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Thoughts about starting the blog

This whole idea grew from several years of reflection, but what really kicked it into motion was a day of conversation with family and friends after attending the funeral of a friend.

My perspective on GFC was always quite non-typical. For one thing, I spent about eighteen years living on "The Farm," but only a few (about three) as a "townie" who lived in an ordinary neighborhood and had a normal job. For another, I arrived from St. Louis, where I was part of a very good church with a strong tradition of preaching, teaching, and traditional worship, while most GFC people felt very alienated from such a church and wanted as little as possible to do with "the organized church" (as they would have said it). For yet another, when I got to Ohio, I was the number two (or perhaps the number three or four) member of a team that came in to help publish the denominational magazine. Definitely not number one. And in all the years of being associated with GFC, I never had any real leadership role or much access to the "inside" stuff, so most of my memories are, at best, "outsider" memories. I often thought in terms of the Narnia Chronicles of C.S. Lewis (and perhaps most frequently identified with Prince Rilian, from The Silver Chair, who was trapped underground) when I remembered a wonderful place that I couldn't quite get to.

Anyhow, this morning, I sat at breakfast and listed out twenty potential topics for coming blog posts, and I'm sure there will be others.

—Curt Allen

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