The Dawn Treader

1. Apologetics. I am sliding more toward presuppositional apologetics each year.   I began morphing from classical/evidential to presupp in 2004.  The trend continued in 2005.  At the end of 2004, I would guess that I was 60 percent evidential and 40 percent presuppositional in my belief and methodology.  I am now about 50-50.  Evidential apologetics, I am convinced, is best used in post-evangelism.  Presuppositional apologetics is the most effective in pre-evangelism.  The challenge to Christians is how to put a kinder, gentler face on presuppositional apologetics: more like Francis Schaeffer and less like Greg Bahnsen.
2. Worldview Teaching.  My plan to network through RUF ministers and speak on campuses in Virginia and North Carolina never materialized.   I quickly came to realize that I am not at the right stage in life to be in a mentoring ministry to college students.  I spoke at a worldview conference in Greensboro in the spring.  That was a great experience, but it has one major drawback for me.  It is difficult to follow up with folks you teach there and deepen the impact of worldview teaching.  Taking people through a paradigm shift in their thinking in 45 minutes is neigh on impossible.  The conference becomes a mountain top experience.  But once you go away from the conference, then what?
3. Cultural Engagement  My cultural engagement was almost entirely on the internet in 2005.  That stinks, quite frankly.  The internet is a good place to practice, but the real deal is in person.  I did a movie night this year with some of the college kids from church.  I loved it.  Need to more of that in 2006.  I attended two Pigfests in 2005, and I hope to bump that up to hosting a Pigfest every month at the house.  My blogging in 2005 transitioned away from doing a lot of original thinking to piggy backing and linking to the work of others.  I still spend too much time yammering in comment threads.
4. Ecclesiology and Theology.  No change here.  Still PCA - Reformed (kinder gentler Calvinistic world and life view) - Covenantal - Amill -  Sonship - heavy emphasis on Grace - transmodernist in my overall epistemology - half presupp, half evidential in my apologetics - correspondence view of truth - justifed true beliefism view of knowledge - still old earth / young adam - love contemporary worship - love the hymns - high regard for history and tradition  -  love Presbyterians because they are great thinkers but wish they were a little less frozen :-) - yada yada

Looking forward to 2006

1. Cultural Engagement.  I plan on diving into the Pigfest ministry in a big way in 2006.  Look for a lot of Pigfest posts.  I also hope to get one article published with either Breakpoint, By Faith magazine or perhaps even Touchstone Magazine.  Time to get out of my comfort zone and attempt a bigger writing project.
2. Church.  I will be part of a PCA church plant in Roanoke.   I plan on teaching in some capacity and being involved in outreach to Roanoke.  I am absolutely thrilled with the incoming pastor Ed Dunnington.   The people who know Ed speak in glowing terms about him.  I met him and spoke briefly with him.  If my thin slicing is any good, then Ed will be a tremendous leader.
3. Learning.  I plan on learning more about the Emergent church in 2006.  I also want to continue exploring positive eugenics and studying how the eugenics movement took hold in America and then later in Nazi Germany.  Where was the church?  I would like to start reading G.K. Chesterton and read the entire works of C.S. Lewis.
4. Blogging.  Hopefully more original posts and fewer fluff posts.  I need to participate more on the group blogs than I did last year.  I have a series on apologetics I would love to do at Cadre.  I hope to have more personal worldview narratives to post over at ESI.  I need to figure out a good search tool to use on TDT.   Any suggestions?  Probably less participation in the comment threads.  I need to narrow my reading to about ten high quality blogs.

Happy New Year everyone!