Ok, I got up at 5am, got in [tag]the Word[/tag], and then began the daunting task of catching up (a good thing to do on the 2nd day of the new year). So, for the last hour or more, I have been checking email, reading messages and comments on myspace, replying to those emails, messages, and comments, catching up on facebook; and finally catching up on all RSS stories that I have so haphazardly neglected for the last month or so (note: by catching up I mean marking all stories as “read” even when I haven’t read them).

Essentially, I have spent the last hour [tag]reconnecting[/tag] with people and reacquainting myself with what is going on in the blogsphere and the real world. It’s striking to me how easy it is to get out of touch. I have been so busy over the holidays that I haven’t had time to keep up with the news and all the regular reading that I try to do. I didn’t even know that President Ford had died until two days after the fact because I have been so busy.

This proves to me how dangerous it is when we (Christians) start to seclude ourselves from the rest of the world. We can get into our own pattern of living; talking to the same people every day, listening to the same music and keeping the same routine. And, when we do this for even a short time, we lose touch with the world around us and lose our ability to connect with the very people we are trying to reach out to. This is the catch 22 that [tag]the Church[/tag] continually finds itself in; the need to avoid being “worldly” (as in sinning like the world) without losing the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation with someone “of the world” (someone that doesn’t know [tag]Jesus[/tag]). Basically the whole, “be in the world not of it” idea.

So, I find myself [tag]asking[/tag], how do we stay connected? I mean, I have been otherwise occupied for about 3 weeks now and I feel like I just arrived in a new country and have no idea what is going on. What about the Christians that checked out a year ago, or five years ago, or twenty years ago? How do they get reconnected with the culture that they have avoided intentionally? Is that even possible?

For me, on this 2nd day of the New Year, I am committing to stay connected with blogs, news, Christian news, and other important information. I will also try to intentionally talk about these things through this blog to help keep you, the loyal readership, better informed (for those of you that may have “accidentally” missed the news or something). Also, please take note of the section in the sidebar titled “links 2 read”, this is the place where I will put links to news articles and other items that I think are important and worth taking the time to read.