By Adam Walker Cleaveland
Adam Walker Cleaveland is an M.Div./M.A. (Youth Ministry) student at Princeton Theological Seminary (will graduate in 2008), blogs regularly at pomomusings.com and does web and graphic design at cleavedesign.com. Adam and his wife Sarah currently live in Decatur, GA and Adam can be contacted at cleave@gmail.com.
I have to be honest; I've I’ve always wanted to write a book. Other than the numerous books I used to write and illustrate for our local county Young Authors’ Conferences, being able to be a part of this writing project is the closest I’ve come to actually writing a book. I’ve got a chapter. And and that feels pretty cool. However, as soon as I finished my chapter, “Presbymergent: The Story of One Mainliner’s Quest to be a Loyal Radical,” I experienced an odd emotion: fear.
The words were now going to be in print— they were going to actually be printed and people were going to read them, and, most likely, some would critique them. I think, perhaps, these are the thoughts of many first-time authors: what if someone doesn’t like my chapter? What if someone blogs(!) about how they don’t like my chapter? But most importantly, what happens if I change my mind?
That was what worried me most, and still does to some degree. What happens if I change my mind? What happens if I don't don’t want to be a loyal radical anymore? What happens if I get fed up with the mainline church and decide I don’t want to be a part of a denomination? I’m currently still in the PCUSA ordination process, and I don’t see anything changing that, but that was something I have been thinking about.
What does it mean to write something that I can’t change? I can go back and edit a post on my blog, but the printed word...that seems so much more concrete, more permanent. However, I do have faith that those who read my chapter...all of our chapters, will share our belief that we are all on a journey — and I'm confident my journey will take me to many places I can’t even imagine right now. If that means I’ll continue to pursue a call in a mainline PCUSA church — wonderful. If God calls me in a new and different direction — I have to honor that as well, whether or not I wrote in a chapter of a book once that I wanted to remain a 'loyal radical.'