2015 The Wondering Eagle in Review: The Top Posts, Statistics and Feedback; In the End All I Wanted is Peace with Andrew White

An overview of The Wondering Eagle for 2015. The end results…181 posts and 54,000 people who have read. The role that this blog played in The Village Church scandal and what is happening behind the scenes. Also a review of the top posts and my favorite articles that I want to highlight. Eagle is ready for 2016 and it is shaping to be a very busy year. This blog arose out of pain from a false accusation from a Care Group Leader at Eric Simmon’s Redeemer Arlington in the Washington, D.C. area. If individuals have concerns over it, they can approach Redeemer and Andrew White ultimately….in the end all I wanted is peace.

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”   

Robert Kennedy

“Tolerating evil leads only to more evil. And when good people stand by and do nothing while wickedness reigns, their communities will be consumed.”

Alabama Governor Bob Riley

The Lord will not reject his people;  he will not abandon his special possession.
¹⁵ Judgment will again be founded on justice, and those with virtuous hearts will pursue it. Who will protect me from the wicked? Who will stand up for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had helped me, I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave.

Psalm 94:14-17 NLT

All I wanted is peace….all I wanted is to be at peace. I was trying to rebound from a faith crisis that was hell. I then faced a false accusation from a Care Group Leader at Eric Simmons Redeemer Arlington that threatened my name, livelihood and income. It was the darkest season of my life. All I wanted is for Andrew to approach me and say, “Eagle…I’m sorry, and here’s why…let’s talk through everything.” I wanted Andrew to approach me because I wanted to shower him with grace. I wanted to teach him about the life, and freedom that comes through repenting and saying, “I’m sorry…” I prayed for him so hard it hurt. I prayed so hard that some times I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream convinced that we were at peace. When I realized I was dreaming…I prayed on the spot. I wanted to work with Andrew and resolve this mess, after all what type of person who boasts of their faith would deny another person peace? Sovereign Grace is a really sick church system as Todd Wilhelm likes to say, and I can understand why. The kicker that was hard for me is that I honestly did not expect 137 people to forgive me in the end. As a by-product I felt that pressure to resolve this situation with Andrew, but I thought….what better way to honor the Lord than to be at peace with all your brothers and sisters? I’m still working this issue, and out of desperation from a false accusation I finally turned to blogging. I was at the end of my rope with my name, reputation and employment threatened. The false accusation was that severe.

I never intended to start a blog. At anytime Andrew could have come to me and said, “Eagle…let’s work everything out.” I would have stopped writing if he approached me and as part of working things out I would have stopped writing if he asked me to do so. That is if he feels full remorse and he wants to resolve this mess and grieves what he put me through. When the fruit of your faith is pain, tears, and psychological trauma something is not right. You are not spiritually healthy at all.

All I wanted is peace…is that too much to ask for?

 

Top 10 Posts at The Wondering Eagle

Having explained the background this post will be an overview of the year at this blog. First I will examine the top 10 posts that have been read, and then I will look at my personal favorites. These are the ten most popular posts that I have authored at The Wondering Eagle. Here they are in this order as of December 24, 2015.

