(My post was originally published as part of the Big Bible’s DigiDisciple initiative.)
Christians who are digital natives will, quite possibly, encounter two ministries of the Word each week–the Sunday sermon and Christian blogs.
A bad sermon tells you what you should do. It lays down the law. Your shoulders hunch when you hear you should give more to pet projects, pray more, read your Bible more, love more. More, more, more.
* * *
Now, who in their right minds, would come to blogs to be told what to do? Not I.
Like everyone else, I know what to do, you see. The trouble is the doing of it. As Portia says in The Merchant of Venice
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching.
do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching.
* * *
The effective Christian blogger, the digital disciple, ministers the word, but without overt preaching. She has to.
She does not have the preacher’s advantages: the captive audience, the theology degree, the automatic respect.
And so, she must be winsome. Like the poet of old who beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with interpretations, but cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion–and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner (Sir Philip Sidney. Apology for Poetry).
While our intention might be to bless, trust is not instantly handed to us. Yeats wishes for his daughter,
“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned.”
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned.”
So too for the blogger: trust is not had as a gift, but trust is earned.
How? Paradoxically, by sharing our weaknesses, rather than our strengths.
A blogger could tell us of hours in prayer, scripture study, fasts, watchings, and we will feel tired, one more To Do.
But tell us how the Christian life really plays out: how you can snarl at those who delay you on your way to worship God on Sundays; how you can feel maddened by noise during your lovely quiet times; how you knew someone was gossiping at prayer request time but asked a curious question in the guise of concern; how you medicate yourself with chocolate rather than Scripture, because, let’s be realistic, it’s quicker. How you love Scripture and prayer, but sometimes find them boring; how you love Christ and love your children, but, frankly, find this whole Proverbs 31 business hugely overrated!
And because we too have visited those shadowlands, we’ll laugh, and we’ll believe you.
And then, when you tell us of prayer, visions, revelations, high altitude glories, we’ll believe you too, because you have earned our trust when you told us of the muck and mud, the disgraces and breakthroughs which are the Christian life.
While the preacher shares the conclusions, the QED of the theorem of faith, the personal Christian blogger, the confessional blogger, shares the process—the falls, the slipping backward, the rare raptures.
* * *
Above all, she tells a story. A story unique in that no one–not the author, not the readers–no one but God himself, knows how it going to end. And as she tells it, she understands it better: the story of her own life.
It’s a story which can be read in multiple ways. Very post-modern! She may think it’s a straight narrative, but there are at least four narratives, mirroring the four quadrants of human personality:
1. The things we know about ourselves, and everyone else knows.
2. The things we know about ourselves, but no one else guesses, and we would die rather than confess.
3. The things which are glaringly obvious to everyone else, but which we are oblivious to. Bloggers, despite themselves, make these dreadful revelations about themselves—unwittingly revealing their emotional contours, their prejudices, their fears, their secret patches of pride, shame and sensitivity. Many personal blogs can be decoded by an alert reader. Anyone who chronicles the ongoing story of their personal or spiritual lives on the web makes these unconscious revelations, and must make peace with this.
4. The last quadrant, is the vast, deep submerged world of buried potential–the heights of love and nobility to which we are capable of rising; the depths to which we are capable of sinking; talents and abilities unguessed at, save by the Creator, who alone knows how it is all going to end, and, I like to think, reads the unspooling account of our spiritual and actual lives on our blogs with interest, tenderness, and not a little amusement!
Anita Mathias says
September 7, 2012 at 5:57 pmThanks, Debra. Perhaps its the raw honesty that convinces people that they can trust us, that we are telling the truth, when we talk about the highs, and almost “preach.”
And perhaps Christ who knows the truth about us likes it too!!
Debra Seiling says
September 6, 2012 at 3:39 pmDear Anita,
Your post makes me really think. As a Christian blogger as well, I think that it's the vulnerable honesty that you mention, that attracts the reader to the blog. It is my desire, that this will help readers be able to better relate to the God and the Bible in their lives on a regular basis. Debbie Seiling http://bible-passages.blogspot.com
Anita says
November 5, 2011 at 11:08 pmHi Rhoda, Yes, I fully realize how hard it is for a pastor's wife to be honest. A friend, whose book you've read Susan B. who is also a pastor's wife once told me how hard it was. She once confided in a friend that she was not happy, and the “friend” told the elders of the church that she was in the wrong place, or else she would be happy.
As a pastor or pastor's wife you never know when people will turn against you. It's a negative of being in a place where people expect too much of you (friendship, perfection) are hurt when they don't get it, and also use you to further their own agendas. It's rough, but, of course, it has its advantages:)
Rhoda says
November 5, 2011 at 10:05 pmThanks Anita for the advice and encouragement 🙂 I do worry about being personal, partly because I don't want to make it too much about me, partly because I've never been too fond of the online journal kind of blog, and partly because of being a pastor's wife and needing to be careful what I say! But I also see what you are saying and recognise the truth of it – as I don't particularly like the plain bible study kind of blog as if I wanted that I would go listen to a sermon or read a commentary! Anyway I have taken what you said into account and will try and be a little more personal, and really appreciate the advice 🙂
Anita says
November 1, 2011 at 6:58 pm@Nancy. Thanks. It must have been because of my cultural and Catholic background that I assumed that priests have automatic respect.
Anita says
November 1, 2011 at 6:52 pm@ Rhoda, You have some excellent posts on Dwelling in the Shadow of God, Idolatry, Gluttony and renewing strength for instance. We all have to blog the way we can, and not the way we can't. That said, being a little more personal, sharing HOW you came to the brilliant and accurate insights you share would add to the interest of the blog for us, and be therapeutic for you, perhaps. I have a feeling that we cruise the internet looking for a story as much as for inspiration. So much of Scripture is told in terms of a story, because that is how we remember things. We remember the lessons on forgiveness in Joseph's story, because of the gripping story. And now I am talking to myself, not to you. For instance, I was about to publish my post on curses when I stopped and asked, “So why am I interested in this?” And then I realised I had left a whole story untold.
Your blog's lovely, though sharing more of the real Rhoda would add even more to its interest. Though it's a lovely mature, polished blog as it is:)
Nancy Wallace says
October 31, 2011 at 6:10 pmGood post. As someone who both preaches and blogs, I don't agree that preachers have automatic respect – I think much of what you say about Christian blogging could also apply to preaching e.g. trust has to be earned and one way this happens is by being authentic including where appropriate sharing weakness or struggle, presenting questions without answers rather than neat conclusions.
Rhoda says
October 31, 2011 at 3:19 pmFascinating and scary stuff! As I read your post at first my heart dropped and I thought, 'Oh no, I'm one of those people that no-one wants to read!'. But then you mentioned medicating yourself with chocolate, and I thought, 'Hmm well I think I have mentioned that so maybe I'm OK' 🙂 Number 3 is a bit worrying!! But then I guess we need to work on humility too, though if no-one ever tells us our errors we might never know… Love your last line, I agree that God probably is quite amused by some of what we write 🙂