On Blogmunity

I don't mean to make a series of it, but I was asked if I was going to do another blog on blogging. I didn't plan on it, but I did have some thoughts on the blog virus that is going around.

This blogmunity we have going on is pretty sweet. I can click from my own blog to Aaron's blog and then down the link list to get updates, stories, and news from a lot of my friends. I thank the inventors of Blogger for ushering in another form of communication, but I don't want it to be just that. I don't want it to be a clique of blogs that are collections of inside jokes and stories. First time visitors don't stay at a blog for one second after they realize they can't relate to the author's blogs, stories, and opinions. I know, because when I get to a blog and feel that, I leave right away.

Confession time...

When I noticed new blogs by Collin and Ryan my mind started running and I thought, wouldn't it be cool if somehow we all were super devoted to this community of blogs and we used this platform to present ideas to believers and non-believers about faith, social justice, politics, evangelism, organized religion, and whatever else we would like to write about? Yes, it would be cool. It would take a lot of devotion. I mean a lot of devotion. It wouldn't get off the ground without one post every couple of days from every one of us. And that would be the bare minimum. I was setting the bar high. The reality is that most of us don't have the time or that kind of commitment to blogs. I wish it were there, but it isn't.

If our community doesn't become that, then I want at the least, for it to be a place where we share our experiences and opinions in an accesible way so that strangers keep on reading when they get to one of our blogs. I wrote to a friend and said that the biggest reason I don't consider my blog on the same level as a mass email is because I want strangers to read it. I want most of my posts to be about issues that people can relate and react to. Any people, not just my friends. If we aren't open to more than our inner circle in our blogs than there is no blogmunity. Exclusion will thrive and we will have squandered a great opportunity to spread the love that we all treasure. Like Rob Bell writes in Velvet Elvis, if we aren't spreading the good news, there is no good news, and I see our blogs as another medium for us to do exactly that.