Welcome home

Before we begin this journey, I must make a lurid confession. I am not a writer.

There, I’ve said it.

It’s a Herculean task to get that off my chest before we begin this new endeavor: me the writer and you the reader walking a road together called “Musings & Monologues.” And that is just what you’ll get — the musings of a man who sees stories in every corner of life and around every bend in the river, who finds illustrations for truths (Biblical and proverbial) in every hike to an Arkansas pinnacle, comment from one of my children, flat tire, new friend, old friends, and just about every situation of life. That’s what I do — I am a detective — always looking for the story within the story. I’m always asking God to show me how the episode in which I find myself points me to something He wants to reveal.

My noun-laced bio would read: Jeremy, Christian, husband, daddy, pastor, musician, detective, writer. (That last one is a new addition, apparently — especially thanks to you — the one reading this.)

Maybe I should backtrack just a little bit. I guess I would say that I am not a writer in the “classical” sense. Sure, I write sermons every week. And it is my firm belief that sermons are stories. The best preacher who ever lived, Jesus Christ, used stories from everyday life in His sermons to expound on truth.

I didn’t really begin writing until I was in college. That “writing” consisted mostly of papers on topics ranging from the history of the Peloponnesian War to an editorial on the effects of urban sky glow on astronomical objects as seen from Earth. You know, the stuff that people are just itching to read.

So I guess my hope for this new column, “Musings and Monologues,” is an opportunity for me to write the way I speak. I want to paint a picture for you, the reader, with words. So each week you’ll hear my random musings and monologues on life and the stories that birthed them coupled with truth as God reveals them — sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but everytime — relatable.

So, let me begin by saying this: I’m not from around these parts. I grew up in a central Illinois town: Jacksonville. My small town was surrounded by cornfields in every direction; except for the every other year, where it was surrounded by soybeans. Regardless, I grew up in a town completely engulfed in the one thing I knew nothing about: farming.

But there was something idyllic about my childhood. I grew up in the kind of town where you could ride your bike from one side of town to the other with no fear, hitting baseball card shops, music stores, and video game rental outlets all along the way. On Friday night, you’d hit the second-run movie theater (to watch for the first time what the rest of the world had already seen a month prior). Saturdays were for bowling or bonfires.

By the time I was an adult, I was fairly wellknown in my community as a public school educator and coach…until God decided that it was time for me to leave the classroom and enter the pulpit. I entered seminary at 35, graduated two years later, and my wife (Samantha), family (Sophie, Toby, Kenzie), and I found ourselves in the suburbs of Chicago. Everything was different, and it was hard to settle in.

Then God led me to Georgia where I was blessed to be back in the classroom and teach with some amazing people, while pastoring for three years with my best friend. But even in that, God still walked with me in my unsettled feeling knowing that there was something else.

Because God loves me so much, He sent me to Arkansas to pastor the most excellent body of saints — FBC Siloam. Not just Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas. I remember the feeling I had the moment I drove into Siloam Springs: I looked at my wife and said, “Welcome home.”

There’s something so familiar about this place. It is a city full of transplants, it’s a city full of change, it’s a city full of exponential growth, but there’s something so familiar about it. I’m sure it’s a feeling that all of us who are transplants have had when we came to Siloam for the first time: a new place, but familiar. It feels like home.

So let me just say, this is a great place to live. I’m glad I’m here. It has been a great two years and I am looking forward to many, many more.

Jeremy DeGroot is Lead Pastor at FBC Siloam Springs, a husband, daddy, and musician. You can contact him via email at musingsandmonologues@gmail.com or reach out on Facebook.