I hope you will subscribe to Perspective the blog (short for “Web Log”), and here’s why. If you’re a follower of Jesus and 50+ in age, I’m writing to you.

 

Here is the deal:

 

It’s a familiar medium

Let’s get this out of the way up front. My book publishers like this idea. They hope you’ll be interested enough to read what I’ve written here and then buy one of my books. Well, so do I, but this is not what Perspective, the blog, is about.

 

It’s different.

Perspective the blog, targets those of us who’ve landed in midlife and beyond. It is a simple blog, one in which I share ideas and values and wisdom words I’ve gathered along the way from others who have been trying for years to help me figure out what life and ministry and following Jesus is all about. After all, this is the first (and last) time for any of us to be here in this season of our life. It just sort of happened on our way to … where was it we were headed?

 

It’s an opportunity to explore some great questions

It’s time we connected around some issues more important to us now than ever, to meditate on Truth’s relevancy; to consider what our answers will be to great “second half of life” questions like: 1) who is God in my life right now? 2) who am I in this powerful new season of my life? and 3) what shall I do with the years that remain?

 

It’s time to focus on the sacred journey that we and our peers are on, as well as on those young and master elders who are looking to become our generational sages.

 

It’s different here in the second half. Or the final third. Even in life’s overtime. We still laugh and cry, love and hate, accept and reject. But there’s an unexpected angst here. Our choices are fewer. We know the joys of life, but by now we’ve touched the edges of its suffering, too.

 

Life’s experiences line our faces and show through our eyes. We are not just older. We’re more mature. We know more, but we are sure about less. And all that stuff we once worked hard to get? Now we are giving it away. The new word is downsizing, isn’t it?

 

 

It’s living life differently

We cannot live the second half the way we lived the first. Stop trying. I don’t have all the right answers, but I do know it’s different here. I’m searching like you, and talking about what I’m finding. Sometimes it’s light and humorous. It makes me laugh. At other times life gets pretty heavy.

 

If Perspective was a church

It would be considered a fairly large congregation. As a blog, it is relatively small, but here’s the thing.

 

There are 1200 current subscribers to Perspective, with many more each week checking in on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It would not take any more effort for me to write for 12,000 than it does for 1200. And inspiration and equipping increases exponentially!

 

My worldview is Christocentric and my topics are eclectic. It’s the way I live and think, melding humor with real life stories and inspiration with spiritual truths for followers of Jesus in the second half of life. This month I’ll be checking in from two of my favorite places in the world, Israel and Jordan.

 

We live today in a “first half of life culture,” for the most part, intent on remaining “forever young.” But the years ahead are different than those in our rearview mirror. Connecting intelligently and spiritually with adults at midlife and beyond is a really big deal.

 

It’s yours to enjoy and to share

If you enjoy reading Perspective every week, or if this is your first time, why not invite your Facebook friends, LinkedIn, and Twitter followers, and friends at church to meet us on the Internet. www.wardtanneberg.com. Share any of my blogs with anyone. Go ahead. Copy and paste. They are all yours.

 

You can share a Perspective blog in its entirety or in piecemeal quotes with employees and business associates, parents and grandparents, pastors and missionaries, chaplains and vocational ministry leaders, even young adults with aging parents. Just about anybody in life’s second half. All you need to do is include the address for subscribing: www.wardtanneberg.com. And it’s FREE.

 

Subscribing to Perspective also allows you to catch up at your convenience if you’ve missed some of my earlier posts. And not with me only. I have some great writer friends and ministry colleagues with “perspective” that’s fresh and different from mine. I want to introduce you from time to time.

 

I’ve been writing Perspective for about a year now, once, maybe twice a month. This summer, I upped my game and posted once a week, in part to see if I could keep the pace.

 

Scott at FourtenCreative.com helps with my website www.wardtanneberg.com, and Carlo at Westminster Chapel posts my blogs, including the social networks. Otherwise it would not happen. And neither one of them is close to 50! Friends across the generations are terrific. No matter who we are, we all know stuff the others don’t!

 

So let’s listen well, teach to influence, stir the glowing embers of our peers and leave the Light on for the next generation!