Explaining the Blog

I don’t think that I’ve seen or experienced as much criticism/encouragement in my life than in the past year and a little bit. So what changed that brought on so much opinion from everyone around me? Oct 2004 was when I started Fleeting Limelight (the name of my blog) at www.nathancolquhoun.com and since then my life has changed for a number of reasons. I don’t really know why I started my website, it certainly wasn’t because of the reasons I love keeping it around. Since I’ve had my website it’s allowed me to publish my ideas, thoughts, and questions and invite other people to join with me in trying to figure out a number of things. It’s allowed me to keep on writing, something I love doing and get things organized and backed-up for future reference. This set of data has brought about its positives like I just mentioned but it is not without its downfalls.

Let me say a few things that my blog isn’t.

1. My blog is not my statement of beliefs. I’m trying to figure things out and this is my notebook on where I throw up thoughts and moveable conclusions. If I say I believe something it doesn’t mean I don’t want to be challenged or that I’m set in that. With the information that I have now that’s just where I’m at, that’s it. My blog is like the area between a long division problem and the conclusion, it’s just all the numbers in between and the work on a scrap piece of paper, some of it might make no sense at all because you’re not in my head and never saw the original question. Imagine trying to figure out the question, let alone the answer to a long division problem, if all you saw was a scrap piece of paper.
2. My blog is not in any way a representation of the things I’m involved in. My blog does not represent the beliefs of the church plant in Sarnia. It does not represent the magazine at Tyndale. It does not represent the conference that we are running in April. It does not represent the beliefs of neither my friends nor the emergent church or Resonate. They could but they are certainly not guaranteed.
3. When I tell a story on the blog (ie. Was in a bar drinking talking theology etc.) That doesn’t mean I promote bars or encourage drinking of any sort. It simply means that’s what happens, that’s it.

After getting that out of the way that might cut out some of the criticism and worries that people have been having. I receive a few e-mails almost every week since I’ve started my blog encouraging me and saying they really appreciate what I’ve been posting because it’s what they have been thinking about or for whatever reason. People have been discussing and enjoying what’s been going on this site and taking part of it. The reason I’m writing this post is not for those people. It’s for the people that are ‘talking’ and have been making judgements about me, the church plant and other things based on things they have read on this site. If you have a problem with something I’m saying. Leave a comment, send me an e-mail but by all means stop talking to other people and stop categorizing things by a few sentences you extract out of context on this site. If you are really upset, I will post your concerns on my blog myself for everyone to read. I will post it on the main site, for all to see.

I’m asking some hard questions on this site, and I’m trying desperately to understand my creator and things about him also. There is no room for people who are afraid of hard questions and there is no room for people who simply want to correct without being corrected. If you see a problem with what I’m writing, say something about it to me. Thanks for reading my blog and taking part in discussion and for the e-mails of encouragement I get in the past, I can only hope that it will be more fruitful in the time to come and that we all can learn from what’s going on.