Fifty-Two Mondays

The one sentence I wasn't ablet to write a year ago.

Three Mondays ago I told you I put my phone in a closet.

Two Mondays ago I told you about thirty kids in a Wyoming town who didn’t have their phones out for two and a half hours.

Last Monday I told you one of my kids said “It’s hot back here” from the back of a van and what that did to me.

I thought those were three different posts. Reading them back, I realize they were the same post. They’re the same post I’ve been writing in different forms for a year now.

This is the fifty-second Monday in a row I’ve posted something.

What I Thought I Was Doing a Year Ago

The first post went out on Thursday, June 26, 2025. I shared in that post I hated writing in school. The idea of writing and posting something every week felt like a job I’d been hired for but wasn’t qualified for. I still feel the same way today but by the grace of God, have continued showing up.

What I thought I was writing about was the gap between Sunday faith and Monday work. The compartmentalization most of us live inside. The church self, the work self, the parent self, the version that shows up when needed. I thought becoming a saint meant collapsing those compartments by sheer will. Trying harder. Showing up more. Bringing the A-game to all of life at once.

That’s what I shared in the first post.

Six months later I’d leave my job after fifteen years of parish ministry to enter into the unknown. I didn’t see that coming either.

A year later, I know less of what I thought and more of what’s actually true.

What I Actually Learned

Here’s the sentence I wasn’t able to write a year ago:

You don’t become a saint by trying harder… you become one by what you let form you.

I had to write fifty-two posts to land on that, and I still half-believe the old version most days. But I’ve seen the new version too many times now to pretend otherwise.

I’d built a framework around it: The SAINT Method. I was excited about and still believe in the bones of. What I’ve learned this year is that the framework matters less than the formation it’s supposed to make possible.

I've seen it in a closet shelf that held back a major distraction in my life better than my willpower ever did. I've seen it in thirty kids in a small Wyoming college town who weren't more virtuous than I am, but they were embedded in a place that made attention easier than distraction. I've seen it in my own kid noticing ten seconds without AC while I sat in the front seat and felt nothing.

The thing the launch post got right: the goal is integration.

The thing the launch post didn’t know yet: integration isn’t a willpower problem. It’s an infrastructure problem. The chair you sit in. The friends who hold your standards. The phone on a shelf in the closet out of arm’s reach. The pew you keep showing up to. The small daily yes to being uncomfortable on purpose. The community whose default settings shape your habits before you’ve even noticed they’re shaping them.

I thought a year ago I was going to teach you something. What I’ve been doing instead is taking the next steps in my own journey of figuring something out and sharing it with you each week.

Year Two

I’m going to keep doing it.

I’m not going to pretend I have a five-year plan or a content calendar or a thesis I’m now ready to defend. What I have is a question I’m still inside. A wife I’m still learning to serve. Six kids who keep catching things I miss. Friends who tell me the truth. And a Monday that comes each week whether I’m ready or not.

If you’ve been here from the beginning, thank you. If you came in last week or last month, welcome. There’s nothing to catch up on. There’s only what God’s doing next.

Same Monday rhythm. Same promise that Life’s greatest adventure is becoming a saint. Same Christ forming saints in the ordinary places of ordinary lives.

I’ll be back next Monday with another post.

Keep showing up to the One who’s actually doing the forming. The chair you sit in. The hour you give Him. The phone you put down. The harder thing you choose when no one is watching. Christ uses all of it.

In another year, I hope we all are continuing to be transformed into something we can’t quite see yet.

Year two starts now. Thank you for being on the journey with me.

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“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13

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NEXT WEEK: One scene from the last day of Yellowstone I’ve held back for three weeks. Year two starts here.

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