This blog is a great example of irony, so bear with me. It’s been some time since I blogged last. I’m not sure exactly why, well, that’s not entirely true. I know exactly why but it feels better to refrain from self-deprecation for at least one more sentence. 
The truth is I stopped blogging because I could feel myself becoming idolatrous about it. Mind you, this is not because there are fifteen thousand (or even 15) of people waiting on and worshiping every word I write (Sadly, takes far fewer for my dark heart). No, it has little to do with anyone else but me. The more I wrote blogs, the more I began to feel myself overwhelmed with concern about what others thought. I’d check the blog, Facebook, or twitter wasting hour upon hour counting views, waiting for comments, and reveling in my own personal cleverness. Perhaps I am the only “blogger” that suffers from pride in this way. I doubt it. From what I read, it seems like more than a few pastors have the same problem with Twitter–you know, the great competition to see who can state deepest truths in 14o characters or less.
But what had begun as something cathartic, degenerated into something rather burdensome. I felt pressure to write something everyday, to proclaim something original, to stand out among all the noise of our technologically saturated culture or be dismissed as insignificant. By who, I’m not exactly sure, perhaps it is that person at our church or, more likely, that person shopping for one. My perverted perspective caused me to see everything wrong. At its worse, I began to view a “successful” blog NOT as one in which I was led by the Spirit to share, but one that had been “shared” by someone on Facebook, twitter, or the like.
So, somewhat disgusted with myself, I stopped completely because I could sense blogging, tweeting, and perhaps other forms of “proclamation” becoming less motivated by what God was doing in my heart, and more about what I wanted him to see him do in the hearts others. I am not decrying the evils of blogging, rather, I am declaring my firm belief in the doctrine of sin. That is the way sin works, taking the good things that God gives us, and making us cherish them in bad ways.
So, not that anyone has noticed my relative silence OR been waiting for my next greatest original thought (not that I’ve ever had one), I am starting to blog again. Partially it is because I love to write, and partially it is because with the planting of Communion Church, I have a lot to share. Not only do I pray that I will write in a way always bring God glory (especially from a heart level), but that God will continue to sanctify me whether I succeed or fail to do so.
