so i decided to take a stroll down memory lane tonight and go through my myspace blog archives. (yeah, by the way, i’ve had a myspace blog for a couple years…you should check them out for a little ryan byrd history lesson…)(also, i will probably be reviving some of my old blog posts here just because i think they’re still relevant and i want to make sure they stick around in the event that tom sets off a myspace nuke and my blog is virtually crushed and melted…)(grammatically speaking, can you have this many parenthetical statements adjacent to each other??)

it was really funny reading back through those things, if nothing else to see some of the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that i’ve changed in the last couple years. it was also interesting to see what my brain was doing at given moments throughout time. the main thing i came away with was a little disappointment.

to unpack that a little, most who actually will be reading this know that my primary life gig is pastoring (graphic design currently pays the bills during this transition time…). i love god and love people, and intertwined with the two is my love of theology. on my myspace blog, in the early posts, i most often had theology-related blog posts. it wasn’t necessarily amazingly deep, but it was more my current stream of theological thought (which was particularly plentiful at that time due to the fact that i was right in the middle of working on master’s at asbury seminary). my disappointment primarily stems from the fact that i really changed the direction of my blog after a lengthy set of exchanges (started as a conversation but quickly devolved) between a regular reader. basically, this person “challenged” me on some theological stuff i was writing about. i really enjoy a healthy conversation and disagreement, so i welcomed the challenge. the problem, though, was that this person was consistently unable to disagree without distorting facts and making personal attacks. while i was deeply disappointed and frustrated with this person at the time, i think i’m now more disappointed with myself. it’s not because i think i handled the situation incorrectly (quite the opposite in revisiting these posts a couple years later now), but because of how i felt so frustrated and betrayed by the exchange that it made me, by and large, quit blogging about theology. it was a little cowardice in retrospect.

so, whereas in my original blog post here on brb.com i stated that i have no objectives, i’m going to sort of slightly modify that declaration. while i don’t have any major agendas or objectives, i am going to commit in engaging a more intentional theological conversation on this blog and fostering a community of people who desire to engage in exchanges that help all parties involved grow and learn more about god and people. don’t get me wrong, there will be plenty of ridiculous and frivolous posts, but i hope to regularly communicate what’s stirring in my heart and brain when it comes to my own personal theological musings.

so, dust off your concordance and old king james (blah) and get ready for me to drop some theology on you.

thanks for reading.