The past nine months have been a pure joy for me in the blogging world. The responses from so many of you, either in comments or in e-mails, the links to my posts and the mentions of my blog in your blog rolls have been fully satisfying. As someone who loves to influence people, the blogging world has opened up a whole new opportunity for me to influence other people (and churches) to be all that God has created them to be.
However, my world has changed a lot over the past few months. On May 30th, after returning from an anniversary vacation with my wife in Cancun, I was greeted back at my church with a letter from our board informing me that I was to leave the office immediately, that I wasn't allowed to preach for 30 days, go to my office for 30 days or blog for 30 days. After having planted and led the church I pastored for almost sixteen years, I was shocked.
Over the next couple of weeks it became clear that there was no way that the board and I could work together, so I tendered my resignation—which has not only affected hundreds of people's lives, it's also caused me to decide to discontinue the brucedjohnson.com blog site.
Why? Because I'm no longer "in the trenches" with you. What makes blogs so compelling is their immediacy, "This is what happened to me today." However, I no longer have those "This is what happened to me in ministry today" moments any longer. I'm now a lay person. All of my experiences with church leadership are past tense, not present tense.
I remember years ago when John Maxwell left the pastorate. At that point, right or wrong, John lost a lot of his influence on me (though it has increased around the world, for which I am grateful—in fact, if my memory serves me correctly, John has led more people to Christ in the past year than in any five years combined during his time as a pastor). But the reason John lost some of his influence with me was because I knew he wasn't living in my world any more. And, right now, I'm no longer living in your world (if you're a pastor reading this).
However, I'm not about to give up blogging. Since I'm now just another Christ-follower (no Sr. Pastor, Rev. or Rev. Dr. in front of my name), I've decided to create a new blogging site, www.brucedjohnson.net (note the ".net" vs. ".com" at the end). Instead of sharing "Leadership Lessons for Life-Giving Church Leaders", I'll be sharing "Life Lessons for Those Who Want to Achieve Their Highest God-given Potential." Since my life mission is to "motivate, educate and lead as many people as possible to achieve their highest God-given potential", this is natural transition. And as for immediacy, it'll be real. I'll be sharing with you, what I'm learning on this journey of life—not as a pastor or church leader, but as a fellow human being who longs to be all that God created him to be.
As for the brucedjohnson.com blog site, I'll leave it up for awhile. There are lots of you with links to a number of my posts. However, at some point this fall, I'll transition the brucedjohnson.com URL over to a commercial site as I begin this new phase of my life as a professional speaker, writer and consultant (along with Ph.D. student). So, if there are some past posts that you really like, make sure you print out a hard copy soon.
That said, why don't you hop on over to my new site, www.brucedjohnson.net and check out the new posts I've written (plus a couple of old ones). I'm not going anywhere. Just my address is changing. And thanks again for all the memories. Blogging has been one of the highlights of my year!
Bruce - thanks for all the good insights. I'm looking forward to your latest endeavor too. Any thoughts about binding up your thoughts using http://www.blogbinders.com ? You've got some good stuff, and it'd be a shame to just "lose" it.
See you on the .net!
Posted by: Phil Gerbyshak | Wednesday, August 31, 2005 at 10:19 PM
Thanks, Bruce, for your great material. I'll be sorry to lose you as a resource.
The grace with which you made your trasition is awesome and a great example to pastors everywhere. You are a class act.
God bless you as He leads you.
Posted by: Pat Callahan | Wednesday, August 31, 2005 at 11:12 PM
Sorry to hear about how things happened. Have loved reading your posts and would endorse Phil's suggestion. Switching my RSS to .net now.
In Him
Posted by: GordonG | Thursday, September 01, 2005 at 03:36 AM
Praying for you. Keep fighting the good fight!
Posted by: Josh Sargent | Thursday, September 01, 2005 at 11:43 AM
Bruce,
I've never commented on your site, but have been reading it since you came back from your "blog retreat". I've enjoyed reading it and you have caused much thinking on my part about ministry. Thanks for being out here! I'm looking forward to the .net world.
Posted by: Ben | Thursday, September 01, 2005 at 01:08 PM
Bruce, I'm so sorry to hear the news, but pray that God ordained this to help you reach higher levels of ministry. I'll be following your adventures...
Posted by: Ben Arment | Thursday, September 08, 2005 at 09:42 PM
Bruce,
I just found your blog and my heart is broken. I have seen situations in the church like yours happen all to often. Yes...even to myself. Let me say this, "the fact that you have been in the trenches allows a kindred spirit with those still behind the pulpit. Brother, you're still there. I have taken my better then 30 years of pastoral ministry and now have become a pastor to pastors. We see things on the same level and I understand pastors. Why? Because I have been there, and I am still one." Andy
Posted by: Andy McAdams | Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 10:27 AM