The Cost of Blogging

Last week, I received an e-mail from a reader that told a discouraging tale. The reader explained that the story might one day become a blog post. The reasoning? It might prove a cautionary tale to help others avoid a similar situation.

I cautioned against sharing it.

I caution a lot of bloggers anymore. Too many of us have an idealized view of how the world works. In addition, none of us is prescient enough to understand what the world will become. We believe an innocent activity will always stay innocent. People can be trusted with your confession and mine.

I’ve been blogging since 2001. I had a blog before Cerulean Sanctum that dealt with the tendency in our society toward lowest common denominator thinking and action. I still write in Cerulean Sanctum about that fatal flaw, but not quite as much. Bigger fish to fry, as they say.

As I enter my seventh year of blogging, I’ve accumulated some painful lessons.

Blogging is an essentially naked enterprise. You can’t blog for any length of time and not post personal information. Even on a site like Engadget or Lifehacker, blogs that look at what’s happening in the world of electronic gizmos or discuss ways to make your day-to-day living more efficient in a hectic world, the blog owners reveal personal details bit by bit. In many ways, your blog is you.

Godblogs go one step further in that the very nature of talking about faith exposes the talker on an intimate level. We’ve all heard the aphorism that polite company resists talk of religion and politics. Blogging, on the other hand, delights in discussing the raw truths and lies that occupy the core of what we are as a society and as individuals.

And there is much danger in this. Danger that we ignore at our peril.

1. Google has a long, vast memory – I can find material on Google that I posted to Usenet newsgroups 20 years ago. Little did I know that someone would one day collect all that data and store it forever. Google bought up the archives of Remarq and DejaNews and now you can find what I said on alt.rec.music.christian circa 1987.

When I typed that Usenet comment, did I ever dream that someone in Singapore 2007 would use a “Web browser” to access a “search engine” to reference something I said around the time that “Walk Like an Egyptian” was the #1 song in America?

Truth is, I should have known better.

Today, Google (and whatever search engine will replace it one day—hey, Alta Vista, anyone?) is cataloging what you blog almost as fast as you blog it. All your personal revelations are being stored on a massive conglomeration of RAID-arrayed hard drives for access by anyone who wants to know about you now and in the future.

Just the other day, a client asked me to interview a businessman. I sent a brief note asking the businessman what time he might be available. I later called him. In the course of conversation, he asked me about my organic farm. I was stunned. How did he know I had an organic farm? Simple—he’d googled my name and read what I’d written online.

While that should be obvious, it’s still startling when it occurs. What’s more startling is that people are beginning to default to that behavior. Singles google prospective dates. And businesses google prospective employees.

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article that described in great detail how employers are bypassing the old-fashioned means of getting info on an employee and going right to Google. So if you’d like to work for Microsoft, but a youthful indiscretion a small eternity ago led you to post on your Web site a pic of Bill Gates as a Borg clone (possibly with added devil horns to ensure your mixed-metaphorical point), it doesn’t matter how much you fawn over Microsoft products today. You may need to stick a fork in yourself.

Even personal Web sites or blogs you had years ago that are now offline or deleted are stored in sites like the Wayback Machine at Archive.org. You press that Submit or Publish button and your little comment is now one for the ages.

As Christians, we need to be highly concerned about where this is leading. Non-sectarian employers, by law, cannot ask us about our religious or other closely held beliefs. But no one can stop them from googling us and finding our less-than-positive article blog post about Zoroastrianism or homosexuality or even Fiat automobiles. When your potential boss, a closeted Zoroastrian who loves Italian cars with a passion (even the crummy ones), googles your name and finds your opinion on your blog, what chance do you have of working for that guy? Zippo. And the worst part of it is he doesn’t have to prod you for that info or give his real reason for not hiring you. It all stays very hush-hush.

If you’re a blogger, you must consider these things. We may think there is no cost, but one exists. The Church in the West has not accounted for this phenomenon, but it will need to. As anti-Christian sentiment continues to rise around the world, we must be prepared to help those who pay a price for speaking the truth. I can tell you right now that there are people reading this blog who have been discriminated against by search engine. Expect it to get worse.

2. Stalking – Stories are starting to come out about bloggers being threatened with violence because of something they wrote. Some bloggers have even acquired stalkers. That may sound far-fetched, but I’ve spoken with a few bloggers who told me stories I didn’t want to believe.

