I cannot believe that the last post I wrote was on the Oklahoma delegation for the upcoming General Conference. Despite the title of this post and my lack of posting over the last two months, I actually have not forgotten that I have a blog. My best excuse for not blogging is that preparing for our move to Seattle has been more time consuming than I expected. (Isn’t that always the case for a move?) Many days have passed when blogging was on my to-do list, but I just did not get to it. And like many other things, once I got out of the rhythm of blogging, I found it to be harder to get started again.

To make matters worse, I am not burdened to write a post about a particular topic at the moment. I believe it was Matt Judkins who once said that readers occasionally enjoy more personal posts. So in hopes of helping me get back into the rhythm of blogging, here is a brief update on what has been going on in my life since the Oklahoma Annual Conference:

Melissa and I made a trip to Seattle a few weeks ago and found a place to live. This was a big deal for us. We both really enjoyed spending some time in the city we will soon call home. The trip also really helped us to be able to more concretely envision our family living in Washington. Since our return, I have also continued to think about teaching undergrads and I am getting more and more excited about the challenge and the opportunity!

We have also been able to spend some quality time with both sides of our family. I am really looking forward to going on my first father son trip with my one year old son James. He and I are going to fly to Rochester, MN to visit my grandpa who has not yet had a chance to meet his great-grandson.

Academically, I have been pushing hard to try to get a full draft of my dissertation on the role of the band meeting in early Methodism finished. I am getting close, but am not quite there yet. I have also just begun teaching the Wesleyan Movement class in Course of Study School at Perkins. It is a great bunch of students and I am looking forward to exploring the depths of our heritage with them and hearing their critical reflection on which aspects of early Methodist are worth reclaiming.

Finally, we have been trying to spend as much time with friends in the area as possible. God has blessed us with amazing friends in Dallas, which has been an unspeakable gift. It will also make it very hard to say good-bye.

I would like to say that I will get back to regular blogging. But the reality of teaching everyday for two weeks, traveling, and moving to Seattle make it likely that my blogging will be more sporadic than I would like. I hope to be able to put together a few posts between now and our move. But if nothing else, I look forward to getting back to more regular blogging sometime in August.