I am just an average guy writing about the stuff of life that gets me excited, makes me think, or keeps my attention for longer than two minutes. A geek at heart, I love to learn, and am always looking toward the future.
— UPDATE (3/5/10, 4:45 pPM): Everything seems to be working right now. Let me know if you run into any issues. —
I’ve been trying to work out some problems with my blog for the past day. You may not even ever see this post, but just wanted to put something up that hopefully will show up on the front page.
Image by flickr user jmarty.
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In my Bible reading today, I read a verse that I believe proves that God indeed does have a sense of humor. Check out the pic of Exodus 34:1 below.
The part that makes me think God is ribbing Moses here are the words “which you broke.” God seems to be saying, “Ok, Moses. You had your little temper tantrum the other day, remember? I gave you two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them. You know, the rules that will be the foundation on which all of future civilizations’ laws will be based and you decided to chunk them down on the ground because you were mad. Way to go big guy.” (Don’t quote me on the above quote of God, please. I’m pretty sure those words are not inspired by the Holy Spirit).
What do you think? Does God have a sense of humor or not? What other verses prove it one way or another?
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I just saw this over at Tony Stewad’s posterous and it blew me away. There are so many intricate details that came together to pull it off. It kind of reminds me of my younger brother‘s homemade videos playing with dominoes, but at a completely different level.
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Yesterday marked the start of another blogging endeavor for me. Rocky Hernandez and I officially (re)launched ProductiveMinistry.com. What does that mean for this blog? Not a whole lot, other than I’ll probably be shifting away from posting ministry-related blog posts on this blog.
If you’re in ministry, either professionally or as a volunteer, I highly recommend clicking on over to the blog. We’ll be adding a lot more content in every week. You can also connect with PM by subscribing to the RSS feed, following on Twitter, or becoming a fan on facebook.
Take a look then comment either here or there or on Twitter. Any feedback is truly appreciated.
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I think everyone who has a blog goes through stages in his or her blogging. Inevitably a blogger hits a wall. The inspiration to write disappears and you feel like you don’t really have anything valuable to offer the blogosphere. I hit that wall this past year big time, but over the past couple weeks I’ve been blogging more regularly. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned a few lessons about how blog traffic fluctuates right along with how frequently you write. Here they are.
Take a look at the above graphic. It’s a chart from Google Analytics of the visits to my blog over the past 30 days. See the peak right in the middle? That’s the day I decided to get back into regular blogging and posted three new posts that day. I linked to the posts from my twitter and facebook accounts and traffic jumped. It jumped quite a bit, in fact.
You can also see over the week or so that followed there was a drop off again. It lines up perfectly with a fall off of blogging again. For some reason I had thought that my bump in traffic would keep up. It didn’t If you want more readers you have to write more.
One of the posts I did this past month was about Ed Young, pastor at Fellowship Church, and the news story that the local ABC affiliate ran about his salary. That post generated a comment from a person I’m pretty sure I don’t personally know. Also, my blog is the number seven Google search result for Ed Young salary and number eight for mega churches in Dallas. Those stats won’t really general much long term traffic, I think, but it does show that hot topics, either nationally or locally, will bump your traffic.
Those are just a few things I’ve learned over the past month in blogging. What are some tips you have about generating traffic to your blog? Share in the comments.
You can also find a lot tips in Darren Rowse and Chris Garret‘s great book on blogging ProBlogger. I’ve read it and highly recommend picking one up if you’re interested in becoming a better blogger.
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Sometimes a normal, seemingly every day encounter can teach you an important life lesson. The other day Brea (my wife) had asked me go by Taco Bell for dinner and, since she’s over six months pregnant, she gets what she wants. She couldn’t remember if she liked the Gordita or Chalupa better, so she described what it was like then I went straight to the Taco Bell Drive-Thru.
As I pulled up to order, I asked the guy on the other side of the speaker if he could describe to me what a gordita is. His reply: “It’s a Gordita.” You may be shocked, but that didn’t really help me on my quest to get my preggers wife the exact item of food she desired, so I pressed further. “Ok, what kind of shell does it have?” “A gordita shell” was his response. At this point I started to wonder if I was really just dumb, since apparently everyone else in the world knows exactly what a gordita is. I attempted once more to get a little more information about this elusive delicacy by asking, “Could you describe it some for me?” His reply, “It’s a taco inside a gordita shell.” So I just said, “Ok, I’ll take one” and hoped that this would satisfy the woman carrying my second child in her womb.
I worked the drive-through at Chick-Fil-A in high school and college, so I know how hard it is to communicate over the intercom, but I left there feeling like the cashier could have done a little better in his explanations of the gordita. I probably could have asked better questions, too. Thankfully, Brea was happy with the gordita, so I didn’t have to make another Run for the Border.
This encounter reminded me of one of the concepts that really stuck out when I read the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath called “The Curse of Knowledge.” Here’s an excerpt of what Chip & Dan wrote about it:
“Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has ‘cursed’ us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”
An example they gave in the book was a test that was done where people would tap out a popular song for another person to guess what the song was. The songs were common ones like “The Star Spangled Banner” or “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.” It would seem like that would be really easy to guess one of those songs if you heard it being tapped out, but it’s really not. If you don’t believe me, try it out with someone.
This encounter did make me wonder about how preachers and teachers in the church do the same thing. How often do we talk about things like grace, fellowship, mercy, forgiveness, and repentance assuming that everyone knows exactly what we mean by each of these terms? Once you know what these terms mean it’s really hard to refer to them as anything else, but if you don’t know what they are you’ll probably be lost.
Thank you, Mr. Taco Bell Drive-Thru Dude, for an important reminder to communicate with people in a way that they will understand.
Where have you seen or heard the curse of knowledge in your everyday life?
Gordita image courtesy of flickr user The Canyon Guru.
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I tend to read mostly non-fiction, leadership, or personal development books in my personal reading. So when Brea (my wife) and about half a dozen other people suggested that I read Same Kind of Different as Me, I hesitated. While the book is non-fiction, it’s more of a biography than anything else. I wasn’t sure if I’d really enjoy the book that much.
Let me tell you this: If you have not yet read this book, do yourself a favor and add it to you reading list. I got through it in about three sessions (albeit LONG ones). It captured my attention, my mind, and my emotions. The authors draw you into their lives and tug at your heart. It’s a story of transformation, compassion, and forgiveness. The main characters’ lives are extremely different, but they are drawn together through what can best be considered God’s will.
The main thing I took away from this book is that I need to step out of my comfortable bubble and start loving people who are different than me with the tangible love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Also, when I do this, I need to do it not because I’m better than anyone else (I’m not) or because others need it (they do), but because people matter. All people. People who may seem different than me, but really are the same.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?
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