My Blog's 1-Year Birthday
This week marks one year since I launched LeadingSmart.com and began blogging.
Okay, not really. My first blog was actually in October 2000 when I had a travel blog while on a trip smuggling Bibles into China. Then, in Fall 2004 I had a construction blog outlining the progress on our auditorium expansion. In the summers of 2005 and 2006, I kept a vacation blog of our cross-country family road trips.
But one year ago...on July 11, 2006...I became a serious blogger.
On my team, I was pretty late to the game. Tony and Mark both began in April 2005, and Kem started the following month in May 2005. Jason Powell had us all beat, starting in February 2005.
But I needed time to watch. To process. To see if it was what I wanted to do. I was skeptical. In fact, my very first post listed all the "Reasons I Haven't Blogged Until Now."
It was a post by Mark Batterson in February of 2006 that convinced me to begin the journey. In fact, I realized at that point that I would be wrong if I didn't blog.
It came down to five issues for me...
- Stewardship of Information - God has given me so many opportunities and has taught me so much. I decided I would be wrong not to pass that along to help others.
- Stewardship of Time - I can't possibly answer all the questions or emails that come in from other church leaders while keeping integrity with my church and family. Blogging allows me to answer a question once and then refer others to it.
- A Passion for Writing -- My thoughts rarely come out verbally in an intelligible fashion unless they have first been written. As I write, I become a better communicator.
- Journaling -- In Jeremiah 31 it says, "Set up roadsigns, put up guideposts. Mark well the path by which you came." Blogging gives me a way to track the goodness of God and the journey I have traveled.
- Personal Growth -- Blogging makes me a better leader. It keeps me humble. Just as preaching keeps the preaching always learning, blogging has kept me on the learning edge of leadership.
I'm guessing some of you are lurkers. You haven't started blogging yet, but you've felt the prompting. Go for it. Jump in. Don't believe the lie that you don't have anything worth reading. If you've been alive more than a couple of years, then you have a life experience that is worth sharing. And there are people out there that would benefit from reading it. Start today!