Jeff recently wrote on the state of his blog, the Dawn Treader, and it inspired me to think about the state of this site. Jeff noted that he writes to gain perspective (via organizing and refining his thoughts, like the discipline of journaling) and to practice his writing. He also writes to persuade, but more as a possible incidental side benefit than a primary purpose.
I keep this site for these same reasons, and for a few others. I have to break the alliteration now, but here are some other reasons I like to blog:
- Learning from others. I’ve learned tons from other bloggers and commenters. Blogging has introduced me to perspectives and resources I wouldn’t have found on my own. Discussing — even arguing — in blogs and other on-line forums also has helped me clarify my thinking on many things.
- Modeling. My aspiration for this site, which I probably don’t ever fully realize, is at least in some small way to model some things to others in the Christian community — in particular, that we can love God “with all our minds,” engage ideas, examine different perspectives, perhaps disagree, or even maybe develop in our own thinking about some things, without being defensive or resorting to angry rhetoric.
- Resourcing. I often come across books, music, and other resources that are helpful to me and that I think might be helpful to others. I want to highlight those things so that others can perhaps benefit from them as well.
This site isn’t yet near where I want it to be on any of these counts. When I changed my banner a while back, I included the subtitles “Theology, Culture, Society, Justice.” My intent was, and still is, to build sections of the site that will focus on these topics, with content from my posts as well as external content. It hasn’t happened, because life is too busy. I’d also like to do some things to build traffic. Like Jeff, I’m happy to be in the “long tail” of the blogsphere, but I’m afraid sometimes that I’m more like some of the dead skin that gets sloughed off the tail when the animal molts. Maybe with the new season I’ll get some of this done!?
2 replies on “State of the Blog”
Oops — I was cleaning out spam and I mistakenly deleted a comment here from Jeff! Sorry!
Jeff — one thing you mentioned was the podcast. You’re inspiring me a bit more here to try to revive it. The one we did last year was turning out ok, I just got busy and didn’t finish it. I’ll have to see if I can find it and finish it. I loved the idea of chatting once a week or so with other bloggers, and then doing interviewing authors, pastors, activists, etc. who don’t usually make the MSM (mainstream media). I’ve got to work on making time to do this.