Greetings to all. 2019 has been a good year for me this year… overall. As far as this website, I have enjoyed putting up posts periodically. However, I tailed off a bit towards the end. Partly, this was because of  book work (my own and others), and partly because I was working on another blogsite (https://adventures-in-pastoral-theology.org/), and perhaps a bit of a feeling that I had said all I wanted to say. This happens once in a while. No problem with that, but one evidence is that most of my posts this year have gotten few hits. Think I need to embrace a bit of a break to let new ideas come up.

But here are the top posts read in 2019:

#1.  Kintsukuroi Faith:  Beautifully Broken. Part 1.  I am glad this is #1 since it is one of my favorite themes– our perfection and sanctification is not best seen in hiding our failures, but in the “scars” that demonstrate what God has been doing in our lives. Actually, Part 2 of this post is #7 in 2019.

#2.  Cultural Perspective and the Prodigal Son.  This post looks at research done that shows how our reading of Scripture is strongly influenced. Sometimes the presumption of people is that culture distorts interpretation… and that certainly can be true. However, looking at Scripture through a different culture can also reveal what was always there.

#3.  Medical Mission Events in the Philippines, Part 1. This one is surprising to me. However, from 2004 to 2010, my wife and I were directly or indirectly involved in approximately 70 medical mission events in the Philippines. I also wrote my dissertation on doing medical missions, and my first book was a book version of my dissertation. So this post was the first part of a multi-part post on this topic. as well as connecting to the book I wrote on that subject.   The other parts follow part

#4.  Oral Tradition and Rida Rida Ranka.  This is one of my few “non-religious” posts. It explores how communication happens through oral means. I use the Scandinavian children’s poem “Rida Rida Ranka” as the basis for that.

#5. What Happens When Conflicts are Not Resolved.  We get asked to do training on conflict resolution. This post was on the process of conflict escalation, particularly as it happens in church. I would probably do the post different now, but it is still not bad. <Curiously, there has only been one vote put on that post and it was “One Star”— Poor.  I must have annoyed someone.>

#24.  No Pictures Please… .  I added this one because it was actually the highest ranked post that I posted this year. It is one of my favorites so no complaints there. It is a series of stories of where picture-taking was counter-productive for missions and ministry.