My Poor Blog!

January 17, 2026

 

Twenty years ago, I started the Barnabas Blog on a whim.  At the time, blogs or weblogs were sort of coming into existence from a variety of amateur writers and a few more serious ones on the religious scene.  I can remember there were two blogs that I do not even remember how I found them, but they had a very strong influence on my thinking at the time.  One of them is still in existence and the other one has long been reduced to an inactive state.  So, once I sort of gathered my “sea legs” so to speak, I started writing about things that piqued my interest and what I thought might gather a small following of preachers and ministers. 

 

It has been ages since I have written anything besides sermon notes and Bible studies that primarily are for where I pastor in Dothan, Alabama.  On this rainy, cold Saturday night, once again I am in my study at the Pentecostals of Dothan.  It is much larger and has a whole lot more volumes in my library than it did twenty years ago.  Twenty years ago, I was literally working out of a small room that had become a cleaning closet for the old fellowship hall.  In December 2005, I had made the transition from working full-time in an Interventional Radiology Cath lab as an RN to a very part-time basis that I would continue until the fall of 2014.  So, I had gone from a high-tech medical procedure lab to a dusty, dilapidated “broom closet” and that is where the Barnabas Blog started.  The space was 12 feet by 16 feet with a noisy window unit that cranked out very cold air but also sprayed mildew all over creation as well.  In those simple surroundings, I wrote and prayed, wrote some more and prayed some more, and wrote even more and prayed even more.  Prayer is far more important than writing, however prayer will set your mind and pen on fire while you are writing.  So, I wrote!  Honestly, I had no idea how many people would come to read the Barnabas Blog in that first decade.  It never crossed my mind that it would inspire, convict, encourage, and in some cases aggravate.  So many people came up to me at various conferences and introduced themselves as readers, to the degree that it was amazing.  Once there was a time when I got hemmed in by a couple of preachers who felt like I had no business writing content like I did.  I look back at those days and ask myself what I asked just before I started this blog post: Why did you quit writing?! 

 

I am not sure if there is a good reason or excuse as to why I stopped writing.  I still do a tremendous amount of writing, but it is rarely put out for public dissemination because it is sermon notes and Bible studies for local ministry.  The very feeble excuse might be to say that I have been busy but everyone productive person I know is busy!  You’ve heard it said that if you want something done to ask someone who is busy to do it for you.  That is truer than you can ever realize.  It is my great intention to do my best to resurrect the Barnabas Blog in memory of its start two decades ago.  Please know that I tend to lean toward very long-form writing patterns and also I do very little editing as you may already know if you used to read the Barnabas Blog; I feel sure that will continue to be similar.  What is remarkable as well is that I have a cheap journal that I have dragged around for a long time now with a lot of writing prompts and sadly they are in the stages of just that: prompts waiting on prayer and a keyboard to give expression to these thoughts.  I have experienced a lot of living in the last two decades.  I have gathered in some of the most tremendous friends that a man could ever ask for as well.  My brother-in-law, Mike Patterson have always been close, but he is a missionary in Romania so my connection with him has been hindered by geography.  Two friends that I have gotten extremely close to are Wayne Naylor who pastors in Danville, Kentucky, and Nate Royer, who pastors in Rio Linda, California are men I talk to on an almost daily basis.  Generally speaking, the content of the conversation is almost always about Scripture, hashing out how to breakdown biblical passages, and the reading of books.  There are others who have been hugely encouraging to me as well but my circle is fairly small.  Sadly, many of the elders who have made profound marks on me from a distance have passed on to their rewards.  May God invest in me the faithfulness that was in those men as I move forward into my seventh decade of life in a few months.  I want that seventh one to be the most productive of my life—some of that starts now. . . with this first post of 2026 in the Barnabas Blog!