Happy Birthday to Everyday Revolutionary

In addition to being one of my favorite holy days on the Church calendar, today also happens to mark the third full year of this blog's existence. It just doesn't seem like I've been posting for that long. Three years ago today, I made my first post as the Everyday Revolutionary—that post was a paper I wrote for an undergraduate course on the life of Christ. The paper was entitled, "Scandalous Blessings: The Beatitudes of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke." Back then I leaned way too heavily on John Dominic Crossan.

In the time since that post found its way onto the internet, I have gotten married, moved three times, held seven different jobs (not all at once), somehow managed to wind my way into a third year of seminary studies, changed grad programs, traveled to Thailand, Burma, and Israel, meandered my way to the edge of atheism's abyss and haphazardly wandered back to faith.

All in all, not a bad run so far.

By the way, this post came very close to marking another milestone for EverydayRev: I am only a few posts shy of completing my 200th. I know it's not much compared to some of the other heavy hitters out there (I'm looking at you, Joel Watts and Brian LePort), but it's a milestone, nonetheless. It would have been nice for Good Friday, the blog's third anniversary, and my 200th post to have all coincided, but I'm pretty satisfied as it is.

For those of you who've been reading since the beginning: Thank you.

For those who are just now tuning in: Thank you, too.

A Blessed Good Friday to You

I hope you all have a blessed Good Friday this year. For many years now (I think as early as 2008), I have hosted a Good Friday breakfast and liturgy, serving homemade hot cross buns and coffee/tea to anyone I happen to be in a community with when Holy Week rolls around. For the last two years (three, if you count this year), I've made an effort to post a blog or two with some reflection on the meaning of Holy Week. Below, I have compiled all of my posts dealing with topics related to Jesus' last week. For a full explanation of how our little Good Friday breakfast tradition came to be, see Everyday Revo-Lectionary 10/9.

• 4/19/2011 The Last Supper and Eucharist: What's the Deal With That?
• 4/20/2011 Jesus Christ Superstar and the Mount of Olives
• 4/21/2011 The Last Temptation of Christ: Jesus Before Pilate (video link broken)
• 4/22/2011 A Good Friday Litany
• 10/9/2011 Everyday Revo-Lectionary 10/9 (explains our Good Friday tradition)
• 4/6/2012 Good Friday: Witness to an Execution (in memory of Troy Davis)
• 3/24/2013 Holy Week: You're Doing It Wrong

Finally, for what it's worth, I will not be posting anything tomorrow (Saturday, March 30) in observance of Holy Saturday, the first full day Jesus spent in the tomb.

Much love and peace to you all. 

Looking for a New Name

Friends, for a long time I've been searching for a new name for this blog. The title "Everyday Revolutionary" was originally a play on the phrase "Ordinary Radical," which was coined by leaders of the Christian movement fronted by people like Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove. I still identify as a neo-monastic (though Alyssa and I have been without a solid community for far too long), but no longer feel the fan-boy giddiness I once felt in being intentionally provocative and stand-offish toward the Church. I still have my misgivings about unnecessary hierarchy and bureaucratic BS, but I'd like to think that I've become a little slower to criticize and more intentional about listening and understanding than I once was. Probably comes from living my whole life in a glass house.

While I still like the title of this blog, I nonetheless feel that it no longer accurately describes who I am as a person and as a Christian. I'm a lot more Everyday and a lot less Revolutionary these days. Additionally, the academic in me suspiciously eyes the title as an oblique form of copyright infringement, since several published works (and a few films) have used the term "Ordinary Radical," and I am unsure of how exclusive the rights to that phrase may be. I know I'm splitting hairs here, but it's still a minor concern.

My faith is broader (and, I hope, deeper) than it was when I began this blogging journey, and I'm looking for a new name to help describe who I am and what I do as a blogger. Something that incorporates my passion for New Testament biblical studies, literary interpretation, history, theology (particularly Mennonite/Anabaptist), and music would be nice. Here are a few of my favorite titles from the blogs I follow:

• On Not Being a Sausage (click the link to see the explanation in the blog's header)
• Near Emmaus
• Words on the Word
• The Time Has Been Shortened (from 1 Corinthians 7:29—This one is my favorite.)
• Reading Acts
• The Cosmic Cathedral
• Experimental Theology
• The aptly named "Jesus Blog" gets honorable mention, since Keith and Le Donne went with something almost painfully simple, yet perfectly communicative of its purpose.

Now comes the fun part. I'd like you to help me rename my blog. If you have a suggestion, you can comment below, email it to me by clicking this link, or contact me on Twitter @EverydayRev. Your suggestions can be as serious or as off-the-wall as you'd like. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks we can find a name that better suits this blog, and if your suggestion is chosen, who knows—you may even win a prize!

Much peace and love to you,

Joshua