My name is Josh Vajda, and I am the Wandering Baptist.

I chose this name for myself years ago, as I was trying to decide where I fit after seminary. I originally created this space to be a place to think out loud without worrying about what people thought of me. I signed my posts “WB.”

This year I’ve decided I need a fresh start. I’ve wiped this particular slate clean because I want to go a different route. I’m ready to own the name “Wandering Baptist” and to stand by what I post here. I had another blog that I used for “my” writing on occasion, and I’m repurposing that site as well. My plan is to use that as more of a professional web presence, and to use this space just for writing.

I have so much to say. I don’t know if anyone will be listening, but for right now, that’s ok. I find writing to be a great way to organize my thoughts. I have been very spotty in my blogging past, to say the least, but I have notebooks filled with journal entries. I have to write. I’m just trying to force myself to do it in public.

Why in public? Well, as Seth Godin says, ideas you don’t share can’t help anyone. I don’t know if my ideas will help anyone, but there’s a chance they could, and so I’m ready to find out. And it’s ok if they don’t. Sometimes you have to verify a particular route is a dead end before you can press on.

That’s where the wandering motif comes in. I’ve been a Baptist my whole life, although for most of my life that didn’t mean much of anything. As a kid I thought it meant serious Christian. All those other denominations add to Scripture, but we Baptists keep it real.

Of course, the more people I met, and the more I read, and the more I learned, and the more I reflected, the more it became clear to me that this was not at all the case. What does it mean to be a Baptist when the Holy Spirit continues to work miracles in the world? What does it mean to be a Baptist when there are good Christians in other churches in your town? What does it mean to be a Baptist when “no creed but the Bible” turns out to be a creed? Or when you discover that liturgy is alive and well in your barebones morning service? What does it mean to be Baptist when the Calvinists and Arminians are at each other’s throats? What does it mean to be a Baptist when reading the Bible turns out to be more complicated than you thought? What does it mean to be Baptist when congregational rule and American democracy flourished together? Or when the lead pastor and board of trustees turns out to be a model that you can find in the business world, growing in popularity at the same time? What does it mean to be a Baptist when the Southern Baptist juggernaut finally shows up on your radar?

Yes, there was the “BAPTIST” acronym. I never learned it. As far as I was concerned, I belonged to Christ. I wasn’t interested in someone’s denominational agenda. Maybe that would have helped me along the way, but I don’t know. I doubt it. I needed to wander. Wandering is good, as long as you do it the right way.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” Yes. There is that kind of wandering, too. That’s different. This isn’t about wandering away from the faith. It’s about exploring the edges. I just call it “wandering” because it’s been a more or less aimless enterprise. Explorers are on a mission. Explorers are cool.

I am not cool. I was just asking questions.

I want to keep these short, so let me wrap this up. My purpose with this blog, if I have any, is to log my wanderings in public. To share what I’ve learned, in case I’ve learned anything worth sharing. To share where I’m wandering these days in case anyone else is venturing through the same terrain, so we can pool our resources. And I hope, eventually, to use these wanderings to build something better.

Just know, dear reader, that I expect to offend everyone eventually. My non-Baptist readers will probably be annoyed at my Baptist convictions at times. My Baptist readers will probably be annoyed at all the unbaptisty habits I’ve picked up along the way. And then there will be times I genuinely say something stupid and offend everyone. Hopefully by saying it out loud I can learn from my mistakes. Sometimes you need a friend to tell you when you’ve reached that dead end.