Bumming on Blogging – Comments on the Medium of Blogging

Bumming on Blogging – Comments on the Medium of Blogging

I woke up this morning questioning why I blog. John Dee at fides quite providentially has asked the same question in his post, “Why Blog”
My 2c

Basically, I love to blog and hate blogging all at the same time.

Why Blog?
I began blogging as another way, like preaching, to have some positive Kingdom influence. I have been asking questions about discipleship and how sanctification works for 15 years, and I desire, through blogging, to create some type of dialogue BUT

The Medium of Blogging
Blogging is a hard medium. Blogging is the most “low attention span” medium imaginable. Bloggers and blog readers are often surfing. Surfing is a great metaphor because it emphasizes the practice of “skimming the surface”. Thus the word surf-ing. Therefore, the best method to blog as a writer is to write in very short, clear, and concise bite size chunks. "Short, clear and concise" I am not!! In blogging especially, one well written paragraph is better than ten poorly written or organized paragraphs. Furthermore, the medium pretty much requires the blogger to write every day. This being part of the blogging medium, the question remains, “Is the medium of blogging good for influencing the church with respect to a topic as complex and thought provoking as discipleship or the 21st Century Reformation?” (i.e. Is blogging good for deep paradigm and worldview transformation?) My answer is NO!!

My Personal Content Problem
I have come to the realization that what I am blogging about is very hard for readers to understand. There are two reasons for this:
1. The nature of blogging as a low attention span, surfing, medium as stated above
2. Because I am not editing and spending enough time making my points just right. I am writing about a paradigm shift or worldview shift and a shift in Christian practice that is both subtle and revolutionary. To communicate, I need to write with more precision.

When I re-read my posts, I often realize there are gaps in the train of thought. I write with a lot of assumptions in mind. I have found blogging to be great for keeping the ideas flowing, BUT my content isn’t well understood by readers in draft form!!!

For what I, as a blogger, desire to do, I need to write more in an academic journal type format. Blogging isn’t so good a medium for academic writing. Nonetheless, I like to blog even though I believe that it is possible that blogging is not the medium to accomplish the goal I desire. So why blog??

I blog because I have an insatiable desire to write. I am going to continue to blog for the sake of writing as an end in itself even if I need to accomplish the kingdom goals I have in another medium. Ultimately, blogging helps me get the ideas out and flowing.

So the medium and I are having a bit of a rocky relationship this week.

Bumming on blogging in Sunny Southern California
God Bless,
brad