1. The most read post is about the situation at The Village Church and Matt Chandler with Karen Hinkley.  It was written when it was revealed that The Village Church in Dallas had disciplined Karen Hinkley for getting an annulment to her husband Jordan Root who was addicted to child pornography and sexually attracted to children. I intentionally named the post after Matt Chandler’s book called “The Explicit Gospel.” This post is called “The Explicit Gospel” at Matt Chandler’s “The Village” Includes Child Pornography, Church Discipline and Membership Covenants. This has been read 2,281 times. The other posts dealing with The Village Church situation are still being read. My open  letter to Matt Younger where I raked him over the coals for how he treated Karan has been read 612 times. If you Google Matt Younger at The Village Church my letter sticks to his church page. The open letter I wrote Karen Hinkley to encourage her has been read 523 times.
2. The second most read post is one I did about P.J. Smyth from GodFirst and Covenant Life Church. There were several reasons why I wrote this post. I had a person involved in SGM Survivors who reached out to me and asked me look into him. I did, I attended CLC and heard him preach. I also wrote about him because Kris at SGM Survivors has largely quit. It bothered me that this was happening and no one was writing about it. Likewise Dee wanted to look into this but she is overwhelmed with many issues. So I decided undertake this as a means to help my East Coast Mom out. I wrote this post called “From CJ Mahaney to PJ Smyth at Covenant Life Church? Some Thoughts from an Outsider.” This post has been read frequently in South Africa. If you Google P.J. Smyth my post is the first that pops up. To date it has been read 2,005 times. In addition I did a review of the Advance Movement  and its beliefs and doctrine.
3. The third most read issue was about the church that I once called home, and was once a part of my life. I exited my faith crisis by getting baptized at Fairfax Community Church. I ran into authoritarian issues with Andy Gingrich, and stumbled across disturbing information one night at home. Fairfax Community had made Eric Nickle, who was a violent sex offender a Care Director and hid that information from the congregation. I arrived at a church in Wisconsin that reeled from a sex abuse scandal. Knowing that…I struggled with what to do with the information for well over a year. It was awkward and difficult. I tried discussing another issue with Andy Gingrich but he became all authoritarian and dismissed the concerns I had about other issues. I finally contacted SNAP and let them know. It led to protests and the congregation being informed of the situation. It was this post that blew the lid off the situation. The name of the post is called, “Why Does Fairfax Community Church have a Care Director on the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Sex Offender Registry?” That posts has been read 1,163 times. A couple of other posts also are highly read to include “Eric Nickle, Rod Stafford, Fairfax Community Church and an Interrupted Mancation in Kenya (Sorry Rod…”) which has been read 591 times. Then this open letter to Rod Stafford who baptized me has been read 506 times. The situation at Fairfax Community Church has been heartbreaking. To see that kind of corruption just truly saddens me. It makes me wonder….who can you trust?
4. John Piper is the fourth member of the Trinity for many in the Neo-Calvinist movement. He’s God…and above question. He’s the 67th book of the Bible for a large number of individuals. My next most popular post dealt with what I did when I was on the John Piper Kool-Aid at one point of my life. My mother had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the early stages and went into emergency surgery and treatment. She fought it and amazingly beat it. A couple of years after all that transpired and as she struggled with the experience along comes her John Piper Kool-Aid drinking son who gave Mom a pamphlet saying her pancreatic cancer was is a gift from God. My mother angrily and tearfully confronted me later on when I was in my faith crisis. This is the story of the incident and how fundamentalism bites you in a time of life when you least expect it. This post called “My Mother’s Pancreatic Cancer, John Piper and Me” and has been read 707 times.
5. The fifth post I believe is going to become the most popular post in the course of time. Why? Because everyone reading this needs closure. All need healing. This post deals with the tragic story in Florida of Renee Napier and Eric Smallridge. Eric Smallridge drove while intoxicated and killed Renee’s daughter Megan Napier and her best friend Lisa Dickson. He was tried and convicted and sentenced. He repented and accepted the legal system and its consequences as part of his repentance. In the process he convinced Renee Napier that he had repented and by his remorse. He worked with Renee and went and spoke about drunk driving in Florida appearing in prison garb and chains. Because of his repentance Renee Napier and the Dickson family went to bat for Eric and had his sentenced reduced considerably. The Napier and Smallridge families became friends and speak publically about drunk driving and forgiveness. This situation inspired me and is what I prayed and hoped Andrew and I could model, and what we could emulate. It would be beautiful if that could be done and that is part of why I wrote the post. This post is called “Renee Napier and Eric Smallridge: An Incredible Story of Grace, Forgiveness and Repentance in Florida.” It has been read 696 times.
