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I rarely mention money in my writing, so no complaints that I am turning into a money-grubbing Evangelical preacher. 🙂 Until I can pay CASH for a new Lear jet, I am poor and need your donations. 🙂 I have always operated under the notion, Freely give, freely receive. That said, it does take money to operate this blog. Further, to quote the Bible, The laborer is worthy of his hire (1 Timothy 5:18, Luke 10:7). Any money you send my way is greatly appreciated.
Donations are always welcome. You may donate one of three ways:
Patreon (This is best for making reoccurring donations.)
PayPal (This is best for single or reoccurring donations.)
Keep in mind I must pay taxes on every donation I receive. This reduces every donation by at least 20%.
Finally, WordPress recently reclassified my blog as a commercial site, while at the same time, Google rejiggered its search algorithm and caused my blog traffic to drop by 40% (this has improved a bit in recent weeks). This means that some of the services I was receiving free from WordPress now cost a monthly fee. I am still thinking about how best to monetize this site.
Thank you for your kindness and support.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I am scheduled for major surgery tomorrow morning on my spine at ProMedica Hospital in Toledo. I will be in the hospital at least overnight. I am in horrific pain. Unable to walk more than a few feet, the neurosurgeon hopes this procedure will fix the pain problem, and hopefully also fix my lack of bladder and bowel control. Worse, I broke a tooth and had to have it extracted on Tuesday, and a day after that, the cyst on my back returned with a vengeance. I planned to have it surgically removed, but my back surgery comes first. When it &^%$*&^ rains, it pours. Life is what it is, but some days, I wish for just a bit of respite.
This surgery will sideline me for at least a week or two, if not longer. I won’t be doing much writing, if any, and I will not respond to emails until I am up to doing so. I appreciate your understanding.
I’m hopeful the surgery will go well. If it doesn’t, I want you to know I have appreciated your love and support over the years. Your friendship and kindness mean the world to me. Time stops for no one, but I hope I don’t have to punch my time card anytime soon. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I am always interested in having people write guest posts for this site. If you are interested in writing a guest post, please use the contact form to email me. You can choose any subject. If you are a Christian, you can even write a post about how wrong I am about God, Christianity, and the Bible.
Have a story to tell about your life as a Christian and subsequent deconversion? Testimonies are always welcome. I have found that readers really appreciate and enjoy reading posts about the journey of others away from Evangelicalism. Perhaps you are someone who has left Evangelicalism, but still believes in the existence of a deity/energy/higher power. Your story is welcome too.
If you worried about grammar or spelling, don’t be. Carolyn, my ever-watchful friend and editor, edits every guest post before it is published. If she can turn my writing into coherent prose, trust me, she can do the same for yours.
Anonymous posts are okay, as are articles previously posted elsewhere. If you have written something for your own blog and would like to post it here, please send it to me.
If you have previously written a guest post, I am more than happy to publish another one from you. Some readers have become regular contributors. It’s important for readers to hear from other writers from time to time.
Several readers have emailed me in the past about writing guest posts. I am w-a-i-t-i-n-g. 🙂 Seriously, if you have something you would like to say, I am more than happy to post it here. The ball is in your court.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
In a move to reduce expenses, I moved The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser from Flywheel to Hostinger. I have been with Flywheel since December 2014. This move should reduce expenses by $80 a month.
It takes three or four days for a site to propagate throughout the Internet. If by Wednesday evening you cannot reliably access this site, please let me know. So far, I have noticed faster page load speeds. Let me know what you think. Once this issue is settled, I plan to install a new theme. I have been using the same theme for a decade.
Your advice, suggestions, and bitching are almost always welcome. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.
I look forward to reading and answering your questions.
It is no longer in my best interest to write any further posts about Dr. David Tee, who is neither a doctor nor a Tee. Tee’s real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen.
My posts referencing Thiessen are typically responses to something he has written about me, but I’ve decided I am no longer willing to provide him the attention he needs and craves. I will leave him to his own devices, choosing to not cast my pearls before swine.
Thiessen will try to provoke me to respond, but those days are over. While I despise the man and his incessant attacks, lies, and mischaracterizations, nothing I say will change his mind. He is pathologically unable to play well with others.
