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I did not start blogging until March of 2009 which means I put it off for a very long time. What first got me thinking seriously about it was a blog post written by John Piper entitled “6 Reasons Pastors Should Blog” (http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/6-reasons-pastors-should-blog). While my blog has not been exclusively been what I would call a “pastoral blog,” many of the posts would fall into that category. You may want to see my explanation of that at http://pastorjeffcma.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/a-christian-blog/.

I must also admit that I started quite inauspiciously being quite ignorant of the way the blogging world worked. While WordPress makes it phenomenally easy to set up a blog, I was totally clueless about the use of tags, categories, and such things. But I finally began to get hang of some of the ins and outs of the blogosphere.

Now after being at this for about three years I think I have finally figured out some of the reasons why I do this. There should some decent reasons since it does take a certain amount of time and energy.

#1–Writing–One of my mentors years ago said that if it is worth thinking about it is worth writing down. I am afraid I never really took that to heart. You would think that a pastor who is writing Sunday School lessons, Bible studies, and sermons every week that writing would come rather easily. But somehow writing those things that are meant for verbal communication and putting thoughts down that are meant for someone else to read are two very different things–at least for me. Therefore, blogging has been very helpful for me simply for the discipline of expressing ideas on paper (actually on monitor).

#2–Thinking–Even though I am writing about anything from “the sublime to the ridiculous” the way I articulate it does matter. So writing regularly for an audience forces me to consider things like word choice and sentence structure and flow of thought (admittedly, there are times I do that better than others). I try to take seriously the final product, although more than once I have to do a quick edit of an already published piece after finding an error that I somehow missed during 2 or 3 proofreadings.

Another thing that has been helpful is the need to think about things in a way I may not have necessarily done so before. I am trying to regularly write a post approximately 400-500 words. That means there are days that I need to give an idea more than a passing glance and other days that I need to tighten up my presentation. Hopefully I have been successful most of the time.

#3–Interaction–This was the wonderfully pleasant surprise. The most enjoyable part of blogging is the conversation. This has taken the form of encouragement, correction, and disagreement. But the vast majority of has been very respectful. This interaction is the reason bloggers are consistently requesting feedback. That can take the form of doing something as simple as pressing the “like” button, rating the blog, or preferably commenting on the post. This lets me know you are out there and how the things I am writing connect with those of you who are reading. Another helpful thing you can do, if you think it is worth doing, is to share the post with others through one of the “share buttons” at the end of the post. This is simply a way of widening the audience and maybe expanding the conversation.

So while I am constantly grateful for those that have been willing to read and interact with my “ramblings” it may be something you would like to try your hand at. You might enjoy it more than you think. If you do, let me know.

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