6. This next post has been climbing  up towards the top and as my blog’s Google ranking goes higher I expect to see this climb further. This deals with Mark Dever’s 9 Marks and asks what are 9 Marks? This post also highlighted how Mark Dever made 9 Marks worthless when he let C.J. Mahaney flee Covenant Life Church and take refuge at Capitol Hill Baptist. Church discipline applies to the pew peon at the bottom of the totem pole, but if you are in leadership you are exempt. I’m still waiting for C.J. Mahaney and Mark Dever to be disciplined. In this post I explain why Mark Dever violated five of the 9 Marks to include membership, “The Gospel,” leadership, discipline and disciplieship. This post which has been read 684 times is called “9 Marks: What is it? How Mark Dever Undermined it and Made it Worthless.”
7. The following post was one of my first that I had written. I wrote about a situation that happened in Elmbrook Church in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. They had a youth pastor who sexually abused a number of teenagers who fled and committed suicide in West Baraboo, Wisconsin which is in central Wisconsin in 1999. I arrived at Elmbrook after the incident but realized the scars that lasted from the event.  That combined with other situations  with sex offenders in other churches taught me how much evangelical Christianity struggles with child sex abuse. This article has been read 657 times and is called “How I Learned Evangelical Christianity is Struggling with Child Sex Abuse: An Incident at Milwaukee’s Elmbrook Church in 1999.”
8. The eighth most read post here dealt with Mark Driscoll and the RICO lawsuit that is being talked about being filed against Mars Hill. In this post which has been read 595 times I implore Rob Smith and others to file the lawsuit and knock Driscoll out, if possible. The last thing Christianity needs is for him to set up shop somewhere and duplicate the problems in Phoenix or elsewhere. I view Mark Driscoll to be a STD, or a “Spiritually Transmitted Disease.”  I firmly believe there are times when lawsuits are necessary.  Actually one of the problems today is that people are hurting others and then they pull out the 1 Corinthians 6 and say, “but you can’t sue….” My contention…there are times you need to, and a good lawsuit can be healthy and Biblical. This post is called “Why the RICO Lawsuit Against Mars Hill Seattle Must Proceed…“
9. John Piper is back and in this read I explore the issue of personality cults in Neo-Calvinism. I research and write of Chairman Mao’s personalty cult in China and the Red Guard that followed his instructions. In this post I explore the similarities between the personality cult of John Piper and Chairman Mao. And how the followers of both are destroying or have destroyed lives in the fabric of society and churches. I also look at the personality cult of C.J. Mahaney and find similarities between it and the “Dear Leader” of North Korea. There is one key difference between them…in North Korea people get their haircuts to look like the “Dear Leader” so they won’t be executed. In Sovereign Grace some people shaved their head voluntarily. I called this post “The Little Red Book of…John Piper?” This has been read 517 times.
10. The last post to make this list deals with a disturbing situation in a church in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Sterling, Virginia. It involves a former Assembly of God church that has gone rogue. That church is called Calvary Temple. Molly Fitch’s family got involved in the church and the pastor’s turned four of her five children against her. They have cut off their own mother and family and refuse to interact with them at all. When Molly has shown up a couple of times at her children’s house they have called the police on her. It’s been unbelievable tough on Molly. The Washington Post has written about Calvary Temple.   Calvary Temple has destroyed so many families….it’s heartbreaking. This church has protestors outside it each week. I’ve gone a couple of times to show my support. I wrote this post to give Molly hope…hope that see needs. One day… she will introduce her son Jonathan Fitch to me and their family will be one again. When that happens I will be able to sleep at night and at ease. Until then I will walk with them and the other Calvary Temple protestors whose families are torn apart. This post is called “An Open Letter to Molly Fitch” has been read 506 times.

