Seven Benefits of Christian Blogging

There have been a few real pluses that stand out to me when I think about the benefits of blogging with other Christians.

1 – Interacting with people of varying levels of faith and maturity. It is also great helping someone not as far along in their Christian journey and maturity. It is equally beneficial being aided by those whose insights, maturity, and faith have far outpaced my own.

2 – It is great to be connected with people from all over the world. I always wonder who the people are who come back week after week from China, South Africa, Lithuania, the Philippines, South America, and just about any other place you can name. It reminds me of just how wide and diverse the body of Christ really is and how diverse heaven is going to be.

3 – Keeping up with family and friends. There are several of you I have known for a long time that without blogging I would have a hard time keeping up with. Friendship is a dialog and a conversation and takes two-way communication. So I value and cherish your input, comments, and emails. You really make me smile.

4 – Keeping a record of thoughts, photos, and videos over a long period of time. Kingdom living has served as a wonderful database for me to look back on a variety of topics and information. There have been many times I knew I had written something or someone had made a comment that I wanted to go back and re-read. Again, your comments have been a great treasure to me!

5 – Indexing and cataloging of outside resources. What I mean by that is that blogging allows a huge interconnection of various people and the information, stories, and resources they have built up over a long period of time. There is a HUGE wealth of resources in the blogging community that would be non-existent without this type of user-generated content that blogging provides.

6 – An even playing field. I love how blogging sort of levels the playing field. I know there are still experts who blog like Scot McKnight or Ben Witherington III. But google doesn’t know if you have a Ph.D. It is great that you can personally generate content that becomes accessible to the whole world. That can also be a dangerous thing! That really tempers my words and thoughts as I choose them carefully. It also reminds me to write with kindness, grace, and respect.

7 – Sharpening. There is a real sharpening or winnowing experience as a post is published, the comments come in, and people begin bouncing their views off of each other. Some times our thoughts become more solidified as we are forced to back up what we say. Other times we realize just how weak and ill-formed our thoughts were when we try to back it up. Either way the result is normally very healthy.

What benefits have you found in blogging with other Christians? How has blogging helped you to be a better Christian?