Taking a Hiatus

Trying to get ahead of 2025

Welcome to another (brief) edition of The Mueller Report!

Updates

As the title suggests, I will be taking a hiatus from writing my newsletter in November. I’ve got nearly three solid weeks with no travel and relatively few fixed commitments. So I plan on buckling down to finish up some writing and research projects for AIER and CRCD for this calendar year.

I also intend to do some long term planning for 2025 and could use some more mental “space” to think through goals and strategies. Readers of my newsletter will be familiar with most of these things, but here is a brief overview of what requires some attention on my part:

1. AIER - Not only am I finishing up a number of projects, I am also working through travel plans in the first half of 2025 with two trips in January, two in March, and a time in residence at AIER, and then a trip or two in May, June, and July already on the books. Besides logistics, I will also assess just how much travel I can do without exacting too much of a toll on my family.

2. CRCD - I’d like to refine and improve our data for next year - including looking into reverse-engineering our index for previous years.

3. Church - There are a variety of fronts I am thinking about church activities from relationships I should invest in more intentionally in 2025, ministries I should participate in more (perhaps teaching in children’s ministry), and planning out men’s ministry goals and activities.

4. The Abbey - There are at least three dimensions of planning when it comes to The Abbey for 2025. One is physical improvements, repairs, and updates - especially when it comes to aesthetics and technology. A second is thinking through strategy, marketing, and operations (pricing, advertising, etc.). And the third is reworking our website/messaging/payments systems.

5. Intellectual community - I need to plan out intellectual retreats (topic, leader, dates, structure) as well as if we want to move along with a more formal fellowship/sabbatical system to invite people into. Setting up a nonprofit and a website may be part of this.

6. As I mentioned last week, I want to get a better handle on tax structure and implications for 2025 (and retrospectively for 2024).

7. Finally (at least for the moment), I want to build out and launch a podcast on theology and epistemology. You all can help me by taking the brief survey below on names.

Enjoy November and I expect to be hearing from me a lot next month. In the meantime, don’t be a stranger if you have thoughts, ideas, or questions on what I’m up to!