Three Growing Seasons
Life in the Land of Lincoln, Route 66, and the Horseshoe Sandwich
Dear Reader,
If you haven’t figured it out already, Second Drafts is going through another mid-life crisis (its fourth or so in five years since migrating to Substack in early 2020).
Initially conceived as a way to archive 15 years of old blog posts, Second Drafts evolved into a weekly editorial on current events with regular book reviews and recommendations. From there, I experimented with a monthly long essay format (adding periodic podcasts) until the newsletter reverted a few years ago to a twice-monthly commentary focused on three news stories a week.
Two months ago, I took a break, planning to re-engage only if folks noticed I’d stopped. No one did. I posted a meditation on Memorial Day weekend, which felt good to write, but after going on six years of regular writing here, I’m again to the point where the daily/weekly current events content just bores me.
So, today I’m reclaiming this space for personal use going forward, with no turning back. I have no idea what else might come to pass here, nor how frequently, nor for how long. Likely it will be a grab bag of sorts — essays, meditations, homilies, random thoughts, funny stories, anecdotes; yes, “second drafts” that are more polished than rough ones, but hardly in final form. Do I know how to show a reading audience a good time, or what?
For those who didn't sign up for this, feel free to unsubscribe with my blessing. For anyone who decides to stick around to see what's next, you're more than welcome — just know I don’t know what’s next, so you may be waiting awhile. Either way, be warm and filled.
Before you do anything, though, and since you’re already here, you might as well read this three-year anniversary post on our time in Springfield for old time’s sake.
From the beginning, Second Drafts has always had the same tagline: “Because life is a series of edits.” In life as well as in writing about it, this will never change.
As always, thanks for reading Second Drafts.
Craig
PS: I need to issue a correction to something I wrote in the April 10 edition of Second Drafts. At the beginning of the lead article (“An Incredibly Weird Time to Be Alive”), I incorrectly attributed the song “The Great American Novel” to Christian music artist Steve Camp. I had forgotten that Christian music pioneer Larry Norman originally wrote the song in 1972; Camp covered it in 1989, which is the version I referenced. Thanks to friend and music aficionado Larry Hughes for catching my mistake. Like a man in orthopedic shoes, I stand corrected.
Three years ago this month.
That’s when I arrived (without Megan, who would join me six weeks later) in Springfield, IL. Being back in the Midwest, I reconnected with family and friends (many I hadn’t seen for years), remembered what humidity felt like, and marveled at how things like corn and beans just grew here (so long as there’s good seed, plenty of effort, a little rain, and a lot of sunshine, that is). It’s been good to be back in the land of Lincoln, Twain, and the horseshoe sandwich (look it up).
During these three years, we’ve weathered quite a bit of family change — some good, some hard:
We celebrated the weddings and college graduations of our two younger daughters who, now with their two married sisters, live in Montana, Utah, New Mexico, and Virginia
We became grandparents three times over, with two more times on the horizon in October
We rejoiced in successful heart surgery for Megan’s father, Mike, in November 2023
We grieved the loss of my father, Roger, to cancer in February 2025
We said goodbye to our long-time (16 years) faithful dog, Peaches, in February 2026
We began stewarding (with my sisters and their husbands) our family’s sesquicentennial farm, consisting of 386 acres and one beloved mother, Charlotte, who in December came through brain surgery to pre-emptively address an aneurysm and is doing well
Thankfully, God has persevered us. So, we thought we’d take the occasion of making it three years with Exodus Church to catch you up on the latest with the Dunhams here in the Midwest.
Good Seed
“I took careful notes but had to go into the margins to capture everything!”
These were the words a woman shared with me after my latest sermon (“The Joyful Heart” — message starts around 31:00 below), guest-preached at Hanna City Presbyterian outside of Peoria. While she meant it as a personal compliment, I took it as unsurprising praise for the breadth and depth of the Scriptures.
Over the past three years, I’ve prepared and preached 31 sermons — roughly 10 each year, many available for watching — and this studying and sermonizing has reminded me of why I love and trust the Bible: it is always a relevant, timely, reassuring record of God and His story of redemption through His Son. It’s also a check on my best (and worst) thoughts concerning Him.
Mark 4:14 says, “The sower sows the word.” As Jesus’ parable plays out, the word is indeed good seed that takes root in hearts God has prepared for it. I’ve watched it take root in the lives of others during these three years in the Life on Life groups I’ve led through the short epistles, the book of Hebrews, and the Westminster Confession of Faith (twice).
I’ve watched it land in one-to-one conversations, when a single passage shared at the right moment became the breakthrough someone needed to make greater sense of how God was leading them.
And I’ve seen it received with tears at more than one hospital bedside — Psalm 121, Psalm 139, and others — words that did their work in the hospital and then went home with people, who weeks later still quoted the verse back, long after the crisis that first opened their ears to it.
But as good as the seed is, not every heart is always prepared for it (or at least not during some of the times I may have sought to sow it). Jesus knew this; the same parable speaks of seed that falls along the path, on rocky ground, and among thorns.
I think of men I’ve sat with whose family wounds had hardened the soil long before I ever arrived. Every attempt to talk about spiritual things felt like scattering seed across a footpath, even as we worked to meet some of their real and pressing physical needs.
And I think of others in whom the word seemed, for a while, to take root, only to be crowded out by older and louder appetites, habits, and sins that choke the seed before it can grow.
