Hey friend, I’m Shane. I’m a Jesus follower, blogger, speaker & host of my podcast Seminary Dropout. I like comic books, theology, and growing beards.
I grew up in small town west Texas, went to college and lived for a number of years in small town central Texas until my wife Kate and I moved to the promised land of Austin, TX.
I did have a few adventures in the middle of all that Texas living. For short periods of time I’ve lived in Sacramento, California, Buffalo, NY, and even New Orleans for about a month before evacuating from Hurricane Katrina.
When I was 24 some friends of mine and I planted a church in Brownwood, TX. We were young, naive, and excited.
I served as the pastor there for about 5 years.
Kate Blakeney was one of those friends who helped plant the church and joined us on staff. As the pastor I thought the only appropriate thing I could do was to ask her out. What could go wrong in dating a member of your church staff?! Well, nothing went wrong, in fact it went very right, and now she’s Kate Blackshear.
Our American Gothic
In 2011 Kate and I moved to Austin.
Xanax is one of the best solutions in this case. You will be quiet, while remaining adequate, not inhibited, getting the opportunity to analyze soberly and make decisions.
This drug is good because you can take for quite a long period of time, up to six months or more; most often it does not cause addiction, it is important to follow the regimen.
Once in Austin, I started a career in Real Estate and thought my days of full-time ministry were over. It took about 9 months for me to realize that something wasn’t right. I felt discontent. I didn’t miss everything about vocational ministry, in fact there was some things about being a pastor that I just flat out wasn’t good at and didn’t enjoy. Some things however, brought me joy and life. I loved having spiritual conversations about life and theology. I realized that in American Christianity if a person feels any call to ministry, then we tend to shoe horn them into a few designated positions (lead pastor, youth pastor, music pastor, etc.). I began dreaming up a way to do the things I was gifted at while forgoing the things I wasn’t. This blog, and later on my podcast were birthed out of that time of dreaming.
In the beginning I recorded Seminary Dropout at our kitchen table in our tiny one bedroom apartment.
In September of 2013 the most amazing thing happened… we had a Margot!
Kate became a Chaplain for a hospice agency, and I became a work at home Dad.
We moved into a house and now I work on the blog and podcast in the nurffice (nursery + office = nurffice).
About the podcast…
Why is it called Seminary Dropout? I’m glad you asked. It is true that I am literally a seminary dropout. In fact I have dropped out of TWO seminaries, so I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty good at it. That is not however the primary reason the show is called Seminary Dropout. I named it Seminary Dropout because I felt that it served as the perfect metaphor for what the show aims to do. Seminary Dropout is an interview format podcast that exists somewhere between seminary and youth camp. Not full on academia but no trust falls either. SD is fun, insightful, personal, thoughtful and engaging. It’s two friends talking over coffee about your creations, theology, life, and the church. So it’s a little seminary and a little dropout, and that’s why it’s called Seminary Dropout.
In the past I’ve been fortunate enough to have guests like Philip Yancey, Richard Foster, Sarah Bessey, Greg Boyd, Jamie Wright, and many more. You can subscribe, rate and/or review Seminary Dropout in iTunes.
So there it is. Now you know more about me than you probably ever wanted to. I hope you find this content edifying to your life and that it causes you to think about God, theology, and life in new and unique ways. If you’d like for me to come and speak at your church, conference or other event, or just want to chat then shoot me an email at shane@shaneblackshear.com. Thanks again for spending these few minutes with me friend!
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