Guidelines for a Successful Christian Blog
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 01:06PM 3 Comments It never ceases to amaze me how complete strangers will read my ramblings and tell me they were edified in some way. Recently I had the privilege of having one of our new readers tell me that this blog is a blessing and she asked if I had any tips for blogging. I began to answer her privately, but then I thought, why not share this publicly with everyone? So today I offer you some guidelines which I personally follow when constructing my own posts:
1. Serve Your Readers. Blogging by nature is an extremely narcissistic activity. For me personally, blogs, websites, and even Facebook and MySpace are tempting platforms for self-glorification. So the number one rule for me is to remember that I blog to serve the readers. Once I start rambling on about my job, or my favorite TV show, or my top ten favorite vegetables in descending order, it becomes about me. And trust me, I am not at all an exciting topic to read about. Serve your readers by talking about subjects they want to read. As much as we crave to write about ourselves, the truth is, everybody would much rather read something that applies to them. So I try write about topics that I think other people find compelling, or that someone might be struggling with. People are using search engines every day to find answers to their most pressing questions. Why not write material that serves them in this way?
2. Always Use Yourself as the Example. This may appear to contradict guideline #1 above. Naturally, people don't care about me, my life, my favorite vegetables, etc. But they do want to feel like there are others out there who are just like them. For this reason, I try not to write from a lofty, know-it-all position. And the only way I know how to come down off my high horse is to draw people's attention to how often I find myself face-down in the mud. There are a million websites out there that are packed with information supporting one position or another. There are a thousand blogs with people on their soapboxes, explaining why such-and-such is wrong, or why this-and-that is sin. Yes, I agree that such-and-such is wrong, but here's a confession: I've actually committed the sin of such-and-such!
For this reason, many of my posts will involve some story of what a complete jerk I can be. Then I will turn it around and say, "How about you? Have you ever experienced this?" I know that this causes people to reflect. Nobody wants to be lectured. Nobody wants to be told, "You're a filthy, rotten sinner." However, if someone else were to say, "Here's how I messed up," or, "Here's a dirty little sin I harbor in my heart," etc, people are more likely to feel that they are not alone in their walk. In turn, they will confess their sins to God on their own, without me pointing any fingers. People tell me that they've learned so much from this blog. I can believe that - there are plenty of mistakes I've made to be learned from!
3. Get a Blogging Partner. This was the one piece of advice I got before I even created this blog. It proved to be an awesome piece of advice. The reasoning was practical: having other people to write with keeps the material fresh, gives the blog a "magazine" feel to it, and releases you from the pressure of constantly having to come up with new material from week to week (you can take turns posting). I prayed for a partner and God sent me Geraldine, who was everything I was looking for. Geraldine is a wife and a mother, two roles I have never held, so she provided a lot of balance to my single-no-children perspective. This reflects back to Guideline #1 - Serve the readers. I was worried that if the blog only was written from a single perspective, married women wouldn't read it. Having a partner resolved that problem!
But this advice proved to be fantastic on another level in that having a partner keeps me accountable. Essentially, this is my blog, but by volunteering to share it with someone else, I am forced to abandon many of my control freak-isms. Geraldine has not written for us in a long time and even told me a few months ago that if I took her author privileges away she would understand. I said I wouldn't dream of it! Geraldine's presence here, even if she doesn't write that often, forces me to address our readers as "we". That's pretty important since I don't want this blog to be about me. Thanks for keeping me in check, Geraldine! Which brings me to:
4. Use Your Real Name. Tim Challies has a fantastic argument for this that I highly encourage you read here. Basically, using an alias in cyberspace gives us a freedom in anonymity to behave in ways we normally wouldn't if we knew our name was attached to what we wrote. If you want to be real, then be real - use your real name. If this makes you uncomfortable, let me tell you that this does not come naturally for me. I was raised by two die-hard New Yorkers who taught me some pretty intricate street-smarts. Using my real name and face on this blog is totally against how I was raised. I mean, there are STRANGERS reading this. How am I supposed to know whether or not the 40 followers we currently have are complete psychopaths? For safety reasons, I stopped advertising in the sidebar where I go to church, as well as the city where I live, but let's be realistic: A)If there really was a psycho stalker after me, he'd find a way to find me, no matter how hard I try to hide my personal details, B) If I'm going to consider myself reformed, then I should rest content that God will keep me safe from stalkers. If not, then it was part of His sovereign plan to have me bludgeoned to death by a deranged reader, and C) I can basically feel free to put my real name on the internet because as I mentioned earlier, no one cares about me anyway - and I'm assuming that goes double for someone actually taking the trouble to stalk me.
5. Do Not Publish Out of Anger. I don't think I need to explain this one. However, if you do publish in anger, use it as an opportunity in your next post to "Make Yourself an Example" (Guideline #2).
6. Glorify God. The title of this post is "Guidelines for a Successful Christian Blog." Well I suppose it might be a good idea to mention what is meant by "success." Success is not measured in the number of followers you have, the number of comments they leave, the number of hits on your site that day, the number of people who link to your site, or even being listed among the Top Ten Best "Whatever" Blogs. Success is measured by whether or not God is glorified. How do you know if He is being glorified? There are two ways: A) You need to strive to glorify Him. Everything you write should have glorification of God as its sole purpose. B) He will let you know.
So there you have it, my basic guidelines for blogging. I confess that I have trouble following these guidlelines 100% of the time. Nevertheless, I hope this has served you. Feel free to share some of your own!
Reader Comments (3)
Jennifer,
I heartily agree that the "self" is always seeking a platform to extoll its own merits! This realization is simply another affirmation to me of my utter depenadance and need of the Holy Spirit in every area of life. Your sixth point regarding the aim of bringing glory to God is certainly what I pray He will instill in my own heart as I seek to share my ponderings on His word and upon the great salvation that we have in Christ!
Hi, Tom. Yes, I don't even have a Facebook or a MySpace for this reason. Other people can handle it, but if I had a page that was pretty much, well, MY SPACE, it would be a disaster. I have toyed with creating other blogs about hobbies I enjoy. But I could never get them off the ground the way I could this one. It takes a lot of work to build a blog and for me to build a site dedicated to hobbies I enjoy was setting myself up for temptation.
Naturally I have failed on this blog as well, and gone off on tangents about myself. But with God's grace I am growing in that. Like you mentioned, sometimes I am more focused on sharing what *I* think about God's word, or what interpretation *I* have, and it can get a bit self-glorifying if I'm not careful.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks Jennifer.
That was very helpful!
Latisha