Why I blog (and maybe you should too)

The Thinking Man sculpture at Musée Rodin in Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I started thinking a while ago about blogging – whether I should continue with it or not – because blogging has a significant number of downsides:

• The time it takes to write posts takes time away from other things which are arguably more important.
• It impacts on my thought life; something happens, and I immediately start thinking about how it would fit into my blog.
• I don’t feel like I get loads of visits so it’s not as if I’m changing the world by blogging – I could probably save the internet a good few megabytes by cancelling the whole thing!
• The responses I see are generally negative; far more people leave critical or angry comments than grateful comments. That doesn’t make me feel too good.

But, of course, it’s not all bad:

• Blogging makes me better at communicating – looking back at the first year or two of blog posts makes me cringe at my own naivety, aggression, and uninformed opinions. I’m sure I still have a long way to go, but I’m heading in the right direction.
• It impacts on my thought life; a few years ago, life just happened. Now I’m far more analytical, I think things through more logically and clearly, enabling me to appreciate God’s grace in creation, other people, and myself.
• I’m handed a heavy dose of humility whenever I see the stats or the eloquence of those who disagree with me.
• I’ve learnt a lot about how to deal with people who disagree with me.
• Having to face challenges head-on, and thinking through tough things, has only ever strengthened my faith in God. It’s good to have had that experience.

For the moment, I think I’m going to keep on blogging. Not many other people seem to read my blog, so doing it for the benefit of mankind would be a bit silly, but I’m going to maintain these objectives:

• Get better at communicating.
• Think about lots of stuff so that when people ask, I have an informed opinion.
• Create posts about Jesus so that random internet browsers are more likely to read something about him.
• Hope that some book publisher out there asks me to write a book that becomes an international bestseller, meaning I can think and write about Jesus full-time.

Oh well, I suppose three out of four wouldn’t be too bad.

I judge myself

English: A homeless man in Paris Français : Un sans domicile fixe à Paris. Tiếng Việt: Một người đàn ông vô gia cư ở Paris Polski: Bezdomny mężczyzna w Paryżu See below for more translations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve recently started a new job, which has led to me thinking back over the past jobs I’ve started. In comparison this new job is one which I would historically have looked at as one which I’d have liked to have, but which is generally worked by people I dislike…what I mean is that people in my job dress in suits, act busy, travel around the world as if they’re popping to the shop, have lots of meetings in tall buildings, and generally just act as if they’re more important than everyone else.

What I’ve realised is that my pre-judging of people in this job hasn’t changed despite the fact I work with them every day, and they’re all perfectly normal! I find myself disliking the concept of them (us?), which is weird, and completely nonsensical.

What it’s highlighted to me is that I find it very easy to put people into boxes:

• high earners = arrogant
• students = lazy
• shop workers = no ambition
• estate agents = incompetent

Just to clarify, these are examples of what I could think, not necessarily what I do think. But the point still stands; I put a stay-at-home mum in a different box to a homeless person despite the fact that their different circumstances may have no bearing whatsoever on who they are. Am I making sense? I’m very tired.

The real point is this: surely we are all bearers of the image of God, and that should be the ‘box’ into which I put people?

Responding to criticism

Image via Wikipedia

Some readers of this blog may find this completely uninteresting, fair enough. See you after the break.

For the rest of you, you may be aware that a guy I’ve always really respected, CJ Mahaney, was accused of a whole bunch of pretty significant stuff getting on for a year or so ago. Because of the society we live in these accusations were made in a wikileaks style viral document, which was quickly circulated among every church leader within the global ministry he oversees, Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), and all his critics. For examples of the sort of hatred he received (and I wouldn’t waste your time on them), have a look at this blog post, and this one, both of which were written at around that time.

CJ’s immediate response was to resign from his position as Chair of SGM. He said this was so as not to appear to be influencing any response the Board would want to make, but it obviously looked like an immediate admission of guilt.

Tim Challies is a blogger who I really enjoy reading, and he did a great summary at the time of what happened, and what the plans were going forward.

An independent review panel has completed its work, and has issued this report. The conclusions of the report are complicated and not just related to CJ so if you’re interested do go and read it, but in terms of addressing the accusations made in the wikileaks thing it turns out that the guy who raised the concerns in the first place was seeing sin where there was none.

