An update
On the book, and on Substack.
As you have either noticed or not, I have not been regularly updating Rhythms of Habit. I have been encouraged by the many strangers and friends who found a subscription worthwhile, and it is clear that there is a (growing!) interest in the church calendar among a wide range of folks.
That being said, here is a short update:
I am moving away from a paid Substack model.
If you are a paid subscriber, you should notice a cancellation of your subscription soon. It has meant a great deal to me that many of you have found supporting my side-gig worthy of your time and money. Thank you!
I am still writing, but I am looking to move away from Substack and paid subscriptions for a few reasons:
Rhythms of Habit (the book) has expanded into the book that (perhaps?) it always should have been: an introduction to the virtues as moral muscles, to habits as exercises aimed at strengthening specific virtues, and to the church calendar as an annual prescription of habits aimed at forming the virtues needed to become a whole human in Christ.
This expansion means that much of my work on the book in the past year has been in the virtue and habit realm; this Substack has primarily been focused on the Church Calendar aspect of the book. While I will continue to work on those chapters, they are simply more complete at this point than the virtue and habit chapters are.
I continue to be in favor of owning my work and relying less on third party services to distribute it. Substack has become a bit a middle-man that I don’t deem necessary for what I am doing. In light of that, most of my work will now be published on my website, though I also remain as a contributor to the Covenant blog from The Living Church. (I have a new column kicking off there in 2024 called Paideia for Preachers that seeks to share ancient rhetorical wisdom for modern teachers and preachers. If you find yourself teaching or preaching next year, I think you will enjoy these posts.)
I benefit greatly from financial contributions through Substack, but I don’t want a subscription model to stand in the way of people reading what I write. I have set up a Buy Me A Moment to Write page for those who like to contribute to my work, but I have not paywalled any of my work on my website.
What does this mean for you?
In one sense, not much!
If you want to keep up with my writing, check out jonjordan.com from time to time and sign up for my (free) newsletter.
If you find yourself missing the ancient and medieval days of patronage for scholars and artists, you can Buy Me a Moment to Write. But you can also just read what you want when you want to without paying me a penny.
Once I move all of my Rhythms of Habit posts over to my website I will send a final (free) update via Substack letting you know how to access them moving forward. Keep an eye out for that update!