In the years I've been blogging, I have encountered more than a few people who, upon learning that I have a blog, tell me, "I tried blogging. But I dropped it because no one ever seemed to read it."
When I probe a bit, it almost always turns out that what these former bloggers did was put up a blog, write posts, and wait for readers to appear. Of course those of us who are--for want of a better word--"successful" bloggers, know that this is not how it works. You have to go visiting. You have to read other blogs and leave comments. You have to read and comment on the blogs of those who read and comment on your blog. You have to join blog rings. If you want your blog to generate really interesting conversations, you have to read and comment on blogs written by people outside your own usual circle of friends and colleagues. In short, you have to put yourself out there.
I'll freely admit that there are times I don't do this. I get busy, tired, etc. and post infrequently and inanely. I stop visiting unfamiliar blogs and stick with my dozen or so favorites. Without fail, when I go through a spell like this, traffic to my own blog slows down.
I think I see a parallel between this reality and church. Most churches--my own included--would much rather just put stuff up and wait for the world to arrive at our doorstep. The time-consuming and more complicated process of putting ourselves out there and really engaging is harder, unfamiliar, more unquantifiable. So we just don't do it.
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8 comments:
This is a really, really good parallel!
It's excellent, I agree.
Smart analogy.
I'd go even further and say this seems to be the way of a lot of the world now too!
what they said--excellent analogy...
too true
presby gals comment is a good one and makes me remember -- it used to bother me that churches seemed to have to "niche market" themselves-- at least that's how I understood it. This post suggests a different way to look at that -- more of a "putting it out there" in a way that understand from my writing -- when I submit to contests I can't reasonably expect to win, read and comment on writing-related blogs, research agents, etc -- it's all activity that is purposeful but not a straight connect-the-dot to success. Which in a sense is what the church must do with bringing the gospel to the world. Gosh this is a long comment!
Great analogy!
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