Blog success in an upside-down kingdom

I am making a few course-corrections for the blog. After one year of blogging, now is a good time to review how things have gone and where I am aiming for the next year.

Since mid-November 2009 I have published 192 blog posts, learned loads about blogging and WordPress, done a smidge of CSS tweaking, and managed to break the blog once by messing with the php code. Most importantly, I have encountered God in the process of writing these 192 posts and in doing so attained one of my main objectives in writing a blog. My other key objective has been to write content that contributes to others being able to encounter Christ also. Obviously this is impossible for me to assess, all I can do is write what I think would be helpful to me and respond graciously to any feedback from others.

There are certainly ways of measuring statistics regarding numbers of visitors to a website, how long they stay, what search engines or websites they came from, and lots of other interesting stuff. Until a few days ago I used Google Analytics to track such statistics for Words of Eternal Life – it reassured me at least that I am not quite the only person in the world to visit this blog! However, herein lies a dangerous trap for someone trying to honour Christ – the danger of seeking validation and praise from my works rather than from Jesus. It is good to be encouraged but I need to be careful to give praise to God for enabling me to do whatever it is I am being encouraged about, and to seek validation from God, not a blog. In this I have learned the truth of what John Piper says:

John Piper says:
Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.

I have also been greatly inspired by what Ann Voskamp said recently at the Relevant Conference about blogging in the ‘Upside-Down Kingdom’. Ann talked about serving Christ by going lower, by exposing our thrashing about, our searching in the darkness, and telling our ‘messy stories’ of knowing Jesus as fallen, forgiven sinners. Our stories engage others with theology, culture, circumstance and struggle all lived out in a real life of faith in Jesus Christ.

The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. She needs her again and again when she becomes uncertain – and this is the power of blogging in the upside down kingdom. This is the holy work of a blog, so don’t ever feel shy or ashamed or embarrassed that you blog. Because the body of Christ needs to speak to itself and it needs to speak to the world and this is the beauty of a blog. I get discouraged and I become uncertain and I fall down and His Word through your words is the connective tissue in the body of Christ and we need each other. Please. Keep. Writing. (Ann Voskamp)

So, out of all this I have made a few changes to this blog and set some goals for the year ahead:

• Rather than concerning myself with numbers of visitors to this blog or increasing traffic, I want to keep in mind my main purpose in writing:
  for me blogging is not primarily about how many visits I get or how well this website ranks on search engines. The purpose of my blogging is to write about walking with Christ in ordinary life.
• I am modifying the layout to focus more on the ongoing story of faith, with minimal distractions.
• I will do my best to keep the content of this blog Christ-honouring and faith-building.
• I will try to honestly tell my own messy faith stories in the hope they may help you as you read them.

John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”
(John 3:27-30 ESV)

17 November 2010
Ann Voskamp has posted an excellent follow up article about what ‘success’ should mean as a Christian blogger on the incourage blog. The post is titled: Six Things Every Christian Blogger Needs to Know. If you found this post interesting, I highly recommend reading Ann’s post.

Spring-cleaning my soul

We are having a bit of an early spring-clean in our house — reconfiguring our storage spaces, sorting through our stuff and getting rid of whatever is not worth keeping. We are tired of tripping over clutter. There is also a certain pleasure in simply tidying up all those things which we use a lot and are necessary and valuable parts of our lives. And occasionally we realize we are running low on some essential because all the containers in the cupboard are nearly empty (tea seems to suffer this crisis most commonly in our house!).

My soul is in a similar need of a declutter, but the junk in there is a lot harder to clean up. It’s easy to go through life tossing stuff into the wardrobe of my heart and quickly slamming the door shut before too much tumbles back out. Accumulating piles of experiences, ideas and assumptions which I have good intentions of sorting through but never get around to doing. Then there is the stuff I don’t like, am afraid to open up, or hate to be reminded of, that is buried in there somewhere too. All this accumulates into a teetering stack which occasionally topples over, prompting me to kick and shove it into a corner, hurriedly restacking the pile so it doesn’t keep tripping me up each day.

Perhaps the wardrobe in my heart isn’t as big as some folks have, or maybe I put way too much in there. Whatever the reason, I’m finding that the door doesn’t close properly anymore and the hinges are broken so stuff kind of spills out. Unfortunately, I don’t have much control over what falls out, but I can control a lot of what goes in. I can actively choose what to read, view or listen to, even who I hang out with. I also get a lot of choice regarding not viewing, reading or listening to ugly, toxic stuff. Discernment and wisdom from others is also helpful in identifying some seemingly benign things which can fester and mutate into toxic, ugly stuff in my heart.

