This blog was launched in 2006, as a platform for my personal thoughts. That's exactly what it remains, though it has developed considerably since then—not least in undergoing name and address changes! My newer posts here bear little resemblance to those, and even less to the earliest blog posts I ever wrote, on a Xanga site I started at the beginning of college.
Thoughts; A Flame has been, at various times, a sounding board, a political stomping ground, and a place of thoughtful meditation. These days, it is simply a place to think out loud—usually about what God is teaching me: through marriage, through work, and through life in general. I occasionally tweet, as well (though it is difficult to do so consistently while working full time).
The title is something of a pun, and comes courtesy of a friend who is well known for his skill at punnery. I had been impressed by how challenging a verse Hebrews 12:29 is, especially for those who lead worship: God is dangerous, and we dare not offer him unacceptable worship. At around the same time as I first grappled with that text, I was redesigning and relaunching this blog. The two came together as I discussed with him my need for a new title. A joke about my thoughts being on fire quickly became "thoughts on fire," which quickly became "thoughts aflame" (because it sounds cooler). That in turn ran up against the ideas from Hebrews 12 that I was thinking about at the same time. This blog contains my "thoughts," but their topic at the most basic level is "a flame"—the fire of God's holiness.
I hope that you are encouraged, challenged, and blessed by the content of Thoughts; A Flame. If you're interested in some of my more focused thoughts on the church, I'd encourage you to visit Pillar on the Rock, where PJ King and I write about everything from relevance and musical styles to church government and liturgy, and 52 Verses | a year of poetry, which is exactly what it sounds like.
