How did Pixel & Pulpit do in 2025?
Reflecting on the Past Year
2025 brought about a lot of change and experimentation for me. I published dozens of articles—quite beyond the norm for this publication.
In an attempt to see if this could be a form of financial success, I tried monetizing and launching the Saturday Side Quest. This was a fun experiment, but ultimately revealed that I was shooting for the wrong star.
I pivoted around the mid-year mark with the most significant swing I’ve taken so far: launching the Digital Missional Network.
One of the key sources of stress in planting a digital church has been finding a network of peers at a similar level in terms of the demands of the job and the specificities of the mission field.
The network grew quickly at first (to over 15!), but has stagnated a bit over the past couple of months.
Since forming, we’ve found a sort of flow in the Discord server that the network calls home. There are frequent check-ins and celebrations, and even more frequent questions about what on earth we’re doing in this work.
It’s been an invaluable resource for me, and I am thankful for those willing to enter into the space with me. While I am facilitating the space, I also see it deeply as a part of my own need being met.
Starting already in the new year has been an attempt to do some co-working together, which I am setting time aside for weekly on Mondays. This is a new perk of joining!
We also took a fascinating survey of the landscape of nerd ministry. I am still checking the data here and applying it to the work I hope to offer.
I’ve tried to see this space as a sort of ‘one for me, one for you’ kind of environment. The articles I write tend to oscillate between more personal writing of my own experience and outward-facing writing meant to serve as resources for this community.
Ultimately, I think the grander pivot in this space has been moving away from the financial connotation of the articles towards the entire monetization element being connected to the Digital Missional Network. I think this is a beneficial step towards what I want to actually be offering in my work.
As I look towards the year ahead, I have some huge hills to climb.
Starting in January, I will lead with a substantial announcement; more on that next week. This will make for a sizable shift in the environment of this Substack, I expect. I admit it is one I am nervous for, but excited for as well. It’s been a long time coming, and I am eager to show you what I’ve been working on.
I also want to put more of my energy into the Digital Missional Network. One way I am striving to be more present in that space is by offering more synchronous interaction, such as body-doubling via coworking or something similar. More than just questions, I suppose.
Another primary goal is to really ask the question: What do we mean by missional? I want those gathered to pursue at least one mission-oriented goal in the coming year, and we can work together to discover exactly what that might mean.
That’s probably enough for this reflection. I hope you’ll let me know in the comments some of the highlights of your year in 2025, so I can celebrate all the hard work you put in.
See you next week for some big news!
The shift from monetizing content directly to building it around community is really smart. Decoupling the writing from revenue pressure lets you focus on what actually serves the network instead of chasing clicks. I've noticed that when communites form around shared mission rather than just consuming content, retention goes way up because people feel like co-creators not spectators. The coworking piece sounds liek it could be a gamechangr for folks who usually operate solo.