It's Been a Good Year

Some updates + one end-of-year request

Friends, I want to thank each and every one of you. Back in the spring, I launched this newsletter, taking what was a dormant Substack URL that I had begun in 2019 and using it as a new primary writing space. I told a little bit of the backstory in this post. I was excited to use Substack, but I also had no idea what kind of response I would get. I wondered often whether I was foolishly limiting my readership, or whether the email newsletter would die a faddish death quickly as people got tired of their inbox filling up.

The reality has been better than I could have hoped for. Since March of this year, I’ve added about 600 subscribers. As of today I am sitting right at 900 total recipients of this Substack. I think that’s amazing, and I am incredibly grateful. It has been an enormously gratifying experience.

I love this newsletter. It has been an outlet for me that has connected me more directly to readers than any other writing space I’ve had before. This newsletter represents not merely a writer’s hobby, but an ongoing attempt to think like a Christian in public. There is certainly something to be said for writing books and laboring on lengthy, well researched essays. In the test of time, those formats weigh more. But there’s also something to be said for writing one’s way toward clarity in real-time, to consciously protest the noise, nonsense, polarization, and vapidity of our culture, particularly our digital culture. That’s what I’ve tried to do this year in this newsletter. And I’m so thankful for how you have encouraged it.

This post is mostly a thank you note. But I also want to share one couple update and one request:

1) From now until the end of the year Insights will probably slow down a little bit. I will still try to send at least one piece per week out, but there are some exciting big picture projects that need my attention over the next few weeks. I hope to say more about them soon. In the meantime, look for this newsletter to appear about once a week.

2) Those of you who support this newsletter financially: THANK YOU. You are a tremendous blessing. I also owe you an apology for not producing as much subscriber-only content as is right. This, Lord willing, will be rectified soon. For now, please know that your support is appreciated very much. I know who you are, and I am extremely grateful.

And now a request:

As holiday season arrives, right now is an opportune time to tell people about this newsletter. If you are benefiting from this writing, I would ask nothing more of you than to simply share the link to the newsletter: emailing a friend about it, sharing the link on social media, telling a friend, etc. Subscriber numbers are not the main thing, but they do make the work all the more rewarding. If this work seems worthy of such a reward, would you consider spreading the word? (You can use the button below)

Thank you all so, so much, for a wonderful year of writing.

More to come soon!

-SDJ