The report by no means paints CJ as some victim or saint, but does come up with the following, significant conclusions:

1. The panels exonerated CJ from any charge that the things he did wrong are areas of unrepentant sin. With respect to [one of the specific situations raised], CJ repented and apologised to the family; with respect to [another], the panel found that the process was handled appropriately (and did not involve CJ); and with respect to his practice of fellowship, they found that his practice was in keeping with the teaching of Scripture.
2. Months ago, an outside panel representing the perspectives of three denominations reviewed the sins CJ confessed – which includes the most serious allegation against him – and advised that they were not grounds for removal from ministry. And in our own internal review with the three panels (comprised of nine SGM pastors), the same conclusion was reached – not one panel recommended that CJ be disqualified from ministry.

So there you have it. CJ confessed and repented of sin in accordance with biblical teaching, and hasn’t done anything to disqualify himself from a ministry position.

I have to admit I am one of the ‘CJ fanboys’ who hopefully expected that this wasn’t the last we’d seen of a man who I’ve experienced to be a wonderful, humble, grace-filled man (not without his faults, but who is?). I was glad to read last week that CJ’s taken this time away to re-evaluate his role in the global church and will be planting another church in the near future.

Soli deo gloria!

Irony and more search terms

Image via Wikipedia

So…about this time last week I posted about which search terms had eventually led people to this blog.

As always, the number of hits peaked a little on the day I posted it, and dipped down a bit last Friday.

On Saturday, however, the number of unique hits was five times higher than usual. The Sunday hit count was about twice that of the Saturday!

By the time Monday had come around, the addition of Monday’s post meant that Monday’s hit count was nearly nine times that of Friday’s…

So the new number one search term on my list is:

SEARCH TERMS

Blogs I follow

Every so often someone will ask me which blogs I recommend, so I thought I might stick up here a list of some of the blogs I’m following right now.

Disclaimer: I’m not sure I’d actually say that I unconditionally like all of these, they’re just the top ones I’ve picked out. They’ve all had challenging bits in them which I’ve liked, and most of them are a bit too self-promotional for me, but check them out if you’re looking for something inspirational!

Church/leadership

9 Marks

Adrian Warnock

C.J. Mahaney’s view from the cheap seats and other stuff

Challies

Confluence

Desiring God

Ed Stetzer

GodFirst

Head Heart Hand

Josh Harris

Justin Taylor

Kevin DeYoung

Kingdom People

Leading From The Sandbox

Lex Loizides

Matt Hosier

Newfrontiers Theology Forum

Practical Shepherding

Pure Church

Ray Ortlund

Terry Virgo

That Theology Student

The Resurgence

Transforming Sermons

Worship leading

Cardiphonia

Enjoy the Show

Sound Doxology

Worship Matters

Worthily Magnify

Just for fun

22 Words

AppVita

Stuff Christians Like

500th post and preaching

Well, apparently this is the 500th post on this blog so I thought I’d revisit why I do it.

I think God gives people gifts but that it’s the responsibility of the individual to nurture and make best use of them. Apply when required.

For me, I think God’s called me to communicate his truth. I don’t get the chance to preach every week and currently don’t have a book contract (but I’d you want to offer me one get in touch) – as a result I thought I ought to keep up the practice here and with my Bible studies so that when I eventually step into that role more fully, I can do so more to the glory of God.

At the end of the day I’d rather make my mistakes and learn my lessons now rather than if I publish a book. Ironically, more people are likely to read this blog than I’d preach to if I were up there every Sunday

That all said, it’s my privilege to let you know that I’m preaching this Sunday morning at the Crown Church. It would be wonderful to see you there!

How to win competitions

Enter them.

That’s pretty much it – inspired by my most recent conquest…which I will tell you about.

I was reading a blog by, of course, Mark Driscoll, who said that a competition was underway on facebook. You basically had to draw a picture of Jesus as described in Revelation 19, and the winner would get a copy of his new book. I had no time so did a quick one on Paint…but it was clearly ‘good enough’ and won me a prize!

So here’s the conclusion: enter competitions, because there’s always a small chance you might win. That’s it.

I hope you have had a similar experience.

Welcome to my blog!

So apparently I’m now a blogger…how did this happen?

I am a reader of many blogs but through various links I discovered John Piper’s 6 reasons pastors should blog article. I believe that I have been called by God to be a pastor and so, therefore, felt stirred to give myself a good foundation now!

I hope that I actually write some interesting thoughts and that this blog helps people (like me) who read blogs for help!

Anyway, that’s plenty for a first post. Because I’m new at this I’ll probably write another in about ten minutes, I’m just that excited about it…we’ll see.