Wow. Is January 2008 half way over already? My how time flies!
I’ve been blogging now for 2 years and 2 months (mid November 2005 was when my blogging really started in earnest). In that time this blog has seen 437 posts, over 2800 comments, and anywhere from 104,000 (Statcounter/Sitemeter) to 150,000 (WordPress‘ calculations) pageviews. (My stats start from when I switched to WordPress in July of 2006).
Blogging has definitely been fun. I’ve discovered hundreds of great blogs and been discovered by scores of like minded bloggers. I’ve received encouragement and thanks for what I do, even as I’ve occasionally been criticized or discouraged by others. Through this whole process, I’ve made online friends and I’ve explored many topics I would not have otherwise. It’s been great.
The new year provides an opportunity for me to step back and assess my blog. Some of you are wondering if I’ve really been assessing my blog since it is now mid January and my new year post has only just appeared. Truth be told, we’ve been battling 2 rounds of sickness since Jan. 1 in our house, and life has been busy. Which brings me back to my purpose.
Looking Back (2007)
2007 was a year of multiple blogging personalities for me. In April, I jumped on the Mike Huckabee bandwagon, eventually creating a tumble blog accumulating Huckabee links and videos — Go Huckabee! (On a side note, tumble blogs promise to be the best way for many of you still on the fence — Larry! — to create and maintain a blog with almost no effort. Check out this post about tumble blogs.) Then in the summer, I started a team missions blog, Kingdom Surge.
The competing blogs hindered my focus on this blog, as did daily life with 3, and now 4, kids. With sometimes serious and prolonged debates, this blog can wear me out at times. My own character flaws have also contributed, resulting in the many loose ends left unfinished around here in 2007. I started a series on The Bible and the King James Only Debate, only to get about 1/2 way thru and stop. I have only blogged through 1/5th of Piper’s What Jesus Demands of the World. And I’m not yet finished with my series blogging through my church’s confession of faith. Add to that my series on man-centered Christianity that is stuck in the middle, and my entry into the atonement debate which never actually panned out. (The debate has continued without me).
My mind has always been a haven of loose ends and a hodge podge collection of thoughts. And my blog has reflected this. The dual nature of my blog complicates things as well. On the one hand, my blog chronicles my journey out of extreme fundamentalism and spends a lot of time dealing with various positions and issues related to fundamentalism. But on the other hand, I blog about general Christian topics, Reformed themes, and (now) political ruminations — like most normal Christian blogs.
Looking Ahead (2008)
So here comes 2008 and a chance for me to do a better job blogging. To do this I’ve determined to try to focus more on my own blog’s content. I’ll continue sharing posts that I’ve read and enjoyed (check my sidebar for “My Latest Blog Finds“). And I will interact with other blogs out there from time to time. But I am purposely not going to 1) interact with every comment left on my blog, 2) follow every blog I’d like to as closely as I would really like to, and 3) get drawn into fruitless debates in other venues as often as I have in the past.
If I can restrain myself in this way, then I can try to tie up the loose ends this year. I aim also to continue fine tuning the design and user-friendliness of my blog (which means completing my “topics” page, and perhaps explaining what I think about fundamentalism better). I also hope to deal with other topics that haven’t been thoroughly addressed here but which bear on my general theme. Oh, and I’d love to do some work on my KJV Only Debate blog.
Besides continuing with my missions blog (which needs some work and focus too), I still plan on continuing to blog for fun. That means I will continue to be spontaneous, and I’m sure some people appreciate that from time to time. But in 2008 I hope to finish some unfinished business, with the possibility of gearing my blog up for a transition away from dealing with fundamentalism so much and focusing more on Reformed matters and general Christian themes.
One more note of caution. As I try to become more intentional with my blog, I may post less frequently. I can’t let my blog consume me and take me from matters I really should attend to. I must nourish my spiritual life and lead my family first, and blogging can be detrimental to this.
Before I finish, let me encourage other bloggers to assess your blogging. Be sure you are using blogs and not being used by blogs. No one will be perfect, but we can’t be afraid to focus on real life and let our virtual realities slip.
In my next post, I’m going to highlight the best and the worst of Fundamentally Reformed‘s 2007. I’ll try to be as self-serving as my first post of 2007 was, because hey, this is my blog and it’s fun to look back!
Bob,
Among the gazillion blogs for me to read, yours is one I choose to frequent because it has thoughtful, helpful substance for my Christian faith.
I appreciate your presence in blogdom, and will continue to swing by regularly.
Thanks for the encouragement, brother.
[sigh….]
OK, so I don’t have a blog. Big deal…. I can post on yours!
Not that I don’t have anything good to say, but I really don’t want my own blogsite. Seriously. Part of it is….. laziness. Part of it is….. I’m not really all that ‘original’. Part of it is….. I don’t have an interest in running a blog of my own. Well, granted, these aren’t really good reasons, but they are why I don’t do my own blog. I mean, think about this: a Reformed Dispensational, Cessationist beer-drinking Baptist with his own blogsite. Kinda interesting?
…. don’t answer that.
Larry, I was speaking tongue in cheek of course!
Here’s the thing, a tumble log is not really a blog. All you do is click a button in your favorites bar on your browser whenever you see a video, picture, or post/article you like. It automatically shares it on a blog of sorts. You can edit the sidebar a little to give basic “about” stuff. Or you can leave it alone. You could name it Larry’s Favs or something like that.
It would give you a cool URL to use when posting comments! And it is so simple. And it would help you find things you come across and forget where they were.
But I understand if you’d rather not. I just think its an awesome alternative to a full fledged blog.
Oh, and Reformed Dispensational, Cessationist beer-drinking Baptists definitely aren’t a dime a dozen!
One other thing, at this time Tumblr doesn’t have comments enabled. They are working on that. So that would make it even easier. People could email you if they want to get in touch. It’d be more a blog for you than anything else. It might serve as a good about page for when you post and people wonder, who is this guy?
Later pal. I’m not trying to push you. But I’m trying to push you! 😉
Bob
Excellent site fundyreformed.wordpress.com and I am really pleased to see you have what I am actually looking for here: this .. as it’s taken me literally 3 hours and 28 minutes of searching the web to find you (just kidding!) so I shall be pleased to become a regular visitor 🙂