Who's Bob?

If you are coming here from the NYT, welcome...
I do have a bunch of crap on my blog, widget-wise that is, but I don't think it's all that much out of control :)

That being said, some brief info.

I'm the pastor of a new (under 3 years) church called The Evergreen Community. Since our beginning we've met on Sundays in a pub, though I hope we aren't just "pub church" but rather a group of people honestly journeying together in this thing of trying to seek God and live life in the way of Jesus.
It's a struggle to try to separate out Jesus from all the accretions the church has managed to pile on top of Him over the last years... and some times we manage to do that, and sometimes we seem to add our own junk to the pile.
But we try. We try because we've found that there's something about Jesus that's worth the effort... a lot of us came to evergreen tired, burned out on church and religion and were maybe giving it one last shot. I know that's how I felt shortly before starting the church, and I'm the pastor.
Here's the thing- absent the creepy marketing and program-driven madness of "bigger is better!!", and re-focused around the person of Jesus and taking care of one another, church can actually be this life-enriching thing to involve yourself in- a community where you find people to struggle with, not against, a place where you help each other focus on the transcendent and not merely the grind... a place where and a people with whom God is found.

As for this blog, I write mainly with pastors in mind, so things tend to get a bit solipsistic at times- I figure if I'm struggling with it, someone else wearing shoes very like mine probably is as well...

If you want to know more about any of this, or if you are interested in hearing more about church done differently, check out some of the articles to the side... like Escape From Consumer Church

Anyway, sorry for the pitch. Hope it wasn't creepy marketing. Just thought I'd give you a thumbnail on what makes this blog tick :)

(By the way... I also run the site PastorHacks.net, dedicated to pastoral productivity hacks, and am the editor for the online e-zine Next Wave, dedicated to discussing church and culture. Check 'em out...)