Blogging for the Glory of God

I came across http://trintyulc.blogspot.com/

Actually, I came across it because my dad writes it and he left a comment on one of my blogs. His comment lead me to look at his Google profile and I discovered that he does the TULC blog.

By the way... is a "Blog" an individual entry ... or is a "Blog" the whole group of entries? I think it is the whole group of entries, although I use the term both ways. You will have to pay attention to my context to know which I am talking about.

One thing I started this whole blog with was a bit of wonderment on why I should blog. http://blog.ericshepard.com/2005/06/blogging.html

I guess what it comes down to is that it is an easy way (at least Google's implementation of it) to distribute information. It is easier to put in a Blog entry than to update a website. And it automatically keeps a running history of what you say. Easy, but dangerous. You have to watch what you say or you might give someone more information than you want to give them.

And really, how important a blog is really comes down to how it is used. How useful or interesting or entertaining is the information being blogged about is really the measure of how good a blog is. Mine sucks.

I think using a blog for "Glory of our God" (http://trintyulc.blogspot.com/2007/10/trinity-united-lutheran-church-blog.html) is a great use for a blog. Unfortunately, based on the number of entries in there, my guess is that it is under utilized. My guess is lots of people in the church never go there and read what is there, so the author probably does not feel a huge motivation to keep it up to date. Really, what should happen in a church-blog situation (in my opinion) is that there should be a team of people who work on the blog and keep it up-to-date and it could be advertised every Sunday in the church bulletin. Ideally, anyone in the church should be allowed to add to the blog. You would probably need an editor of some sort, but as long as you have a group of people with a common interest and do not abuse the "power" of sharing information, why not let everyone participate? And, why not participate? Faith and religion just based on its philosophical nature lend themselves to great thought-provoking discussions. Although, they also can lead to emotional fights and disagreements (thus the need for an editor).

Anyway, a church blog is a great use of blogging. Much better than what I use this one for.

I tried a similar idea for my wife's family reunion: http://blog.trashfund.com/. Similar in that we had a group of people with a common interest and that everyone was invited to use. It did get used (less than I thought it should have been used, but more than I expected) . I offered everyone in the family access. Probably about half the families actually posted to it. It sent out an email of each post, so I do not know how many people actually read the blog as opposed to just read the emails, but I think it was pretty well used during the time leading up to the event.

Now, everyone is still invited to post stuff, but no one has. Well I have and my wife has, but no one else. It will probably start to get used the next time everyone wants to get together for a reunion (probably 2010). All in all, I think the great "Trash Blog" experiment was a success. Everyone else probably thinks it was stupid, but I think it worked out well.

Part of the reason this blog sucks is that it really has no defined purpose. My blogs basically range all over the place. Very few people in the world are interested in the the same exact things that I am interested about. And some of the things I write in here are not even that interesting to me. Probably about 60% of the time, blogging is just a way to take up time while I'm sitting on the light rail. The church blog has a purpose ... talk about topics that are useful or interesting to members of the church. The Trash Blog had a purpose, distribute and log information about an upcoming event. My blog is just a brain dump from one of the most un-interesting people in the world. And some of the most interesting things about me are things that I am reluctant to share with the whole world. Status of my Auction Automations company, for instance, we are going through an interesting negotiation which I cannot share because it is confidential at this point. Plus, potentially there are some interesting things I could share that would put us in a potentially disadvantageous negotiating position. Actually, that is not all that interesting either. But you probably get the picture. I'm just boring.

By the way... I just got some interesting news about one of my businesses that makes me happy. It is something I cannot really share on a blog. And perhaps it is just interesting to me.

Anyway, blog away.