I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was wondering whether my original blog was still online somewhere, and I found it – here. Actually, all the posts have been migrated to this blog but I had forgotten about them. There was a strange pleasure in rereading some of my posts.

I started the “Doggie’s Breakfast” blog back in 2004. I was a student at what was then ETCW, now Union School of Theology. Blogging was just becoming a “thing” and some of my fellow-students were blogging and encouraged me to write as well. I planned it as a smorgasbord of things – commentary, thoughts, reflections on my studies, nonsense. Most of all it was to be fun.

It was an interesting time. The so-called emergent church movement was gathering pace, and a kind of young, restless and Reformed version of it was appearing which coalesced into organisations like Acts 29 and The Gospel Coalition. There was plenty to think and talk about. There was a lot of interaction between bloggers – commenting, responding to blog posts with more blog posts.

I don’t know what happened, but blogging became professionalised and probably monetised. Platforms like Patheos and The Gospel Coalition and Reformation21, to name a few, began hosting celebrated writers. It all became very serious. Grass roots blogging seemed to fall out of fashion. It wasn’t helped by the rise of Facebook and Twitter. Now these are somewhat passé unless you are an activist. For fun go to Instagram or Tik Tok. The visual has taken over.

This blog has been on life support for years now. I think my last post was 5 months ago. The one before that was five months before that. A little over two blog posts a year.

However, in my foray into old posts I was sufficiently energised to reconsider this enterprise and perhaps return to its roots. To write about this and that, hopefully with a wiser head than 16 years ago, sometimes writing serious things. Sometimes not. Times have changed since I started. The issues in our society have changed profoundly. But let’s have a go and see what happens.