Joshua Villines's Page

I've never felt the need to be wedded to one occupation. I have been an Army Interrogator (Airborne), a private investigator, a police academy instructor, a game journalist and commentator, a pastor, a social justice advocate, a professor, and as a Ph.D. candidate. Somehow, it has always made sense to me connect all of these different jobs, but I certainly understand if it seems like I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I do, in fact, know what I want to be...someone who is hard to label by their profession!

I am a member of the Christian clergy, but I am not currently serving a church (although I do supply work in the Atlanta area as-needed). I think, as church attendance continues to decline and as fundamentalism continues to render Christianity increasingly irrelevant in the minds of educated Westerners, more and more clergy with other marketable skills will work bi-vocationally. In many ways this is a good thing because it will encourage us to find ways to serve as priests and pastors to our neighbors in every setting, not just from 11 to noon on Sunday.

So, although being a clergyman is definitely a large part of my identity, it is not my sole vocation. Drawing on my intelligence training in the Army, and over two decades of work in investigations and security, I work as a consultant, trainer, and investigator - focusing specifically on human intelligence collection techniques and qualitative data/crime analysis.

In addition, I teach as an adjunct professor for Mercer University, and I write about computer games as well as high fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction novels. I got started writing in those fields working as a journalist while I was in seminary, and I never stopped.

http://www.villines.com/personality_tests.htm