Sometimes I look back at my old posts and wonder why I wrote about my writing status. After all, a couple years later and sometimes the information is woefully out-of-date. Sometimes it includes something I decided never to finish. Others, they include something I finished long ago. However, I remind myself, that one of the purpose of this blog/website is historical/reflective. It tracks my own journey. That is why I pretty much never remove an old post even if I have changed my views on the topic.

Project #1. I am working on a book. For awhile it was going to be “Paradoxical Missions.” It was going to cover several areas of missions where I believe the “best” missions is counterintuitive. The main sections would be “small missions” over big, “poor missions” over rich, “slow missions” over fast, and “weak missions” over powerful. However, I have decided to trim it and expand it. Trimming it means that I will focus on just one area. That one area is “Small Missions.” There are a couple of reasons for this. First, there are books out there as far as “weak” or “vulnerable” missions, as well as the corrosive effect of money in missions. Second, doing too much in a book also, paradoxically, results in doing too little in some ways (especially in the details and implications). So hopefully my book on Slow Missions will come out in 2026. I am looking into the possibility of having this published primarily in the Philippines. It is where I work after all. Eventually, may look into online options internationally. We shall see.

Project #2. I am working on an article on the “perfectly flawed missionary.” This is linking some of my work on “flaws perfection” in pastoral theology and seeking to apply it to missions. While I normally just put my stuff “out there” on my own, I am looking into the possibility of having this formally presented and, perhaps, published (again formally). We shall see.

What about AI?

There seem to be two big schools of thought . School #1 says that AI is the future. One must adapt (quickly) or be a dinosaur. School #2 says that AI is “cheating,” if not downright criminal. That being said, there are a lot of people who find middle ground. I am definitely in the middle.

For the article (Project #2) I don’t have any reasons to use AI in any way.

For the book (Project #1) I won’t be using AI for any of the writing. This has nothing to do with being purist. It is simply that I like writing. Why would I want a program doing the fun part? I don’t really plan to use it for reserach either. However, I might use AI for outlining. A couple of years ago, I tried to do outlining of a question with ChatGPT and with Copilot. Copilot did a very nice job of outlining. Of course, in 2 years there has been so many changes, I don’t know what program does best. I think using AI to do some outlining may help me figure out if I am missing some areas to consider. That being said, I don’t plan to rely on the topic. For example, I plan to have a considerable section exploring how eschatology affects missions in a bad way. I really doubt that AI would bring this up in outline.