a colleague learning about the community project St John's has undertaken. One of the things I've been brought on to do is develop this project and find other ways that we as a church can minister to the city. One of my main priorities over the coming months will be to really get to know Hull and its needs.

I plan to return to regularly scheduled programming from here on in, by which I mean, of course, a return to the main subjects of this blog. It is good to be here in England, and back into a routine. I look forward to picking up the conversations here again soon.

Our move to England has involved an introduction to the massive industry of container shipping, which I've found to be rather fascinating. On 21 June, a 20-foot container arrived at our house, which we loaded up with all our belongings. It's now on a ship called the APL Qatar (at least, by process of elimination, I've determined with 95% certainty that this is the ship it's on), and is supposed to dock at the Port of Felixstowe tomorrow morning. It has been fun to track the ship as it's moved across the Atlantic using a tool I found at MarineTraffic.com.

According to Wikipedia, there are some 18,000,000 containers that make 200,000,000 trips each year around the world. This whole shipping industry is really an incredible operation. The ship our container is on holds some 4,000 containers, and can be loaded and unloaded in just a few hours. Below are some photos of the whole process, including loading our container, the ship our container is on, and some photos of the operations at Felixstowe.

We are just about finished packing up our belongings, and I wanted to post a quick update before we pack up the computer. Thursday morning we are scheduled to begin our three-week long, roundabout trip to the United Kingdom. We'll first be taking a trip up north to visit our families, and then we fly out of Toronto on the 14th of July. All the while, our belongings will slowly be making their way across the Atlantic to our new home in Hull.

Needless to say, blogging will be not be happening during this time. I will be sure to pick up again once we have settled into our new life in England. For now, if you want to keep tabs on what is going on in the interim, I'll be regularly issuing updates on Twitter. Thanks, as always, for reading, and I look forward to picking up the conversation again once we are landed in Hull.

If you are connected with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you would have seen a few days ago that we finally received the visas we have been waiting for to move to England. It has been ten months since we first started working through all the paperwork, and have had to go through an extensive process to get the church approved to be a sponsor, and to get the actual visas. But finally, by God's grace, they are in our hands.

In case you are a relatively new follower of this blog and don't know what I am talking about, I will be taking up a position as an assistant minister at St John's Church in the city of Hull. As an assistant minister, I will be taking part in the pastoral responsibilities at the church, in addition to overseeing and coordinating the church's community outreach work. There are a lot of great opportunities to serve and minister to this church and this city, and I am very excited and grateful that God has opened this door for us.

Our plans are to leave Florida on 23 June, and begin to make our way north, visiting Robin's family in Michigan and my family in Ontario for a few weeks before we fly out of Toronto and arrive in England on the morning of 15 July.

As you might expect, there are a lot of things that need to be done before this, especially sorting through all our belongings and determining what we want to take with us and what we want to sell or get rid of. Given that, expect blogging to be a little more sparse for the next few months. I'll continue to update as we move forward.

Your prayers, as always, are greatly appreciated as we prepare both for our move and for ministry in the UK.

Last November, I took a month-long hiatus from blogging in order to give more time to other things I felt more important. Since I have been back, I confess that I have not enjoyed blogging as much. Part of the reason for this is because I feel a sense of pressure to maintain some degree of regularity in posting. In and of itself, this is not really a problem; I always have something on my mind I could blog about. The problem is that I am something of a perfectionist when I write, and I'm not satisfied until I have said everything I want to say in just the right way. And so I can have a blog post I started on Monday that is not ready to be published until Saturday because I constantly read over it, rework it, and polish it until it is right. When I'm already working fifty hours a week and have all kinds of other things going on during the week, that is additional stress that is entirely unnecessary.

I have been thinking about changing how I blog. The time factor is one of the reasons. But there is another, more significant, reason for my decision to make this change. In an opinion piece in the March web edition of Christianity Today, John Dyer, the web development director at Dallas Theological Seminary, observed that with the advent of blogs and social media, anyone can publish anything with the click of a button. He noted,

What few of us realize is that when we press those 'Publish,' 'Post,' 'Comment,' and 'Send' buttons, we are making the shift away from merely 'believing' truth and stepping into the arena of publishing that belief. In doing so we are effectively assuming a position of leadership and teaching.

Jamie Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, recently articulated the idea that just because you can publish something, doesn't mean you should. There used to be a difficult process you had to go through in order to get published, requiring one to submit manuscripts, get the approval of an editor and a big-name publisher. Smith argues that there is wisdom in that process:

I just wonder if there might be a few young theologians out there who are willing to at least pause and consider the possibility that there remains some wisdom in the establishment--and so might, for the sake of their work, submit to the disciplines of the process, even find the gifts hidden in rejections, rather than scurrying to find what upstart press will get their book into print. They might be grateful later, and theology might be better for it.

