You may have seen a change to my feed title. “Andy Merrett Online” doesn’t tell you much at first glance, except that it’s a personal blog of some description. The tag-line helps, but I wanted to add something else to make it a bit more interesting.

“Pastoral Activist” may not make much sense as a term on its own, so I’ll explain here.

Last night Julie and I were having a conversation about various different people – who we felt most able to trust deeper thoughts and concerns with, and who were more ‘activists’ who had plenty of ideas and actions, but were probably not pastorally-minded, unable or unwilling to connect at a deeper level with individuals’ needs.

People may be one or the other (or neither, of course) but generally don’t excel at both. However, I made the point that I, and at least one of our close friends, probably are fairly equally gifted with pastoral and activist’s concerns.

That’s not to say that I always get it right on either front. I tread on people, I shy away from situations; sometimes I am neither pastoral (caring, compassionate, interested in the needs of people) nor activist (standing for what I believe in, campaigning for the rights of people, groups and situations, seeking change for the good).

Nevertheless, it’s what I strive for. This blog isn’t always about that, and there’s more to me than those two words, even joined together, can convey. Even so, it does qualify my blog somewhat beyond “oh there’s another personal blog”. It is still a personal blog, primarily (I have other online soapboxes and platforms) – and this doesn’t necessarily signify a change in direction. Longer term readers or perusers of the archives will note that my style and subject matter changes daily.

Still hard to classify, this is another step for my blog, and me.