Thanks so much for taking the time to pop in and see what's going on in our lives! This site will be the main spot where you can find out about what the Steele's and our journey. The hope is to let this space have a "holistic" flavor, meaning it is not our intent to just write about faith, family, or culture, but about anything we find interesting. So, we might have one post that is dealing with living missionaly as a Christian and the next post about my struggle in Anatomy & Physiology.
We will put a post out soon fleshing out the name of our blog, Sacred Dirt. But for now, here is what you can expect from us as the reader.
There are three main goals of this blog
1. To encourage you - for 10+ years I have servde in ministry as a pastor or in a leadership role of some sort. Now, I am going back to school and learning how to live life as a Christian in the world. For years I encouraged my former congregation, The Bridge Community, that living our faith out in the mundane routine of life was exactly how our faith was intended to be expressed. It is not a show, a Sunday, or personal Bible reading that matters most - it's how we interact with people who are different than us - their beliefs, sexuality, etc. - in ways that reflect a deep compassion towards them that is rooted in a deep love for God. Put simply, to love God and love others faithfully. Now, we have the opportunity to live into this approach to life in the trenches and not from the safety of vocational ministry. Perhaps this might be encouraging to you.
2. Watch our family journey - this is a convenient way for you to watch our progress and journey as a family. Stepping out of a stable career and starting over by going back to school was not an easy decision. Now we are living with Tara's parents, I am in school full time, we have 2 children (you will hear more about them), and we are struglling to find what the new "normal" looks like for us. I am sure that you will get the chance to see our struggles and victories together. Also, I hope that you are not just specatators, but active participants in helping us along!
3. To stay connected - We really want to hear from people. We are both sanguine to the bone and have many, many friends that we are accustomed to getting face time with. The reality is that our weeks are going to take on a very different shape in the coming months and years. School will take up the majority of my time along with working part-time. Tara will be home with the kids and taking on more responsibility to help make ends meet. While this shift does make both of us sad, we understand that it is necessary in order for me to be succesful in school and in turn our family to become stable. So, even though we may not have lots of face-time we hope that this site can be a place for lots of meaningul interaction with the people we care most about.
Thanks for reading.