Rage away, Derrick, but I will not respond to you. I am removing your site from my RSS feed reader, so I will no longer see or read your posts.
I restarted this blog in December 2014. Before that, I had several other blogs, such as Bruce Droppings (my all-time favorite), NW Ohio Skeptic, Restless Wanderings, Hungarian Luddite, and Fallen From Grace. I first started blogging in 2007. Because I was an Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist who used his real name to write, my blogs attracted much attention from the get-go. In 2007, I was still a Christian — barely. I operated blogs such as Rethinking Church Life to flesh out my increasingly post-modern, emerging/emergent views.
Initially, I attracted a lot of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB) and Evangelicals who were anti-emergent church. As I blogged through the evolution of my beliefs and eventual deconversion, the comments and emails I received increased in volume and hostility — so much so that I would stop blogging. I thought then that if I just told my story and honestly and openly shared my beliefs, that people would, at the very least, understand and treat me as Christ commanded them to do in the gospels and Paul did in the Epistles. Boy, was I naive. Nasty, hateful comments and emails wore me down after a time, so I stopped blogging and deleted all of my writing. With the help of my therapist, I would eventually get back on the proverbial horse and start riding again.
Time and therapy helped me learn how to deal with unChristian Christians, so in December 2014, I decided to restart blogging. One last time, I told myself, and if I can’t make it work, I will give up. Here we are ten years later, I am still writing — 5,203 posts. Have I wanted to quit, at times? You bet. The reasons are mainly health-related these days, but I will have moments when I think I am done or that I don’t have anything more meaningful to say. When such low moments come, instead of quitting, I stop, taking time off to mentally regroup. And then I start writing again. I can’t promise that my health will not one day win this titanic struggle, but for now, I have enough strength and energy to keep pecking away on my laptop keyboard. I no longer make promises, but I will say that I hope to keep writing as long as physically possible.
Blog traffic numbers somewhat leveled off in 2023, but this site did, once again, surpass 1,000,000 page views. And for that I am grateful. 212,000 people came to this site for the first time in 2023 via Google, making up 95% of the searches. Social media plays a small part traffic-wise. 14,000 people came to this site via Facebook, 12,000 from Twitter, 3,200 from Reddit, and 2,500 from WordPress. Somewhat surprisingly, YouTube only generated 400 clicks. The most-read post on this site is the same as last year: The Scandalous Life of Jack Hyles and Why it Still Matters.
Over 45,000 comments have been left since 2014. I appreciate everyone who comments, even those who disagree with me. I am especially grateful for those of you who are frequent commenters. I find your comments encouraging, and they add measurably to the life of this blog.
Currently, only a handful of people are banned from commenting on this site. Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is NOT banned from commenting, despite him saying otherwise. In 2023, I lost several commenters due to my trans-friendly posts. A handful of other readers exited stage right over my liberal political and social views. I learned long ago that I can’t please everyone. All I know to do is to be open, honest, and transparent in my writing. If that offends people, there’s not much I can do about it. I am who I am. 🙂
Currently, I am spending $125 a month to host this blog through Flywheel — a managed WordPress company — and pay for the various software and plugins I use on the site. Thanks to loyal readers who make monthly donations through Patreon or contributions through PayPal, site costs are covered with a little bit of money left over. With the leftover money, I was able to buy a brand-new Lear Jet! 🙂 Thank you for your continued financial support.
I still hope to complete my book and get my podcast up and running soon. Of course, I hoped in 2023 that the Cincinnati Bengals would make it to the playoffs. Sadly, life (and torn tendons in your team’s quarterback’s wrist) gets in the way of hope. No promises outside of “I will do what I can, Loki-willing.”
Have a blessed year.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Update: The feeds have been fixed, I accidentally turned them off when checking out some new features in the Yoast Premium SEO plugin.
The RSS feeds (posts and comments) for this site are not working, and haven’t been since November 17, 2023. According to Flywheel, my managed WordPress provider, the Yoast Premium SEO plugin I’m using is causing the problem. I am waiting to hear back from Yoast.
Thank you for your understanding.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
