Blink and You'll Miss It
Some writings you may have missed in the last year
If you haven’t noticed, I write a lot. In fact, in the last 3-4 years I think I’ve written more than ever before in my writing life (which started decades ago in earnest in 1996.)
This year a lot of that writing found its way here to the DruGroup Substack (I only took a couple weeks off the entire year on vacations and since January 1, 2025 I’ve posted an article every single day.). Because of that, if you blinked you may have missed something. So I’m starting a new tradition here, and that’s to look back on the past year of writing to highlight a few things you may have missed that could be of interest. I write on a range of subjects, so I’ve grouped them together into a few categories so you can skim read till you find something of the most interest to you below.
THE BIBLE
I always try to write with a healthy dose of scripture in the mix. But this year I spent more time than ever writing about the Bible directly, not indirectly. I offered some New Year’s resolutions from the “I Will” statements in the Psalms and even went to scripture to try figure out what to do about Christians I disagree with politically. But I spent the most time writing on the subject of what Jesus told us to do, focused on discovering, investigating, and then writing devotionals about all the commands of Jesus in the New Testament. I offered this as a benefit to my paid subscribers, so if you’re not one of those then they didn’t show up in your inbox. The full listing is found here—a devotional every day, for 147 days straight, about all that Jesus commanded us to do.
LEADERSHIP
I wrote, as I usually do, a lot about leadership. There was an entire series on “The Essential Intangibles” (you can find the table of contents for that here). I also wrote about how your verbs help define what you do. I offered a focus on the most important meeting of your year as well as thoughts on what healthy boards look like. But, perhaps my favorite piece on the subject was about how excessive focus hurts leaders. I think that’s a key problem in this day and age to address.
KEITH DRURY
My father died on April 7, 2024, just over a year ago. I process life by writing in my private journals or sometimes by publicly posting my reflections. It was no different with my father’s death and also reflecting on his life, which I wrote about three times this year as follows. Perhaps this is fitting since Dad was such a prolific writer himself.
CHURCH LIFE
I shared some Church revitalization models, wrote about the restoration of ministers, and offered some advice on making church announcements better. But perhaps my counterintuitive reflections on movements deserves an extra look the most.
MISSIONS
I wrote about church and mission in a piece about missiology, followed by another on post-Christian missional thinking, and finally addressing the hard question of, “Who is a missionary anyway?” Earlier in the year I tackled this subject in a new way by wondering what the greatest injustices in the world were with what might be a surprising result for some readers.
TECHNOLOGY
For a fun memory I wrote about the most interesting machine I ever owned. Then in a kind of unofficial series on tech, I offered some thoughts on computers from the perspective of a first digital native, then memories of when the internet started to change everything, and finally some early reports of a journey with artificial intelligence. I have some other drafts already brewing on the subject of technology beyond this for the future, but for now these are some of my reflections on the past up to today in regards to tech.
IMMIGRATION
I wrote about immigration twice. Once included guidance for how people can prepare who have concerns about immigration policy changes, and another time I chipped in a satirical piece in the voice of a first century Egyptian carpenter angry about an immigrants family from Judea. I know satire is often wasted on the satirized, but I couldn’t help but run with that idea.
HEART and HUMOR
As I’m prone to on occasion, I ticked off a few people this year with my humor, most of all when I tried to talk about “a guide to failure” with a piece about losers. I also offered a guide for how to start a riot and equipped you all with some handy phrases guaranteed to ruin your relationships. But the humor piece that most people talked about for the longest was The Chuck-it List. It seems that struck a chord and I encourage everyone fed up with bucket lists to embrace the Chuck-It way of life!
So, there you go, a bit of a rundown on the last year of writing, in case you missed it.
Is there any article from this last year that you want to comment on or remind others about? What was your favorite? Or maybe you have a suggestion of what I should write about sometime in the coming year? Leave a comment to let me know.