When I started my blog in 2006, I was planning on blogging 4-6
times a month. Unfortunately, over the
last two years, I’ve been largely dormant on the blogging front. I won’t bore you with what’s taken precedence,
but I’ve decided that in 2013, it’s time to fire up my blog and get it started
again.
In the coming year, here’s what you can expect to see:
- Periodic articles delving into an aspect of ministry with emerging adults
- Some brief posts with suggestions of resources in the areas of campus ministry and ministry with young adults, leadership, and Christian living
- Personal musings from life in ministry at a small college in Kansas
- Occasional snippets from sermons or devotions that I’ve written
- Reposting some articles that I’ve written for another blog but never published here
As I’m getting my mind around blogging again, I’m reminded
how much social media has changed the practice of blogging since blogging first
appeared in the early 2000’s. When I
started this blog in 2006, I just wanted to share a few thoughts about ministry
and practice my writing skills. I expected few readers and even fewer comments
from friends. However, as time went on,
I found that readers that I didn’t know were finding my blog from various United
Methodist blog lists or other random avenues.
It was a paradigm shift for me to think that anyone, anywhere could read
my blog (duh…it is the worldwide web,
after all). Now, I didn’t really have
that many page views, but I knew that I could and that affected the frequency
with which I wrote.
Then came Twitter.
Twitter was a gamechanger for blogging in a couple of ways. First of all, it was originally touted as
“microblogging.” This is to say that it
allowed people to write in miniature what they had previously said in a whole blog
post. Thus, where I would have
previously written a post about a conference, I could now “live tweet” the conference,
sharing thoughts throughout, or, summarize it at the end. A whole article on my blog could be summed up
on Twitter like this:
#Conference was great! @famouspastor inspired, amazing
worship, great colleagues, #city was beautiful!
See you next year! #lovemyjob
But, if I did write that extended summary as a blog post, I
could now tweet the link to my expanded reflection and send people to my
blog. Add linking on Twitter to sharing
on Facebook or Google+ and you’ve got blogging reaching more and more
demographics.
So, while there are many incredible voices out there on the
intewebs, I’m going to be more intentional about adding my own. Blogging as a discipline helps me to be more
reflective, more honest, and more disciplined as I consider the work to which I
feel called. If anyone wants to read and
join in the conversation, please do!
PS The image is courtesy of Kromkrathog/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
