Time for the Plow Again

A New Season for Beautiful Missiology

Photo by Peter Herrmann

O Christ, you have used life’s grit to form pearls
in the deep and secret waters of my soul.
Guide me now as I dive to find them.

—A Liturgy Before Writing a Poem¹

One of my earliest memories is the sound of an electric typewriter. My grandmother, whose funeral I will preach today, was the one who bought it for me. It sat in my room, overlooking the rolling farmland of Oil Valley. And somewhere in the thwack of each key, writing became my homeland.

As the hues of the fields changed with each Kentucky season, so my typewriter produced crops of various yield. Little has changed today, save the now-silent keys. Give me a task and see if I will not make it a prompt. Give me a life and see if I will not make sense of it with paper and ink.

I am a writer.

In the past 18 months I have published almost nothing. This was intentional. The ground needed to rest.

In 2023 I experienced severe burnout from pastoral ministry. Last year I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and channeled my energy into the recovery process. While I have written more in the past two years than at any other time in my life, the volumes have been unto God alone.

Now, it is time for the plow again. As Annie Dillard says, “When you write you lay out a line of words…and it digs a path you follow.”² I long to remember how the Maker cuts the furrow, how he brings new beginnings from old scars.

Writing means returning, but not in the same way. The form of the work must change too. Beautiful Missiology is no longer simply a portfolio to store writing. I hope it becomes a place where readers gather to reflect together.

Yes, I want green fields again, but at the heart of God’s mission is a shared harvest among friends. If this vision resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you stayed. I suspect that’s how Beautiful Missiology will become all that it was meant to be.

So please read along. Reflect with me. Join the conversation.

Let’s see what grows.

1. Douglas McKelvey, “A Liturgy Before Writing a Poem,” in Every Moment Holy: Writers & Poets (Nashville: Rabbit Room, 2025)

2. Annie Dillard, The Writing Life: The Classic Essay Collection on the Creative Process (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 3