 

My Favorite Posts

I want to choose a number of posts outside the ones listed above to feature and highlight some of the work that has been done at this blog. There are many topics and I finally built a category menu. So feel free to scroll through those and others as well. I have several posts I have written about Mormonism but I didn’t include those in this section. Nor did I include the art or music posts that I have been putting up on the weekends. These posts are in no particular order and should not be ranked in importance. These are just personal favorites that have been hard work for me to write but I want to re-share them in case you have not read them.

1. I have had several people tell me that all I do is focus on the negative. That I am consumed by the negative and can’t point out the positive. To push back against that line of thought and claim I would like to lead this list with a post I wrote as a tribute to a pastor who I loved. I wrote this to Joe Jenkins who used to pastor Wooded Hills Bible Church outside Milwaukee. His love, grace and ability to lead in a gentle fashion commanded respect. Pastors who demand respect but don’t lead in love are people I can’t respect. If you have to trump your authority then you never had it to begin with. This post was written by a former member of Wooded Hills Bible Church in Colgate, Wisconsin. It was shared at the church and my former pastor’s wife cried when reading it. This post is called “Tribute to a Pastor I Loved: Joe Jenkins from Wooded Hills Bible Church.”
2. There are several open letters that I wrote which again I want to quickly highlight. These are written out of love and to draw attention to someone and say thank you. Each of these people I wrote about means a lot to me. I would not be where I am today had it not been for their love, grace, and friendship. Their fingerprints are all over my life in many ways. The first letter is to James Crestwood who currently lives in Salina, Kansas today. He is really the only person who refused to leave me in my faith crisis though I tried to drive him away. He knew me before, during and after my faith crisis. When James read the letter I wrote  he wept and texted me as to how moved he was and that it highlighted a lot about a friendship. It was just hours before he had his third child born. The second letter is to Danny Risch. I met him in D.C. and he currently lives in the Fresno-Clovis area of California. I plan to see him in Fresno over the next few days. The third letter is to Scott Van Swernigan who lives and works in the Kansas City area today. I met him in my faith crisis and he walked with me and engaged me in a lot of the issues. I guess my faith crisis counted as graduate level work, and would follow up on his education at Moody Bible Institute! He appreciated the letter I wrote and said that my way of thinking has challenged him and grown him deeply. He looks at things in a different light and has thanked me for the friendship. The final letter is to Joe Blow who lives in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. I met and knew him through Campus Crusade. He led Crusade at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. I mentored him, and at one time put boundaries on him. He grew and I got re-involved in his life. Re-engaging him was one of the best decisions of my life…where would I be today had that not happened? How poor would my life be? One of the highlights of my life is having watched him get married in the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee on December 6, 2014. When I heard he was getting married there was no way I could miss that event. I plan on writing an open letter to Dee Parsons one day but I am waiting for David Horner to end his reign of spiritual tyranny at Providence Baptist in Raleigh. So look out for that letter in the near future!
3. One post that means a lot to me is the one in which I wrote about the most difficult reconciliation that I undertook and worked through. It was from someone who I deeply hurt in my faith crisis. He didn’t want to be contacted and it was made clear what would happen if I did contact him. Through a intermediary and the hard work, and a calculated approach I worked the situation out and a destroyed relationship has become a deep, and great personal friendship today. I got a text yesterday from Archie while I was in the Dallas Fort Worth airport. This is the story of working things out with Archie Griffin.
4. There are two articles which are similar that I want to highlight. They both deal with atheism and I believe should be read and considered by the Christian community. The first article explains why many evangelical Christians will be unable to reach atheists given their intellectual deficits, culture, and mindset. When you are too sensitive to criticism or opposing thought…how are you going to be able to work with or get to know someone outside your tribe? Also this article highlighted how corruption in evangelicalism can fuel and drive atheism. In my case being invited to Sovereign Grace by Andrew White against all the alleged criminal activity and child sex abuse cover up helped me to justify atheism and bolster my claims that Christianity is fraudulent.  If Christians deeply cared about The Gospel then they would not be promoting corrupt and decadent ministries like Sovereign Grace. I wrote that article from an atheist point of view.
5. Speaking of atheism one of my favorite posts deals with the problem of evil and how the Sovereign Grace Ministries lawsuit helped me resolve it. I had spent half my thirties rejecting Christianity. What drove me in rejecting it was many doubts, the biggest being the problem of evil. In this article I try and do an overview of how differing people look at the problem of evil over the course of time. I also wanted to single out Pam Palmer and the other brave souls who filed the lawsuit and worked at holding C.J. Mahaney accountable for allegations of him covering up child sex abuse. This is me in my usual Eagle style saying “Thank you…” to those who filed the lawsuit. Their efforts helped me realize that the way you deal with the problem of evil is to confront it. After all evil is always going to exist as long as humanity exists.
