The Joy of Blogging

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Today’s Blog Post


The Joy of Blogging

First I want to say “Thank You” to all my friends that have made this Blog a success. And it has been a success for sure.

Today it has climbed to 39,856 people(will likely hit 40,000 by Wednesday) that have visited the Blog and 50,649 pages have been read. The number of people is fairly easy to determine and are like hits on a Web Sites. The most interesting part is the fact that many have read more.

The subject that has been written about is found by search engines as well… when people search for a word. When they click on the ‘Search’ and the results come – this Blog will be found – almost in the first few pages or maybe the first page – often.

Now the other interesting thing is that the subject that is written about often is not found until months later – or maybe even years.

I have been Blogging now since late 2005. The first one that I began with was the Northview Blog which continued until June 2008 with postings. However, not posting any longer doesn’t mean people don’t visit – or click on to it.

The Northviewchurch blog has had 26,606 visitors and 36,623 pages read.

It is a little ego trip when I read that 87,272 pages have been read – of what I have written.

My little ego trip is an inexpensive holiday. Wahoo!

Now as a minister in churches and adding up a total of 35 years I have averaged about one sermon a week. That is about 35years X 48(about the number of weeks a year that I preached on average) X 5 pages per sermon = about 8400 pages.

And being careful to say this… only about 10% of any audience actually listened would be a good guess.

My Blogging has produced more listeners by far… and far more responses.

Most people in church cannot remember what was said Sunday AM – by Wednesday evening. With Blogging they have come back two or more years later to read it over and over again.

I am thinking that Blogging is better than Preaching – by far!

Now the one thing that I have also deduced from my Blogging is that you can make people very Angry or very Happy… and sometime some are “Ho hum” in the middle… but they do react in some way.

The problems that I have encountered is that each day you need to have something to write about – when you do a blog like this. I made a commitment to try to write each day.

The old Northviewchurch blog had 625 posts in the two years of running. My newer Murraylincoln blogspot has now had 776 in two years running. That is a total of 1401 times that I have sat down to write something for my readers.

Whew – no wonder I feel tired sometimes! Not really though.. because the act of writing has energized me. As I stopped preaching on a regular basis each week in June 2008, this has been an absolute joy to do. There were no sermons to write and preaching to prepare for… like there was from 2006 until 2008! And now people were listening.

Some have stated that a Blogger should not write too much… keep it short and simple. I do neither. I feel that I have something to say – good or bad depending on the audience… and I had to say it. I have found people will read if they want to… and not read if they don’t want to.

The joy is that they have a choice in this mode… in church as pew sitters – they would fall asleep, read a book, read the magazines, talk to each other… and simply drift away.

In church I could see what they were doing… in Blogging I could really care less.

In church my sermon was rated often by the Offering that was give or received.

With Blogging I could care less about the offering or what the reader thinks. There is lots that is political in Blogging – but not near as much as there is CHURCH. Politicians out in the Big World have no idea how much Political Stuff goes on in CHURCH! Yikes.

This is not about CHURCH – but rather about a better way to communicate.

If Jesus was alive I would bet you that he would have been a blogger. Every bit of the parables would have made great blog topics. And the other thing that I know – he wouldn’t have given a Ding Dong about what people thought. Political stuff in his Religious Protesters was just more stuff to get him going.

So if you are considering Blogging… I suggest that you jump in a try it!

Just think of a Coffee time together with other employees at Break Time. Now start talking about what ever issue that you have noted. Then write down what you are thinking.

Watch out because people will read what you say. And Be careful what you say about people.. they sure don’t like to read Four Letter words… and many don’t do the words that are three letters as well… words like “FAT”… ooops!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/