The Mudroom Turns 6!

I started The Mudroom six years ago because there wasn’t enough space for everyone. The collaborative blogs at the time were filled up with “featured” writers who already had a name and a platform and a following. That meant that there were fewer places people, especially women, could submit their writing.  I felt like there […]

Introducing Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros!

At the beginning of the year I send our monthly contributors an email highlighting the previous year’s stats and ask them to answer a few questions about their ongoing capacity as writers for The Mudroom. Last year was hard for our writers. A few took sabbaticals due to family crises, a couple of us experienced prolonged […]

What Enneagram Type Was Jesus?

If you’ve been around the Christian blogosphere circles for the past five years, you will know that the hottest test of the moment is something known as the Enneagram. Everyone’s talking about it, finding their type, using it as an explanation for their behaviour, and guessing other people’s types. I’m a huge fan of personality […]

Strange Comfort in Dark Times

When the world is bleak, where can comfort be found? Last week, after the US election results came in, even the mood here in the UK was sombre. While many rejoiced that Donald Trump was elected, my Facebook thread was full of people genuinely fearing for their life, home or livelihoods. Whether it was because […]

Dreaming Big, Living Small

I am a dreamer, and I dream big. I’ve always wanted to live a dramatic story, to Do Something Big For God! Make an impact! Change the World! Build the Kingdom!!! – and other slogans that require multiple exclamation marks at the end. So many are writing these days about the finding joy in the […]

The Curious Blessing of Rejection

Ten years ago, in 2006, I was rejected by a publisher.  It went like this: after four years of student ministry and thinking about a post-modern culture, I had an idea for a book that explored characteristics of student ministry in the context of postmodernism – a sort of analytical, practical, theological-yet-readable sort of book. […]

Our Favorite Posts of 2015

Last week we gave you the most-viewed posts of 2015, according to the WordPress stats algorithm. This week we are getting a little more personal. These are the posts that we feel represent us individually more than any number of page views ever could. Maybe it’s the one that resonated the most, measured by the […]

Top 10 posts of 2015

We hosted so many amazing posts this year. Here are the top 10. 10. When Good Girls Get Angry by Tanya Marlow I am the good girl, and good girls do not get angry. My mind shuts down with that one phrase. I should be the bigger person. It doesn’t matter that I feel wronged. Why […]

The God Who Waits

Advent is a season of waiting: for calendar chocolates, promised presents, Santa’s steps.   Advent is a season of longing: for life, and light, and hope beyond this world.    In Advent, we think we are the ones who are waiting.    But I think of the annunciation, in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Italian colours:    […]

Joy in a Minor Key

The holiday season is almost upon us, like a sweaty dog. The Christmas lights and jingly songs blare their good cheer into the darkness, but they don’t seem to penetrate it.  This year, we will decorate the tree together as a family, and I will try and snap pictures of my little boy looking angelic […]

Quit While You Still Love It

A number of my friends are facing a crossroads at the moment asking the same immortal question as The Clash did in 1982: Should I stay or should I go? The pattern, I observe, goes something like this:Move to a new placeSettle into new placeEnjoy the new placeRESTLESSNESS. When I first became a Christian minister […]