6. One of the most shared posts from my blog on social media is me journaling from a post at Neil Carter’s Godless at Dixie. Neil Carter is a well respected atheist and former Christian. He had a guest post that explained how people lose faith, and how to grieve it. I personally wrote how I went through that experience in my faith crisis. I believe it to be one of the rawest posts I have written and the original author of the post commented on it as well.
7. Another raw post that I had to write is one of my most sensitive. I wrote about how I managed a false accusation from an Air Force Captain and Care Group Leader from Redeemer Arlington. I had learned why rape and sexual assault is a major issue in the U.S. military because of this Air Force Officer’s action. I put this here because questionable theology movements and organizations use false accusations as part of the modus operandi. This post generated a sensitive email from someone in the midst of a serious false accusation in the south. She explained to me how this post gave her hope amidst the legal situation going on.
8. I love history and one of the neatest posts deals with Neo-Calvinist membership covenants and the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall came to symbolize tyranny, oppression and Communism. The Berlin Wall divided one of the greatest cities in Europe and became the flash point for the Cold War. Likewise membership covenants in Sovereign Grace, Acts 29 are the new Berlin Wall of Christendom. They divide, they enslave, and they entrap people. This post explores the similarities between the two situations.
9. Another post that I enjoyed writing dealt with history as well. I explored the situation in Sovereign Grace and found similarities between the Watergate scandal which dragged down the Presidency of Richard Nixon. As Deep Throat told a young Bob Woodward from the Washington Post in the movie “All The President’s Men,” follow the money. The key to unraveling the Sovereign Grace scandal is to find out how much money C.J. Mahaney gave away. Who was bribed? Who was purchased? Who received money and how much? D.A. Carson, Mark Dever, Kevin DeYoung, and Justin Taylor…the question stands…did C.J. Mahaney give you money? Is that why you are so loyal? Or does C.J. Mahaney have dirt on them and can blackmail them like he did Larry Tomczak?
10. Up above I wrote about the personality cult of John Piper.  Another post I wrote dealt with how celebrity pastors can be needlessly divisive and an obstacle to those outside the faith. In the post I used Andrew White as an example and penned how his worship of Mark Driscoll helped keep a person away from the Christian faith. When your identity is wrapped up in your idol then I believe your usefulness is limited. In the post I talked about my bewilderment of a person who loved Mark Driscoll and ignore all that was hemorrhaging out of the organization.
11. This post on all the Cru Christmas conferences is the hardest post I have done. It was very labor intensive. I plan on doing this annually and reviewing the Christmas/Winter conferences. In this post I explain why I cannot endorse the Minneapolis, Denver or Washington, D.C. conferences for 2015. I also explain how Brett Miller at George Mason University Cru is a Mark Driscoll wannabe based off his behavior toward me.
12. Disease, cancer, divorce, job loss, or job promotion, having a kid when your were told you couldn’t. Life is difficult and also a joy. As you reflect back on your life did you ever think you would be where  you are? Did you ever imagine fighting the battle with cancer, or growing up in a small town in North Dakota and working in Manhattan? This post was inspired by a Steven Curtis Chapman song in my YouTube feed. It just got me thinking.
13. Redeemer Arlington’s roots are in what I would consider one of the most corrupt and decadent ministries in evangelical history. Sovereign Grace Ministries legacy is destruction, scandal, and being dogged by allegations of covering up child sex abuse and other criminal activity. I wrote this post to the leadership of Eric Simmons and Jordan Kauflin. What direction are they going to go? They only way forward is to repent of their history and past affiliation with Sovereign Grace. I also included a list of recommendations to make Redeemer healthy. This post was inspired by a book I read called “Legacy of Ashes” which is a history of the Central Intelligence Agency.
14. This next post was written during a long and private ordeal I was undergoing. I was struggling because of the false accusation Andrew White made. It loomed and threatened me, and I was trying to find ways to contain it. I then decided to write a post on pain and suffering that looked at how differing individuals faced it. I wrote about David and Derek Carr, Ben Petrick and Scott Hamilton. This post was liked by Ben Petrick on Twitter.
15. There are two posts I want to feature together because they are related to Bill Cosby. The first post deals with a blog article that Thabiti Anyabwile wrote about how we need to discuss the situation with Bill Cosby and the issues of the sexual assault allegations. My reaction was great! Let’s also discuss C.J. Mahaney’s allegations of covering up of child sex abuse. I pressed Thabiti further asking how he could pen such an article and stay silent and preach alongside C.J. at the next T4G? Then my alma mater Marquette University made national news for revoking an honorary doctorate that it gave to Bill Cosby a couple of years ago. I wrote a post on what Al Mohler and Mark Dever can learn from Marquette University in regards to C.J. Mahaney and pulling their public support for a man drowning in allegations of covering up child sex abuse.
16. The final post I want to feature is one that I wrote that proposed suggestions of how to make Neo-Calvinism healthy. You can read that right here.

