I haven’t written a real blog post in almost four months. I used to post four times a week. At first, I needed a break. Not long after that, I felt the itch to start writing again, but couldn’t find the time to make it happen (mainly because this has been, without a doubt, the busiest and most stressful season of my entire life).
I blame Louie Giglio.
I attended Passion 2012with some of my students and friends. It was an unbelievable experience. I learned so much. God was speaking to me non-stop. One of the things that He made clear to me was that I needed to pull back from public writing (blogs, tweets, etc.) and get back to where it all started.Journaling.
So, I stopped. I have a few posts in the hopper that I had drafted. I’ll post those soon. But I really feel like God didn’t just want me to stop blogging.
1. He wants me to stop fueling my need for approval. I didn’t start checking stats for a long time. I didn’t care how many people were looking at it. And then, all of a sudden, I became friends with Google Analytics. And a little part of me sold out. Now, if something is on my heart and it won’t draw a big crowd, I trash it. Something about that isn’t right.
2. He wants me to put focus where it belongs. Right now, that’s not blogging. I’d love to tell you what that is, but I can’t. That shall come later.
3. He wants me to re-discover the purpose for writing/journaling/blogging. I wrote my very first blog post on Friday, February 2, 2007 (It was actually my second. The obligatory “I’m starting a blog” post doesn’t count). The original reason for starting a blog was to share what I was learning as I read through Scripture. Somewhere along the way, it became posting about cultural hot-button issues and leadership lessons. I have rarely posted about my learnings in Scripture. And I’m not a fan of that.
4. I’m tired of people (especially pastors) pimping themselves.Seriously. Stop it. You’re making the church look like a whore. I mean that in the most literal sense possible. You are taking money to please a crowd. Our job is to make much of Jesus, not make much of us making much of Jesus.
5. He wants me to focus on a broader audience. From the start of this blog, it has always been focused on church leaders. I’m going to break the rules and zoom out. This blog will probably just be for…wait for it…people (gasp!).
As it stands, I’m going to try to keep my posting to once a week. I’ll be working on some other projects on the side, which will be requiring the majority of my attention. But I also have a couple things to say. So the blogging sabbatical is over. But I’m not going to turn it on like a fire hydrant. More like a steady, flowing river. Doesn’t that sound nice? I thought so.