What about experiences over which I have no control or choice? This is where sorting through and processing the piles and stacks of stuff is really important. Every single experience, idea or assumption needs to be picked up, seen for what it is, and filed appropriately — much of the filing should be straight to the trash heap, not a ‘too hard’ pile in my heart!

Jesus talked a lot about the stuff in our hearts:

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. (Matthew 12:34-35 ESV)

Whatever is stored up in my heart will be expressed out of my mouth, by my actions and in the overall course of my life. In Mark 7:20-23, Jesus explains what sort of things come out of our hearts and pollute us (and others). There are actually several issues causing this pollution — we are all by nature sinful (see Romans 7:18) and need to be made new in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Without such renewal through Jesus Christ, the outpouring of our hearts will always be corrupt.

Yet, even as a born-again Christian I don’t instantly become pure, I need to be progressively transformed by the renewing of my mind, which occurs as I refuse to unthinkingly embrace the ideas of the world around me and have a realistic perception of myself (see Romans 12:2-3). What has the power to transform my mind and give me a truthful understanding of myself?

It may sound simplistic, but the measuring stick I use is the Bible. Jesus prayed for His Father to purify us through His word, that’s enough recommendation for me (John 17:17). As I read the Bible, the Holy Spirit uses the disparity between what I’m reading and who I currently am to show me where growth or change is needed. In the Bible I also learn the truth about God and about human nature, which helps me to face and understand the lies in my own soul that can fester and corrupt all my interactions with others.

Sermon preparation in perspective

I went to bed at around 1am this morning, I had been preparing my sermon for today. My wife was up several times after that to our 16-month-old son who has a bad cold, then I got up at 7:30am because he was awake and ready for his day to start, and I needed to finish my sermon.

So while I was furiously editing my sermon notes, my son got told off for pulling the power cable out of the computer (it’s a laptop so the battery preserved my work!) and my daughters both got grumped at for interrupting me to have their legitimate needs met (i.e., food, clothing). I regret all of these, but the words, “will you just go away!” that I spoke to my son rang in my mind as I drove to the hospital three hours later.

I had just begun presenting my sermon when I was given the message that my wife and son were in the Emergency Department at the hospital because he was struggling to breathe. I arrived to see my little boy distressed, labouring hard, panting and gasping to fill his  lungs with air. What I valued then was the quick prayer offered by my Christian family as I left the church, the sermon was forgotten. Though my lousy behaviour towards those I love was not forgotten.

Which gets me thinking about Richard’s post yesterday, about choices. There were a lot of choices involved in this situation. I had been making choices all week about priorities and the result of those was that I was still preparing my sermon on Sunday morning. I made choices about how to respond to legitimate demands on my time by my own children. I was doing what I ought to be doing, meeting a commitment I had previously made for the good of God’s people. But I also have my responsibilities as a father and God does not condone irritable preachers over faithful parenthood (see Ephesians 6:4).

I am not saying that preaching is not important, Paul charges Timothy to preach the word, being ready in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). Paul also commends study and the work of preparation to teach God’s people (2 Timothy 2:15, and 1 Timothy 4:16). But notice that in  2 Timothy 4:2 the charge to Timothy is to preach with complete patience. There is no place in Christian ministry for irritability. God calls me to live in gentleness and patience, bearing with others in love (Ephesians 4:2). The importance of diligently preparing a sermon (or worship program, or childrens ministry or youth group activity) is very small compared with the importance of obeying the law of Christ.

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Image of child sleeping: Me

Course correction

“We need to put some stuff aside to communicate with people” (Richard Nyhof, sermon comment). Jesus put aside his equality with God and became a servant in the form of a baby in order to communicate God’s redemption to us (Philippians 2:6).

For me, I need to put aside my own agendas and plans in order to be more genuinely interested in others. If I’m constantly thinking of what I really want or ‘need’ to be doing while interacting with someone, I cannot communicate genuine interest or concern for that person – they will see that I am wanting to be moving on to something that is more important to me.

Jesus did not need to put aside his own agenda to take on human form and be crucified for us – this IS his agenda! It should also be mine: God’s plan of redemption is His glory, and the chief end of man is to glorify God (Westminster catechism). The very purpose of my existence is to participate in God’s plan of redemption.

Glorifying God by spreading His gospel is the purpose of my existence – the ultimate agenda for my life. All other plans and agendas I have should serve this ultimate one (and not just tangentially!).

I need to adjust some of my plans!