 

Statistics and Feedback

One day I finished working out at the gym. I had done some rowing, eliptical and basketball. After I finished I went to my Nissan Sentra tired, sweaty and exhausted. I checked my phone and had a message from Dee Parsons who wanted to speak with me. Dee had spent the day with Karen Hinkley in Ashville, North Carolina. So I called up Dee to speak with her. Dee had something she had to tell me. In talking with Karen Hinkley’s friend it was learned as to how stressful The Village Church ordeal was. Her name was public, and the Village Church was attempting to discipline her for getting her marriage annuled from Jordan Root, who was addicted to child pornography. During the situation with Matt Chandler’s church Karen’s friend found a blog called The Wondering Eagle and she was taken by the passion and the speaking from one man’s heart. This guy gets it and can understand. So Karen’s friend had Karen read my posts during the situation and that was one of the ways she was supported. Dee told me that people can see my passion. She wanted me to continue writing and encouraged me to keep moving forward. Dee has been mentoring and training me in this process.  I sat in my Nissan drenched in sweat hearing this and just stunned. Who would have thought that my posts would encourage such a person? Why do people want to listen to what I have to say? Or who could have imagined that this blog would have a link to The Village Church scandal? The other thing I privately wondered is this…..is Andrew White going to regret not seeking forgiveness for his false accusation and betrayal? After all his inability to approach and work things out led to the creation of a blog that strongly supported and assisted a brave female in a crisis whose stand undermined both Matt Chandler’s authority but  The Village Church as well. Andrew White loooooooooooooves Matt Chandler, I still have his CD’s that he gave me. In the end could I also say that Andrew just didn’t hurt me and himself but also Matt Chandler as well? That is me thinking out loud. That story of Karen Hinkley is but one of several stories I have heard.  And I am going to open up a bit and reveal some of what has happened. I am uncomfortable doing so as I don’t want to be seen as bragging, as that is not the intent either. Likewise there are some things will remain confidential that I want to keep to myself.  Then there is the email from Renee Napier. Renee was getting ready to speak and give another interview when she saw my blog post about her and Eric Smallridge. Renee emailed me and asked me to change one word but said she was impressed by the post and the research I have done. We traded correspondence and she apologized for the number of cults that exist and the people getting hurt by them. I offerred to Renee that post I wrote up….she could use it anyway she desired. That was another way that revealed my postings are getting read and making a difference.

