I'm finding that there are lots of schools of thought about blogging.
Some people say you should narrow your topic, others are OK with blogging a variety of topics. Some recommend dividing your topics into categories. There are preferences on the appropriate number of categories that range from 3 - 8 and beyond.
Some people say you should post at least daily if you want to "grow" your following. Others say post no more than 2 - 3 times a week. Still others say weekly is plenty. I find that there's not much agreement out there.
What about me? What about this blog?
Usually I'm a rule follower. I like having guidelines and parameters and policies and procedures.
But there is a small but existent creative side to me. This blog is my canvas. I think I'll just play by my own rules for this one.
My thoughts are these. I'm writing more for me than I am to gain a following. I'm just trying to get stuff out of my cluttered head to make room for other stuff. As I said in my blog bio, writing is somewhat therapeutic for me. It's a release. That having been said, I do have a passion for discipleship, so most of the blog will in some way tie to discipleship, and if anything I write does end up in front of someone else other than me and it in any way encourages a pursuit of Christ, then that would be fabulous!!
As I was thinking about blogging, I knew right away that there were several different things I wanted to write about. In other words, in my cluttered head were several different groupings of thoughts that I need to get out into viewable words. I narrowed those down to categories and that's how this blog is set up.
So...that's the deal with why the blog has several categories. Here's a little about what each means.
General - Sort of self defining. If a post (like this one, for example) doesn't neatly fit into one of the main categories, I put it here.
Discipleship - I've said many times that my passion is discipleship and that all of the blog will probably in some way tie to discipleship, so why have a discipleship category? Well, I'm a student of the idea of discipleship, the practice of discipleship, discipleship methods, teachings on the subject of discipleship, etc. In this category I'll simply put what I've learned and am learning about the concept of...wait for it...discipleship.
Disciplines - I'm a fan of discipline in general. Maybe a better word would be that I aspire to it because I'm so bad at it. That having been said, this category is actually about Spiritual Disciplines. You know, like prayer and Bible Study and fasting and the like. It won't be so much about what I've learned as it will be about what I'm learning. I'm growing, remember?
Church Leadership - I'm a student of leadership, church leadership specifically, but leadership in general as well. In this category I'll share what I'm learning about leadership as I learn it. I'll probably share my successes and failures at applying what I learn as well.
Bible/Bible Study - While Bible Study is also a Spiritual Discipline, I have it as a separate category because of it's importance (both the importance of Bible Study and the importance of the Bible). I believe it's the most important book in the world and every disciples of Jesus Christ should study it for a lifetime. Jesus Himself, in defining discipleship, said it included teaching the disciple to obey everything He'd commanded. If you don't know the Bible, how can you know what Jesus commanded?
Family - I love my family. I really, really do!! I have a hashtag that I use on social media posts that is #luvmyfamily. I am blessed. I plan to write about them. Nothing that would embarrass them in any way. Well, maybe not too much. But I'm thankful for them and proud of them and I want to share them.
New Hope Christian Church - Not only is this my church, but this is where I work in vocational ministry. I'm thinking, maybe hoping, that some people in the church will become blog readers and I can use this blog as yet another way to communicate about the church.
Heroes & Mentors - This is a very important category to me. Why? Well, I believe in discipleship. I believe in being a disciple and in discipling others. Another word, in my opinion, for discipleship could be mentoring. I have been the beneficiary of some amazing teaching, mentoring and discipleship in my life and I want to share about those that have influenced me whether they knew they were doing it or not. I hope to use this category to encourage others to become disciplers. To build into other people's lives.
One Man's Journey - This will end up being the long version of my personal testimony. This is my journey with Jesus Christ. Let's leave it at that while the category develops.
So there you go. That's what I'm currently doing is this little ole' blog as of 4:49 PM on Wednesday, May 20, 2020.
Dang it!
I just noticed you can't read the names of the categories on the blog site. I'm going to try to fix that.
Bye!
Comments