Moving to Patheos!

Hi there.  My name is Jonathan Storment, and it is a huge honor for me to be asked to write on Patheos.

For the past two years, Scot McKnight has graciously given me a weekly column on his own Patheos site over at Jesus Creed and I plan to continue that as long as he’ll have me.

And for years, I’ve also blogged at my personal website, creatively titled JonathanStorment.com, but a couple of months ago my site crashed when I wrote a blog about Justin Bieber. I like to think my site couldn’t handle all the traffic from a Bieber bump, but it’s probably more likely it just couldn’t handle when I just got slightly more traffic than just my extended relatives.

(By the way, I plan on re-posting that Bieber blog this week, and then a follow up one that I’ve had written for a few months).

But first, as way of introduction, I’m a preacher. That means I care about the things that preachers tend to care about.

I am youngish, (35) and probably a few months away from my first mid-life criss.

I love to read, and most of what I write and think about is based on what I’m reading and stories on how I see theology working out in a local context.

So, first about my context:

My wife and I live with our 4 kids in Abilene, Texas, a mid-size city that is in the GunBuckle of the Bible Belt, with three different Christian universities.  We also have a steak house that President Bush (43) asked to cater at the White House…twice.

I am the Preaching Minister at the Highland Church of Christ. A Church that is unique in lots of ways, we are a multi-generational church, filled with poor and rich people, we’ve got lots of college professors who worship alongside people who never finished high school. We care a lot about God’s mission in the world, we believe that the Church is the only institution in the world that exists for the people who don’t belong to her, and so we are constantly trying to find what God is doing in the world and catch up.

I’m a BUICK, a “brought up in church kid” who grew up in a rural church, made up of ten people. I am aware that most people would call that a “small group”, but for me it was church.  If you stick around here, you’ll hear me often talk about that beautiful community of faith and why it inspired me to go into ministry.

I believe in the local and catholic (universal) church, in all her forms. I believe in the community of faith, and the way God works through His people of reconciliation.

I have more questions than answers, but I do have a front row seat to the ways God is reconciling people who are very different from one another in beautiful healing ways. And I also have a front row seat to the human condition and how we ignore it, baptize it, and on our better days, confess it. I see everyday how these ideas that we engage on blogs and in classrooms or books are making a difference (or are not) in real human lives.

Some days I wake up and think that the Kingdom of God has come, and other days I think it might not be coming at all. What theologians call “Already/Not Yet”, most weeks I just call “Monday and Tuesday”.

Another thing, this blog will not just be me writing. From time to time, some of my other friends from a variety of ministry settings will be weighing in about what they are reading or experiencing in their local context. From chaplains to missionaries to pastors to bi-vocational church planters, God has blessed me with some friends who are doing amazing work and I would like to introduce you to them as well.

So thanks for the opportunity Patheos, and thanks to everyone for reading.

I look forward to the conversation.

Jonathan