One day I got a Twitter message from someone who has published frequently at The Gospel Coalition. He just had another post featured recently. He contacted me to let me know he reads what I have written and he likes my thinking in regard to the problem of evil. He gave me his dissertation on the problem of evil which I still have to read. It’s on my pile of things to process and eventually discuss. But knowing him has been a blessing and I appreciate his feedback, friendship and advice. Then I wrote this post which led to the Executive Director of Recovering from Religion, Sarah Morehead to comment. Sarah is organizing the largest atheist rally in Washington, D.C. next spring.  This blog has led to a lot of meetings with individuals. I have had many people who have emailed me and asked if we could meet. The last time this happened was four days ago. Someone who reads me in Atlanta was in D.C. and just wanted to talk theology and meet me. After work I hung out with him and had  a pleasant time for over two and a half hours. Then there are many other stories, I went to a Christmas service and the location I attended, someone from the church contacted me and I’ve gotten to know him already. In light of the situation I had with Andrew White from Redeemer Arlington, let me also say that I have been blessed to know someone in a like minded church who likes to talk from time to time and hang out. I enjoy him challenging me as it gets me thinking, and another point of view broadens my horizon. This blog has taken me to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina (The Deebs!) and of course my home in the D.C. area. I’ve heard some difficult stories in person and over the phone. More and more people are contacting me and I am realizing that this is getting busier and busier. Each and every person I have had the privilege of meeting has been a joy, and I do not take them for granted. How can you listen to their story and be detached? Or ignore it? How can you not care? How can you leave the situation as is? I care a lot, that is who I am as a person. I’ve also heard other feedback from a couple of other blog authors and while I want to keep that to myself, it also is very encouraging.

Now here are the statistics… with today’s post I have published 181 posts. As of December 26, 2015 this blog has been read by 53,444 people. It has had 941 comments. Early on what drove it was The Wartburg Watch and now what is driving it is Google. This blog is rising in the Alexa rankings as people are now finding it through Google. You can find this blog easily by Googling “Rod Stafford”, “Matt Younger”,”P.J. Smyth”, “Redeemer Arlington” or “Renee Napier.” This blog pops up immediately. Its been shared 1,976 times on Facebook, and 1,042 times on Twitter. The top five countries that have read this blog are the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The countries at the bottom of the scale who have read this blog include Uruguay, Honduras, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Bermuda, Finland, Ecuador, Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Jamaica. Also if you are the person from Pakistan that checks this out regularly…let me say this. Those of us who are Christians don’t believe you have to shave your head, blackmail your ministry partner and publish a book on Humility after the fact. That doesn’t represent the Christian faith for many people. Hopefully this blog drives that point home. If not…then I’ll have to step it up considerably.

 

Forecast for 2016 and Closing Thoughts

Based off what you have seen above 2016 will be a busy year. I am hoping to be able to bring someone on board to help carry this burden. Its hard to do this and work full time. I have had a lot of nights where I have been up to 2 or 3 in the morning. The person who I would like to bring on at some point is someone who is theologically conservative who was once active in a former Sovereign Grace or Acts 29 church and who can speak directly to the issues at hand. In 2016 you will start to see guest posts and church or ministry stories. I am working on a horrific story right now that Dee Parsons wants to re-run on The Wartburg Watch after its published here. I also want to run stories from atheists on how they lost their faith. There is a lot in regards to atheism and doubt that I want to pursue. If anyone out there wants to attend the Reason Rally in 2016 I would love to attend with you to observe and listen.   You will also see a few posts about Covenant Life Church and the Advance Movement. Expect an open letter to P.J. Smyth, and other articles as the situation develops. So that’s some of what lies in store.

I also want to say the following as this post, the last one for 2015 is published. This blog was created out of an incident from a Care Group Leader at Redeemer Arlington. My name, and my ability to earn income was directly threatened. I never planned to start a blog and as I have said above would not have  if Andrew came to me and said, “Eagle I’m sorry…let me explain why.” If he empathized and showed Godly remorse I would have released him. I would have wept given the pain he caused. So I want to state that this blog – The Wondering Eagle – is a legacy of Andrew White’s faith. I also want to state that if any church, ministry or individual in the Washington, D.C. area or elsewhere has any problems with it…well I’ll point you to the leadership of Redeemer Arlington. Jordan Kauflin knows who Andrew White is, and my suggestion is to take it up with Andrew White. He has chosen to go the route that he did. In closing I am going to leave you with a classic from Frank Sinatra. This blog is uniquely Eagle. It represents my thoughts, feelings, emotions and pain.  Yet through it all I have plowed on and done things in my unique way. I’ve done this blog my way. And with that I am ready for a busy and hard hitting 2016. No one is going to get hurt again by a church or ministry. That is my personal motivation, and that is what drives me. I’ve done this blog my way. As always I love you guys!