the Requiest

Digging around the ozone of the internet I found this old post that got lost when I accidentally blew away my ‘mySQL’ database last year.

Blogging for me initially started out as a search to discover just what a blog was. As someone involved in the IT field I approached this from a purely technical perspective. I wanted to know what made a blog different from a regular website. The truth that confronted me is that there really isn’t that much technically different between the two. What I did find to be different is the personal interactions between the content provider’s and their audience or the blogger’s and the blog-reader’s. In furthering my research, I was inexorably drawn from one blogsite to another by the almost maddening exchange of thoughts and ideas, hyperlinks and track-backs. In short order I felt as if I had ping-ponged across half the blogsphere and was in dire need of regaining some semblance of balance. I regained my sanity when I stumbled across http://blogs4god.com. Here I found a world of Christian bloggers with the kind of meaningful content that I could really sink my teeth into.

Over the last 6 months (now 2 years) I have gone from being a reader and sometimes commenter to creating my own blog. However, the real impact of blogging has been in my own spiritual growth. I have had my mind stretched with new and better ways of looking at what I thought were old ideas. I’ve had to rethink a number of my overly opinionated conjectures on how to properly live for Christ. I’ve had the opportunity to converse with missionaries as far away as Hong Kong and the Ukraine. I’ve also conversed with one blogger who actually lives within walking distance of my house. Most importantly I’ve been able to have critical discussions with learned pastors and theologians. Discussions, because they are done over the web, allow each of us to take the time to better formulate our questions and responses to one another. Blogging becomes a vast classroom full of teachers each ready to inform, teach and debate. This for me is the essence of steel sharpening steel and this is why I blog.

The following has been blatantly stolen from Thor over at the Thinklings.

Preach the Word. Preach, teach, and minister the Word among your flocks. Sow the Word deeply into their hearts. Encourage, exhort, and guide them in sound doctrine and godliness. Do not be tempted by the allurements of the world, which is in rebellion around you. Stay the course! Remain moored in the safe and reliable harbor of Holy Scripture. Lean on it. Meditate on it. Pray over it. Bow to its authority and bury it deep within your heart. Lead your flock to find rest in it in times of joy and suffering. I plead with you as a fellow soldier in Christ! Do not drift into the unstable waters of pragmatism and human wisdom. Take great pains to teach and model these things. You are a called man of God! An incredible privilege and honor. Hold to this calling with the utmost fear and trembling! You will be persecuted, mocked, and belittled. Worry not, my brother. Rejoice! You are a humble servant of the Living God! Strive to preach and minister the Word of God boldly, unashamedly, and with all humility and love, O shepherd of Christ!

I wonder how often my own pastors need to hear words like this, words of encouragement and fortitude. Thanks Thor!