The last six months have been very filled with activity! As I take stock and look at the conclusion of this year, I'm stunned by all that God has done over the last six months. Internally, much of my time and attention have been dedicated to a process of transformation and growth that God has been bringing me through since I stepped out of Urbana. I'm not sure why I didn't anticipate that God's focus would turn so strongly into inward growth and development (in hindsight that seems rather obvious), but I have wrapped my head around it at this point, and I'm eagerly wrestling with everything God is in the process of teaching me in this season.

As I shared in my latest post, End of 2021 Update, the prophetic name Putty refers to a process that God has done throughout my life; a process of continually placing me somewhere for a season of time, then plucking me up from that season and remolding me into a new shape for the next season. (Fascinatingly, this process seems to have run on a near-exact ten-year cycle for the last 38 years). I find myself in that season of remolding. It's often painful, hard. There has been so much loss and grief and letting go. I've laid down dreams, laid down support systems and friendships. Laid down a concrete mechanism of kingdom significance. Laid down a sense of clarity for what the future can hold. There have been many times over the last few months when I've not been sure that I have much of anything left to sacrifice. In many ways, it's been a hard season.

Still, I sense the hand of the Lord churning things around inside of me, reshaping me for the next stretch. Slowly new clarity is emerging as the Lord shapes me into the latest version of myself. I sense this transformation really matters because the next stretch is more authentically me than the past has been in some way. I don't quite even know what that means, just that is the direction God seems to be taking things.

Even though much of my focus has been internal, the back half of 2021 has still been productive for the kingdom! Much of my focus has been in rebooting a church here in Chicagoland. The Chapel is a multisite church here in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin led by my friend Scott Chapman. The last four months I've been hard at work working to bring their Hinsdale campus back from a challenging stretch into a new season. That's been hard work, but so far I'm encouraged by the process.

In addition to that, in the last six months I've published eighteen original articles or videos, and I've managed to squeeze in six ministry trips as well (see lists below). No wonder I feel tired here at the end of the year! Oh wait, no, that's the COVID I picked up on Christmas Eve...bummer!

Along with all of this work, I've had a tremendous amount of time an energy going into discernment for the season ahead, and I'm excited that is finally beginning to come into some clarity. We aren't ready to be fully public about it yet, but we are seeing more and more clearly how God is calling us to a season of Church Pioneering - experimenting with new models and structures of church. That is slowly moving from abstract to concrete, I'm sure you'll hear more about that in 2022. This is what I believe the season of reshaping that I am presently in is leading me towards.