Why Do You Blog?

Have you ever asked your­self that question?

Carol wrote a very inter­est­ing post on that sub­ject in “Your Daily Dose of Inspi­ra­tion” at the Chris­t­ian Women Online Inter­net Café. She wrote:

Four A’s into Blogging

After being asked to con­tribute to CWO’s group blog I took a few moments to panic and pray. I’m good at that. The panic part, I mean. It’s an honor to be included among the names of blog­gers listed in the side­bar. I hope this, the first post, doesn’t get me kicked off the team after my first swing.

So, Dar­lene asked me to be on the blog­ging team for CWO and that got me think­ing about team­work. Which got me think­ing about sports. Which got me think­ing about laun­dry. Which got me think­ing about tele­vi­sion. Which got me think­ing about blogging.

Which doesn’t speak well for the way my mind works, but there you have it.

And here’s what I thought. Out loud.

As blog­gers, at some point we all, quite nat­u­rally and under­stand­ably, stop and ask our­selves, “Why?” What com­pels us to share our thoughts, our lives, our hearts with vir­tual strangers who, with a word, have the abil­ity, for bet­ter or worse, to imme­di­ately respond in a way unique to this medium. What do we antic­i­pate in return for our efforts?

And here are a few things I came up with. Because, when I talk to myself, I tend to answer back.

Accep­tance. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (Romans 15:7) I believe that, as image bear­ers of God, we have it in us to want to be accepted just as Christ accepts us and wants the world to accept Him and be saved. Not that we can save any­one. I’ll be doing good if I can cor­rectly save this post! But can I accept the blog­ger and who they are in Christ while still dis­agree­ing with a state­ment they have made? Con­versely, can I accept that another per­son dis­agrees with me with­out reject­ing the per­son in turn? Or can I only accept those I deem acceptable?

It seems that Jesus’ accep­tance of me is much more com­plete than my own tends to be of others.

Atten­tion. ” …Every­one should be quick to lis­ten, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19) When I visit someone’s blog, am I will­ing to pause and reflect for a moment, offer­ing them some­thing of value in return for their efforts? Can I read past their words and hear their heart? Can I put forth the time and energy it takes to re-read the post or to take a break and come back before offer­ing my thoughts? How can I let them know that I have, in fact, “lis­tened?” Can I “lis­ten” to what her other read­ers have said?

How easy it is to scan a post then click away with­out a word. How easy it is to mis­in­ter­pret tone or mean­ing after a cur­sory glance. How easy to jump to con­clu­sions and judge in haste. How eas­ily we get offended by a fel­low Chris­t­ian when no offense was meant.

Affec­tion. “Be devoted to one another in broth­erly love. Honor one another above your­selves.” (Romans 12:10) Am I devoted to my sis­ter blog­gers, hon­or­ing their efforts to share their hearts and their faith with me? How can I do a bet­ter job of demon­strat­ing love for them? What about when I dis­agree with them? Can I gen­tly admon­ish then restore in a Christ-like way? Can I lay aside my own needs and wants long enough to offer a word of encour­age­ment or to laugh along with them? To cry with them? To pray for them?

Appre­ci­a­tion. “Now we ask you, broth­ers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admon­ish you.” (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:12) The word ‘admon­ish’ here isn’t about scold­ing some­one; it’s about lead­ing and teach­ing. Can we show respect by express­ing appre­ci­a­tion for the efforts of our sis­ter blog­gers as we min­is­ter to each other in this high-tech way? Can we find some­thing of value in a post and acknowl­edge it?

If you are on the CWO Blogroll, you have at your dis­posal a long list of other Chris­t­ian women blog­gers right there in your own side­bar. If you were to visit only one of those ladies each week that you have never vis­ited before, look on their blog for some­thing of value, and express your appre­ci­a­tion, at the end of the year you will have encour­aged 52 women to whom you might not ever have reached out oth­er­wise. You never know when you may be the only encour­age­ment one of those women receives that day.

(If you are not a mem­ber of the CWO Blogroll, you can learn more here!)

1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:11 calls us to “Encour­age each other and build each other up.” There are plenty of folks in our cul­ture the enemy can use to dis­cour­age and tear us down. If we elect to engage our­selves in this com­mu­nity we call blog­ging, shouldn’t we be counter-cultural by encour­ag­ing and build­ing each other up?

What are some prac­ti­cal ways we can do this?
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Carol’s thoughts and obser­va­tions are sound, but I would add to them one other word begin­ning with “A”:

Analy­sis.

How won­der­ful to be wise,
to ana­lyze and inter­pret things.
Wis­dom lights up a person’s face,
soft­en­ing its harsh­ness.
(Eccle­si­astes 8:1)

For many of us, blog­ging is a way of ana­lyz­ing events, feel­ings, motives and seek­ing wis­dom in order to make good choices and deci­sions in our daily lives. Read­ing other people’s blogs facil­i­tates that process for me. When I read about some­one else who is strug­gling with the same issues or types of emo­tions I am chal­lenged by, it assists me in my process of eval­u­at­ing the sit­u­a­tion and pro­gress­ing in my own devel­op­ment. There­fore, I ben­e­fit greatly from the wis­dom dis­played by other folks here in the blog­ging community.

I love the idea of vis­it­ing at least one blog each week, intro­duc­ing myself, and get­ting to know other on-line Chris­tians. I am going to make a point of doing that. In fact, I think Sun­day would be a great time to visit at least one mem­ber of the CWO or another blogroll for that express pur­pose, in con­junc­tion with blog­ging about my bless­ings.

Care to join me in this new ven­ture? If so, leave a com­ment and rec­om­mend a blog or two — yours or some­one else’s — and I’ll drop by for a visit!

Wel­come back to On the Hori­zon! So glad you’re vis­it­ing again. Be sure to leave a com­ment and add any posts that you like to the var­i­ous social book­mark­ing sites using the links just below the posts. Thanks for stop­ping by!

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