Over these three years, we’ve watched new people come to faith, believers become more deeply rooted in Christ, and our congregation grow into a healthier and more established church family. Indeed, God’s word is good seed, but as 1 Corinthians 3:7 reminds us, “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”
Plenty of Effort
Megan works hard as a second grade teacher at Springfield Christian School: she leaves for school at 7:30 a.m., teaches through the day (usually choosing to have lunch with a student or two for extra one-to-one time rather than by herself), and then tutors an extra couple of hours from 4 to 6 p.m. She gets home around 6:30 p.m., we figure out dinner and catch up for an hour or so, and then she’s back at it from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., prepping for teaching and tutoring the next day. As you might imagine, she has used up most of her words by Friday.
For all that her weekdays demand, Megan still carves out margin on the weekends for Exodus. She coordinates the curriculum and Sunday School teacher rotation for the church’s 25-plus children, handles hospitality — meals and snacks — for our Discover Exodus membership classes, evangelism training seminars, and 5th Sunday bacon brunches, and designs and prints a weekly children’s worship guide.
My own effort runs along a slightly different track. My title at Exodus is still Ministry Coordinator, which is as self-explanatory as it sounds: I coordinate the logistics of the ministry going on among us. That means recruiting and supporting our Life on Life group leaders, overseeing Sunday morning worship (including planning and leading the liturgy and our music team), and taking the lead for the website, newsletter, Facebook, Instagram, finances, and budget planning.
As I mentioned at the outset, corn and beans need plenty of effort to grow (though effort is never the thing that actually makes them grow). The same is true of a school and of a church: we put in the work and entrust the rest to the One who gives the increase.
A Little Rain
This spring on the farm, we ended up having to replant some of our seed; it had gone into the ground just fine, but a heavier-than-wanted rain compacted the soil and crusted it over before the shoots could break through. Thankfully, with some extra time in the field and the mercy of crop insurance, we got new rows of corn and beans in and have seen them catch up from the weeks lost in between.
My own path to ordination has felt a lot like that crusting over (though, I’ll admit, the catching-up has not come nearly as quickly as it did out in the field). If you’ve been following along these past three years, you know that my time as an intern of the Presbytery of Northern Illinois has run longer than I first expected, as ordination in the PCA is, by design, a patient and deliberate process, and not one a man gets to hurry along on his own timeline.
I won’t pretend the waiting hasn’t been frustrating at times. But God has used it — as a good rain, even a heavy kind at times — to teach me more about the pastoral call and to deepen, rather than diminish, my desire to pursue it. There’s also a plain structural reality at work: in the PCA, a man cannot be ordained without a specific call to a specific work, and Exodus is not yet at a point to call and support a second ordained pastor. It’s simply a matter of timing, which is not mine to control.
So, the seed of this calling sits in the ground for now — planted, waiting on conditions that aren’t yet right, trusting the same God who sends both the rain and the sun to bring it up in His season and not a moment before. In the meantime, I’m hardly idling: I continue to serve Exodus gladly as Ministry Coordinator and, for the past 16 months, as a Ruling Elder — work I count as a genuine calling for this season, not a holding pattern until a better one comes along.
There is a nearer step on the horizon, too. Rather than aim for full ordination all at once, I’m pursuing licensure first — the PCA’s way of formally approving a man to preach while he keeps moving toward ordination. It’s a smaller gate than the one I’m ultimately after, but a real one, and clearing it would let me preach more freely and advance at a pace that fits both my readiness and the church’s.
If the Lord grows Exodus and the call comes, wonderful. If He keeps me right where I am, that’s wonderful too. And if He should ever have something else in mind, I’ll trust Him in that as well.
A Lot of Sunshine
Thankfully, the crops on the farm are looking good; we’ve had the kind of sunny (and yes, humid) weather that corn and beans love.
Megan and I have a bit of sunshine of our own to report. Three years ago, we set out to raise the support we’d need for these initial years in Springfield, and through the generosity of more friends than we deserve, God provided not just what we asked, but more. We are genuinely and fully provided for, which is a humbling thing to be able to say.
So this isn’t a letter asking you to take care of us; it’s simply our way of catching you up — and, if anything in these three years makes you want to be part of what’s still being built here, an open door. The work itself is far from finished: Exodus is healthy but not yet standing fully on its own, and we’ve begun dreaming (and saving) toward a building to call home.
If you’d ever care to join us in this mission to glorify God by multiplying disciple-makers and seeing people redeemed, rooted, and reaching in Illinois’ capital city, a gift to Exodus’ general fund, or to the beginnings of our building fund, would help lay the ground. To make a gift, click here, or you can reach me at 406-595-0446 or cdunham@exoduspres.org to discuss options should you be interested.
For the seed and the soil, the rain and the sun, and for each of you who has cheered us on, prayed for us, or simply kept us in your thoughts these three years, we are grateful beyond words. May the Lord who has carried us so far at Exodus keep growing it for His glory.
In Christ,
Craig and Megan
PS: Next week, Megan and I will be in Louisville for the PCA General Assembly, after which we will travel to Bozeman to meet our newest grandchild, Jane Esther. We are planning a come-and-go open house dessert on Monday evening, July 6, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at 12 Red Rock Court, Bozeman, MT, 59718. Shoot me a text to RSVP if you can drop by and say hello.
PPS: Check out our Summer Book Club line-up, which began last Saturday.
“You mustn’t wish for another life. You musn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: ‘Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.’ I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.” — Wendell Berry in Hannah Coulter
I audiobooked Hannah Coulter yesterday for my drive home and listened to the first few chapters. Looking forward to hearing more.
Thanks for the update and for continuing to write! The book club is a great idea!