Friends,

Thank you for your interest and support of my work for still another year! It was a full one: the first quarter of the year was devoted to finishing the manuscript of Scripting the Son, and then, after a summer break, the fall was spent proofreading and indexing the manuscript after I received it back from the editorial team at Cascade. And then finally, in November, it was finished: Scripting the Son entered the world, off to meet its fate in the hands of reviewers and researchers wherever they may be found. It was particularly sweet of my wife and our friends in our parish to throw a book launch party to celebrate the conclusion of this particular journey and to thank these many friends for their role in our lives.

The summer break from Scripting the Son was, alas, not all (or any, in fact) days lounging at the beach, but rather a time for working on my proposal for my next book, Teaching for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, which draws on the insights of medieval theologians and educators for the work of classical Christian education today. It is very much a sequel of sorts to Teaching for Spiritual Formation, and as I haven’t devoted as much of my life to the medieval period as I have the patristic, it has been particularly fun (if a bit daunting) to envision what this work could become. This project went under contract with Cascade in the fall, and will be due to them in spring 2026.

Besides this, 2025 was the year speaking and teaching engagements really began picking up. I had the privilege of sharing about classical education alongside Nadya Williams (who will write the foreword for TTGB) at a conference at Malone University in Canton, OH, and then enjoyed presenting on what Chrysostom might have to teach us about “guarding the gates” with respect to digital technology at the Anglican FORMED Conference in Chattanooga, TN. I picked up a teaching load online with Reformed Episcopal Seminary, my denominational theological school, and was able to spend the fall semester working through Acts and Paul with my really excellent students.

I leave later today for Pittsburgh, where I am slated to deliver the Thomas C. Oden Lectures and teach an intensive class at Trinity Anglican Seminary (formerly Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry) for the week. Prepping for this has been a heavy lift (hence the late year-in-review note), and I never love the idea of leaving the family behind for a week, but I’m grateful for the honor and the opportunity to share my work with the wonderful folks at TAS.

2025 promises to be another full year, with continued teaching duties at RES, work on TTGB, and some other speaking opportunities in the works related to the release of Scripting the Son. Every year of life and health the Lord gives me to pursue this work is a gift, and so I try not to take for granted the myriad graces that make any of this work possible in the first place. Cheers to a great 2025!