The point, I think, is that few of us are learners. We either don't want to be, or we just don't know how to be. Lately, I have become increasingly aware that I need to be a learner again. Human nature inclines many of us to want to be teachers, or to be complacent with the knowledge and wisdom we have already acquired. Being a learner, however, requires deliberate effort. It requires being willing to listen, think, read, contemplate, and digest. A few weeks ago, I was talking about how little I have been reading lately, and I noticed that even as I said that, I have an ongoing impulse to spit out thoughts whenever they come to me (using the outlet that is this blog).

It seems to me that there is an unhealthy disconnect there. As I move closer to taking up a role that puts me in the position of a teacher, I am growing more conscious of the need to assume the posture of a learner. I need to be much more intentional about taking in the knowledge and wisdom of others who are far more learned than I am. There are any number of ways to do this – reading books, listening to lectures, having face to face conversations with others.

So, for now, this means I will be putting down my own pen in order to learn and grow from what has flowed from the pens of others. I have a few ideas for how the format of this blog might change in light of this:

• I have a pattern already of quoting portions of books I am reading that offer something interesting and insightful. But up to now, I have usually framed the post with my own commentary on the quote. With the new format, I will offer a lot less commentary and let the quote speak for itself.

• In the same vein, I will post links to articles around the web that I find interesting and worth reading and thinking about. I already do this regularly on Facebook, but will probably do it less there and more here since I have a bit more space to make notes on it (Facebook limits you to something like 450 characters).

• There will be very few posts that contain content I have written entirely by myself. These are the types of posts that usually take me the longest and cause me the most stress. This is not to say there will not be any of these, but they will be very infrequent.

Instead of this being a place where I just air out my own thoughts, I want it to be a space that facilitates learning by pointing to the wisdom and thought of others and gives us a forum to interact and converse about all kinds of different topics and ideas. In addition, this may provide us with more opportunities for conversations. One of the goals I have had with this blog is to post about three times a week. This has been a big challenge up to now, but I suspect that with this change that goal will be much more within reach. As always, thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy the new format.

Some time ago, I packed up a lot of the books on my shelves in anticipation of our upcoming move. Robin and I figured that we could get a head start on preparations by packing up some of our non-essentials. Since I didn't plan on using all of my books, I picked up a handful to read over the coming months, and put the rest in boxes in our office. On the shelf in the photo to the left, I lined up the books I wanted to read, and started to dive into them (the number of books on this shelf has nearly doubled since then, thanks to some new purchases, and I don't intend to read all the books on the shelf there anymore).

While I have gotten through a few of them, overall I haven't gotten very far. If you pay any attention to the little Goodreads widget on the sidebar of this blog, you'll notice that it hasn't changed very often. After I finished seminary last May, I decided that I needed a bit of a break, and so I took up reading a bit of literature and some other things that did not require a great deal of mental energy. Before long, though, I found that I was not reading very much at all, and now I am at the point where I am finding it a bit difficult to get back into it.

There are all kinds of excuses I could make, of course, and some of them are legitimate. Up until about a month ago I was working well over sixty hours a week, and that took away a great deal of my time. Others are not so legitimate, such as wasting time browsing through photo albums on Facebook. Either way, I have come to find that it is not as easy as it once was to sit down and so some sustained reading.

My to-read shelf contains what I think will be some very interesting reads. In the summer, I started to read Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz's Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, and the People of God, because one of the main responsibilities I will have in the role I'll eventually be taking up at St John's Church in Hull is to find ways in which the church can minister to the city. I didn't get too far in the book, but Conn and Ortiz's exploration of the role of the city in the Old and New Testaments was fascinating, and I'm not sure why I ever put it down. I made my way through a few of the essays in Herman Bavinck's Essays on Religion, Science, and Society, and although they were quite intellectually challenging, they are all marked with Bavinck's characteristic erudition, wisdom, and pastoral sensitivity. There are also a few books up there that I have read in the past but wanted to read again – Martin Lloyd-Jones' Preaching and Preachers, Al Wolters' Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, and Mike Goheen and Craig Bartholomew's The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story (which I originally read in draft form in college while they were still making final revisions to it), to name a few. I added a few new volumes recently that I want to get into as well, such as a recent book by one of my university professors, James Payton, Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings, and another by one of my seminary professors, John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God. Not yet on the shelf is Jamie Smith's little book, Letters to a Young Calvinist: An Invitation to the Reformed Tradition – the bookstore was out of it when I went over there a few days ago – but that is another I plan on reading when I get my hands on a copy.

I can't make many excuses about the lack of time anymore, since my hours have been cut back quite a bit. Now it is just a matter of getting back into the habit of reading. I need to regain my focus, to be able to sit down and read for an extended period of time. There are any number of distractions when I try to do this, but I need to find a way to ignore them and focus. Oddly, I have found that some of my best reading has happened in places like a coffee shop, where there is lots of activity and noise around me. But I can't afford to spend an hour in Starbucks every night just so I can get some reading done.

This turned into a far longer post than I imagined it would, so let me end by asking, are there any tips or suggestions you have when it comes to reading? What helps keep you focused?