Three and a half years ago (October 10, 2006, to be exact) ago I started blogging.
Today I reach a milestone of sorts — blog post number 1000.
Prior to my blogging “career,” I had sent out devotionals by email on a weekly, and then bi-weekly basis (some of those are still archived on the church website). After a time, I found the pace of having to keep up with needing to write something a couple of times a week too much, so I stopped writing the devotionals. But I have always enjoyed writing and wanted some kind of non-pressured forum where I could write if I wanted to and not write if I didn’t want to. I wanted to just jot down a brief thought as it came to me, or ponder something with more length and thoughtfulness.
Also, after reviewing my sermons from Sunday mornings, I would find that I had inadvertently omitted something, or not had time to make a worthwhile point, or perhaps misstated or confused something that needed further elaboration. Or maybe a question arose from someone after the sermon that was worth pondering with a wider audience. A venue to handle each of those situations was deemed desirable.
At the same time, I had a couple of individuals encourage me to “publish” my illustration file — I have thousands of quotes and stories that I’ve compiled from books and articles neatly categorized on 3 x 5 cards in multiple small 3 x 5 drawers in my office. But how to do it?
After stopping the email list, there arose a new phenomenon called blogging. I needed to have someone explain it to me several times before I really comprehended what it was. And after pondering it, I ventured out.
My first blog was hosted on another server. Almost two years ago, I changed to WordPress and am quite contented here. Since then, the function of receiving these posts by email (through either Google or WordPress [through the box at the top of the right-hand column on the front page]) has also been added (ain’t technology cool!).
The intention of the blog was never to be “published,” or to have a large audience (which, by and large it still isn’t), or to spend any significant time discussing issues with others in comment sections in the blog. My intention was not to start a round-table discussion on the blog — I was fearful of the time commitment that might involve — but simply to have a forum where I could write for my own sake most of all. I wanted — and needed, and still need — a venue where I could sharpen my writing and communicating skills.
So, how has it gone?
I can’t speak for how it has benefited others, but I can offer a few thoughts about what it has done for me:
- I have benefited from the forum of regular writing. Not having the pressure of “needing” to write something, I find that I post something much more regularly — generally 6-8 times per week. And that has been good for me.
- On the other hand, I have noticed that the immediacy of being able to “publish” means that I sometimes don’t spend enough time in either reflection (meditating on a passage or event) or correction (proof-reading).
- I have found it to be a useful tool for communication of special events — so when traveling on mission trips or going to conferences, it has been a great means for communicating quickly the events “as they are happening.”
- I have enjoyed the ability to journal about the things I am reading in Scripture, as in the past few months particularly I’ve tried to regularly reflect once a week or so about a passage that we’ve read in the annual Bible reading plan.
- I have even found it to be a valuable resource for studying and illustrating as I will often search my own blog [there is a search box at the bottom of the right-hand column on the front page — it works amazingly well] for a remembered quote that I can’t find or some thoughts I’ve previously had on a given topic (e.g., this week, I’ve been thinking of the topic of worldliness, and found several things on the blog that triggered helpful thoughts in my mind).
So where do I go from here? Can’t say for sure — but I can venture a pretty good guess that tomorrow sometime, post number 1001 will appear on the blog.
See you then…
Words of Grace 