Dan (his bio can be found here) stumbled across this blog by looking for house churches in Syracuse. While I go to school in Syracuse, it is only in the summer, and the house church we started is now defunct. Nevertheless, we struck up a conversation, and without sounding like an eHarmony ad, found we had a good bit in common. The most important being: brewing beer and concern about zombie infestations. That we both are asking hard questions about the state of the church in America was a bonus.
We decided to meet up and visit a brewery the last time I was in Syracuse (a couple of weeks ago), even though our wives questioned our judgement of meeting up with someone we met on the Internet.
Dan invited me to go to the small group he and his wife attend/host and aside from the occasional WV comment, it was an excellent time. I say that because it has been quite awhile since Joanna and I have been a part of anything relating to Christian fellowship. It made me long for the days of everyone piled into our living room, coffee brewing, a thousand different conversations going, kids running around.
Another evening of sampling beer and sitting around the deck talking with Dan and his friends got me to thinking. With Chris out because of his insane work schedule, and my posts starting to lean more toward the political, I thought Dan would make a great addition to the blog considering his role as a small group leader operating outside of the mainstream church. However he beat me to the punch and offered to start writing.
Keep an eye out for Dan’s upcoming inaugural post.
-mike
