On March 28th of this year, I launched my blog, Zōē Perissos, with this post.
52 posts later, as we near the close of 2013, I wanted to begin an annual “recap” of sorts of the goings on here.
My Top 10 Posts, as measured by total views, were:
- A Plea to Christians: Shut up about gay marriage and abortion
- 7 Prayers You Should Pray for “Suspect 2”
- I’m Not Going to Church Anymore
- A Duck DyNASTY War
- When Jesus took Halloween away
- Suicide, mental illness and the Christian response…
- An Open Letter to Gays
- Being on mission with Jesus… is SO worth it!
- To all of our atheist friends:
- A follow up to “A Plea to Christians: Shut up about gay marriage and abortion”
Other highlights included:
- Being a part of Addie Zierman’s “synchroblog” for the book release of When We Were On Fire. You can see all of the participants and their stories HERE. You can read my story HERE.
- Writing a guest post “What if there were no churches?” on Till He Comes, the blog of Jeremy Myers. You can also see it HERE.
- My post “I’m Not Going to Church Anymore” was republished on Called-Out.
- House2House Magazine republished my article “A Father’s Dream for Daughters in His Church” HERE.
- House2House Magazine republished my article “I am NOT a Leader” HERE.
- I was also invited to participate in a Round Table on House2House Magazine. My responses were in articles answering the questions “What do you do with the kids?” “What’s wrong with the American Church?” and “What is organic church anyway?“
Some of my personal favorite posts to write, that were not in the Top 10 above were:
- A Father’s Dream for Daughters in His Church
- A Father’s Day Scattershooting: 15 Treasures of being a Daddy
- Sacraments, Ceremony and Seven-Year-Olds
- Hating God: An open letter to someone I love, maybe someone you love, and maybe even you
- Words and Wine
- Are you fighting for victory… or resting Victoriously?
- What is the point of Christianity?
- I wrote a series on “Idol’s” in the church – specifically things that are good, but can often be set above Jesus. I started this series with The Idol of Salvation, and continued it with Could your Pastor be your god?, Could your church be your god? and Could the Bible be your god?
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I did not want to blog. But it became clear to me about this time last year, that the Lord was inviting me to be vulnerable and open with sharing His Life as I was learning It and living It.
So, I said yes.
From word one, I’ve approached this out of writing from a response of what I felt He wanted me to write and share – out of what I saw Him and heard Him showing me.
And it’s been a lot of fun.
I’ve learned that sitting at this keyboard in silence and pounding out letters and words is rich fellowship for me, with Him. It is an act of worship. If it never was any more than that, I would still write.
But it has been more. Much more.
All of the many times I have been blessed to hear of how those words encouraged or challenged one of you to seek Him more – has been like a cherry on top – albeit an amazing cherry.
Seriously, thank you. For those of you who have sent encouraging words to me through comments, Facebook, Twitter and otherwise – you and those words have been true living water to me. I have been called “anti-Christian,” “disagreeing with God,” “heretic,” “gay,” “false teacher,” and a number of other hurtful things as a result of things written here – most of these from professing Christian Brothers and Sisters.
I have lost relationships as a result of things written here.
But these are overshadowed by those times of encouragement, and new relationships forged around the world – and by even one life blessed or changed. And there were magnitudes of that.
From the depths of my heart. Thank you. I write for Him. Then for me. Then, for you and exactly those times.
I’ve got a lot of interesting and exciting topics coming right out the gate in 2014 that I am itching to share with you. If you have not already, I encourage you to SUBSCRIBE to this blog. By doing so, you’ll receive an e mail when there is new content published. It is an easy and confidential process, and you can do it now via the form to the right of my page (on desktop view), by scrolling below (on mobile view), or by clicking HERE.
I look forward to wading out into deeper waters of Jesus with you in this new year. Please join the conversation in the comments, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on the Zōē Perissos Facebook fan Page (you can “Like” this Page using the Like Box to the right, or below).
From my family to yours – I bless you.
Happy New Year!
{Image Credit: Quinn DeEskimo on Flickr Creative Commons}
