I have been invited to participate as a blogger on this page. Since I am brand new at it, I looked up synonyms for the word “new” at thesaurus.com. Unskilled was one word I saw. I can’t use that because it would be false humility. I have been writing a daily devotional for business people (amongst a small circle of people) for a number of years. So I have had some practice. I saw “ultra-modern” but decided to veto that as well. I consider myself more post-modern than ultra-modern. Newfangled sounds too old-fashioned. Cutting edge is not really me. Original comes close. Untrodden is kind of funny considering how many times people get offended when you try to share Biblical truths. But au courant sounds so cool and European, even though it also sounds like a raisin. So as a European-American I am going with that one.

When I first started writing my devo I was in congregational ministry. I met Chuck at the first AWOP event. I was just starting to get involved in a new fangled area of ministry called “workplace ministry” and had just returned from a MM conference. There are some wonderful people in our city who have been doing it for 30+ years. I met a couple of them in the beginning and was blessed to hear their stories.

6 years ago I discovered that I have Jewish ancestry. Since then I have been seeking out what that means for me. I go to a messianic synagogue, eat kosher foods and celebrate the Jewish holidays. This has been a cutting edge experience for me. Having been raised as a Christian and being taught that the Jews were old and not ultra-modern, I have sought to take time to explore my ancestral form of worship to see what it is all about. When you read my writings now, you will see me use spellings like “G-d” and “L-rd.” I also will use the Hebrew names for writers, prophets and other people in the Bible. I will try to explain along the way so that it makes sense. (Or at least put the English spelling in parenthesis.)