Let's Begin...

My name is Allen Hoskyn and I am currently serving as an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville. My passion in life is that the Church (note the capital "C") would genuinely be the living community of Jesus the Christ. I hunger for the Church to live, to embody Monday through Saturday the beliefs it professes on Sunday morning. It is my hope that the church in the words of Shane Claiborne would become the home of "Ordinary Radicals." My own journey has travelled through fundamentalism, Islam, "pseudo" atheism and now Methodism. Though I resonate deeply with a Wesleyan perspective on salvation, faith, and practice, I am more concerned with serving the one who "though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). I have come to realize through my own life journey that the world is full of pain, tragedy, and brokenness; the only hope for any of us is through a God who is willing to share in our human condition. It is my hope and my prayer that this blog will be a safe place where questions of faith and life can be addressed with respect, wisdom, and hope, a safe place where we can learn what it means to be simple radicals.