Posts Tagged ‘Blog news’
Making Peace With My Weirdness (Guest Post by Holly Pennington)
Today I’m delighted to welcome my friend Holly Pennington to my blog. Holly is a uniquely gifted writer, blogger from near Seattle, US. She writes about vulnerability, and faith, and has so much wisdom to share. Take it away Holly!
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I’ve never tried to be weird. But I have always felt weird. No purple spiky hair, grunge obsessions or gothic dress phases. Not even a single tiny hidden tattoo. Growing up in the 1980’s, I was a predictable Guess jeans-wearing suburban kid.
But I did own a pair of red plaid Doc Martens once. To be exact, I was only part-owner. My sister and I shared them. We simultaneously fell in love with them but Doc Martens weren’t cheap, so we each paid half. When I went away to college, I took them with me just until my next visit home; then, her turn. Being part-time keeper of the boots somehow made my love for them stronger.
Treading across the Wake Forest University quad, an insecure thumb tucked under each backpack strap and self-conscious eyes fixed downward, the surprise of my feet clad in red plaid filled me with a distinct burst of joy. I felt daring in my Doc Martens. My connection to them was made of courage, awe and a tinge of rebellion.
But, what made me feel weird was not my style; it was my interests.
Read MoreLetter To Me: Rhiannon Hall
In 2014 I ran a series of guest posts by writer friends, all writing a letter to themselves – either a past self from their present self, or to their present self from their future self.
This inspired my friend Rhiannon Hall, who wrote a letter to herself, and shared it with me. I loved it so much, I got her permission to share it here.
Rhiannon’s is a powerful, moving & courageous letter. So here it is:
Dear 37 Year Old Rhiannon Hall,
First, breathe.
I swear that I remember sitting there starting to reading this… I know you feel that tightness in your chest and you think you are about to cry because you want answers and life seems so complicated and scary. Just do us a favor and breathe for a minute.
Then read on. (And I know you are now fully crying and that’s okay.)
I am proud of you for getting where you are at the moment you are living in. 2015 changed a lot of things for us, didn’t it?
You risked so much to become whole and truly live your authentic life.
Read MoreLost & Found : How I Lost A Parent & Found My Faith
I’ve found myself at a major crossroads recently. I love Jesus. I love our church community. I’m rediscovering the Bible. I’m finding myself experiencing the spirit of God in a much deeper way.
And yet, I find myself shifting away from the evangelical church. I am less able to experience God or connect with Him in the ways I have in the past.
I used to believe in a God of certainty. Now I believe in a God of mystery.
And why? Because of the darkest day of my life.
Read More‘James Talks’ Bonus Episode – ‘The First Word’
Hey friends, welcome back to the blog. I hope you’ve been enjoying my new podcast, James Talks. The first episode, ‘You Are Not Alone’, went out on Monday and I’ve been so encouraged by the response so far – thank you.
And today, as a special bonus, there’s another new episode – ‘The First Word’, which is live now!
Today I talk about what I believe the most important word, the word where our lives should all begin – and end.
Grace.
I talk about how grace
Read MoreA New Season: A New Podcast – James Talks
Welcome back to the blog. I’ve been away a while, but now I’ve returned – and I’ve some great new work & new opportunities to share with you.
I’ve always thought creativity is like life, and that’s because we’re all designed to create. Not just artists, but all of us. And not just in our work, but our lives too.
We’re designed to create a life.
And as life moves in seasons, so does our creative work. It moves organically, naturally into different stages, where it becomes natural to move to new challenges, projects and mediums.
For me, this means that today I’m launching a podcast. It’s called, very simply ‘James Talks’.
James Talks will be a weekly podcast where I’ll talk about spirituality, creativity, and identity. About what it means to discover our true identity & live the kind of life we were made for. And about the creative process, both in our work and our lives.
The first episode, ‘You Are Not Alone’ is out right now, and to celebrate the launch I’m releasing two episodes this week – a second episode will go live on Wednesday. Subsequent to this, James Talks will go out once a week on Wednesdays.
You can listen and subscribe to it on iTunes, or follow it on Podbean. I’ll also be posting links to
Read MoreWhy I’ll Never Blog Out Of Duty
Last year I took three months off from public blogging. Back then, my attitude, my motivation, my focus was all way off. Ambition was consuming me, an obsession with stats and success. Today I’m considering taking another break from public blogging. But this time, my motivation is very different. In my last post I mentioned…
Read MoreFerris Bueller, FOMO & The Truth Of Breathing
A fortnight back I attended a 2 day teaching with Rob Bell on all sorts of subjects. I’ll be blogging about it in more detail soon.
One of the issues he raised was a topic Brenda McGraw touched on last week – burnout, rest. And today I want to talk about another aspect of this – taking care of ourselves.
So naturally, there’s only one person I thought to turn to first.
I’m talking of course, about Ferris Bueller. He once said this:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
A well known quote. And as we’ll see, Ferris nails it completely
Read MoreHow To Overcome Burnout (Guest Post by Brenda McGraw)
I’ve been taking a little break from blogging, but I’ll be back next week. Meanwhile, today I have another guest post for you all. I’m delighted to host my friend Brenda McGraw on this site.
Brenda is a author & speaker from South Carolina, a heart attack & cancer survivor who now helps people find joy beyond the complexities of modern life.
Today she’s sharing on an interesting perspective on an important subject – how we handle the burnout many of us today experience. I’ll be blogging around this topic soon myself. So, over to Brenda:
How do you handle burnout? When life just gets to be overwhelming and is coming at you faster than you can keep up with it, what happens? Do you shut down purposely? Or are you the one who keeps pushing yourself until you get sick and have to shut down?
Are we listening to our bodies when they are yelling at us that they are “stressed out,” or are we avoiding the signs of stress or burnout?
Read MoreBuilding Bridges – LGBT & Faith: Resources
Hi friends, hope you’ve been enjoying the series on LGBT issues/stories & faith. Next week I’ll be hosting Liz Mallory, a bisexual Christian who has written a comprehensive series on God and sexuality/LGBT issues on her blog, which covers every dimension of this issue, and the series will conclude with me sharing another story.
I’m privileged to say I’m guest posting for Liz today, and my post goes live at about 8.30pm UK time today. You can check it out here.
But in this post I’m going to do something slightly different in relation to this issue & maybe help you on this journey in a different way.
Read MoreWhy Authenticity Can Require Sacrifice
One thing which keeps me blogging is the opportunity to interact and build relationship with you, my readers. As regular readers will know, one thing I am passionate about is authenticity. For us all to be true to who we really are, to discover our true identity & calling.
Maybe it’s because of my own past – a victim of bullying, feeling an outsider, growing up in a broken home & losing my Mum relatively young, and being shy & introverted – but I’ve always felt a passion, a desire to speak out for minority groups. For those oppressed, rejected, outside, misunderstood, either by church or culture, or both.
For me to be true to who I am, to practice what I preach and be authentic in my writing, at least some of my writing is going to involve speak out for some of these groups. This is what’s led me to speak up & blog about gender equality in church. And it’s what’s now leading me to speak up on one of the most contentious issues in the Christian church today.
A topic which is divisive, and which makes this one of the bravest blog posts/series I’ve ever written.
Because the group I’m speaking out for is the LGBT community.
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