Ministry and Keeping the Blog

Thanks for all the responses, both in the public comments and in person, on my post about the possibility of quitting the blog in favor of another project. You have reminded me of something very important.

Ministry is the Lord's work, in which we are helpers, facilitators, and collaborators. Therefore, the idea of any particular ministry we might have is not the same thing as God's idea of it. Indeed, in any successful ministry, what God is up to is greater than either what we care to or even can imagine. Anyone who has ever preached has had a plain and amusing experience of this: after the service someone comes up to you and thanks you for having said some beautiful or insightful thing that you don't remember ever saying, or even meaning to say. The devout soul heard not what you thought you were saying, but what she needed to hear from God. Indeed, to pray for such graces is a humble and helpful way to pray before preaching.

In the same way, I must remember that this blog is a ministry greater than my idea of it. Because of the particularity of my own state in life and the questions and issues that preoccupy me in the current moment of my life, I may be more conscious of parts of the audience that share some of these characteristics. But that doesn't mean that the blog is only for them or even primarily for them. The blog is what God wants it to be. It's for whoever God inspires to visit. Any fruit that comes of my little rants and reflections is God's work, accomplished in the economies of grace so expansive and wonderful that they can even work through the meager and self-indulgent efforts of a lukewarm and distracted little religious priest like me.

So, enjoy the blog. Or better, appreciate and be grateful to the God who is so marvelously humble as to shine his gentle loving kindness through our little web-based communion.