1 Year of PaulStiver.com

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Now let's celebrate because it's been 1 Year of PaulStiver.com! My blog is officially a baby!

A Year In Review

Fun statistics:


  • Total Published Posts: 86
  • Total Pageviews: 6,298
  • Most Read Post: Life Update! 474 pageviews (Allison has made it clear to me that headline might have been misleading and caused people to think we were having a baby! OOPS!)
  • Least Read Post: What is Just? 14 pageviews
  • MY Favorite Blog Post: I really liked writing them all! But I'll say Fast Car, which tells mine and Allison's story and talks about the merits of unconditional vs. conditional love. 

Looking back on the mission of PaulStiver.com:

1) An Ambassador for Christ

As I look back on the mission for why I started this blog, it was to further my work as an ambassador for Christ. I highlighted in my very first post that God saves sinners and calls us to the ministry of reconciliation. 

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:18–21 ESV)

I've continued to try to explain and enjoy the gospel in each blog post since. 

2) It's been about God's grace, I hope. 

I've tried to do two things well in this blog. First, I want to be realistic and humble about my faith journey. Following Christ is not easy, and it has plenty of messiness. I hope I represent my own messy life well. Secondly, I hope this blog points to God's glorious grace in Christ Jesus. Through Christ, God takes lowly sinners who rebel against Him, and adopts them to Himself. Amazing grace! Through the Holy Spirit, God enables and empowers those adopted sons and daughters to find their way home! Sustaining grace! I hope this blog has been about my weakness pointing to God's amazing and sustaining grace in Christ Jesus. 

3) Have I met my own expectations?

I wanted to write this blog to communicate the faith better, and to engage with culture. I've written several posts which directly engage with either current events or cultural norms. These have been fun and challenging. I love how the Christian faith can challenge, correct, uphold and embrace culture. It has been fun to think through things from this perspective. 

What does next year hold?

When I think about where the blog is headed, I'm excited to keep doing what has worked. I'd like to do more posts that directly engage with cultural or social issues. I'd also love to have Allison and others guest write for me. Overall, I will stick with my bread and butter, which is trying to represent the gospel as realistically and beautifully as I can. 

A special thanks

A special thanks to you for reading! I really appreciate that you are willing to engage with my thoughts and I hope this blog has been a blessing and an encouragement to you. 

Thanks!

Paul Stiver

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