We live in a sin-sick world. People exist who derive strange feelings from their interactions with others online, and bloggers are not immune to their dysfunctions. It’s no longer just celebrities who attract deranged people.

We need to run a constant filter on the content we put out in public. While it may be true that we can’t account for every trigger for every off person out there, we must be wiser on this issue. Even now, I’m reconsidering some of the content I’ve placed online.

3. Blogging can be an addiction – While there are fewer personal journal blogs percentage-wise than a few years ago, they still exist. And even if a blogger doesn’t use his or her blog as an online diary, it can still take on a life of its own.

Some bloggers can’t walk away. The thought that their hit counters start going down if they don’t post for a few days leads to despair. Some live out their entire lives online and the thought of anything happening to what they’ve built up becomes a crushing load that keeps them writing and writing and writing. And that writing often comes to the detriment of their spiritual lives and the lives of other family members.

Here’s a hard blogging truth: readers are fickle. As much as I love my readers and have some of the best readers in the blogosphere, reality is reality. I had to reference a post from a few years back and only one commenter out of about thirty on that post still comments. C’est la vie! If you’re constantly living in fear that you can’t hold folks, then get out today. You have to have another reason for blogging than numbers and their faithfulness to you.

***

I could say a lot more on this topic. I haven’t touched on the social network sites and how they are being used in nefarious ways, too. Life online is more dangerous than we think. More and more people are going to scratch their heads and wonder why they didn’t get a job they were perfect for or why supposed friends stopped calling. Information is power and the Web is pure information. Those who know how to tap its resources hold considerable sway over us.

I may be giving away my age (and it might be used against me <grin>), but I remember a line from a famous TV show that applies to this issue: Hey people, let’s be careful out there.

Also see:

The Google Persecution

100 Truths in 30 Years with Christ

'The Thinker' by Auguste Rodin This year (2007) marks my 30-year anniversary of coming to Christ. I met Him at a Lutheran camp on a confirmation retreat weekend. Even to this day, I can remember much of that evening.

I’ve kept my eyes, ears, and spirit open over that time, storing away what I’ve learned. Obviously, what I share here isn’t the sum total of all I’ve learned, just some basic truths God taught me that inform my every day.

I hope these observation get you thinking and praying. Most of all, I pray that they are a blessing that brings lasting fruit for the Kingdom. Thanks for being a reader.

In no particular order…

Love God. Love people. It’s that simple.
Anytime we interact with another person, we should ask the Lord, In what ways can I help this person grow closer to You?
Christians who take time to observe the world around them see God and gain wisdom.
The most worthy lessons of the Kingdom take the entirety of one’s life to fully learn.
You are never more alone than in an unfriendly church.
God could directly feed the widows and the orphans with manna from heaven, but He instead chose us in the Church to bake the bread through the resources He’s already given us and then distribute it.
The world is tired of hearing Christians talk about the Gospel; they want to see it actually lived.
In the end, nothing in life satisfies but Jesus.
It’s a terrible indictment against men and young people in the American Church that old women are praying most of the intercessory prayers.
Always lead with love. Love should precede every act we perform in the name of Christ and love should be the finale.
Small home groups are fantastic for relationship-building, prayer, and sharing, but usually not the best venue for serious Bible study (especially if they’re co-ed).
Admonish an adult once, perhaps twice, then turn the issue over to the Lord in prayer. Never hound people.
We won’t find ourselves transformed, much less change the world, if we pray less than an hour a day.
Most Evangelicals have little or no understanding of the Holy Spirit.
The American Church needs to learn a truth Ben Franklin uttered at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must all hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”
Too many Evangelicals long to see Jesus thrash those they view as heretics rather than help them come to a better understanding of truth.
One of the most easily seen fruits in mature Christians is that they pray for people who oppose them rather than complain about them.
A simple truth we constantly forget: Do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
If all other aspects of Sunday meetings were removed, prayer would be the one untouchable, yet we spend less time doing it in our meetings than anything else.
The mature Christian is more concerned with being loving all the time than being correct all the time.
Each of use should know our neighbors’ names and the names of their children. We should also know their birthdays, if possible, because the card we send might be the only one they receive. And that’s a powerful witness.
It is a sign of our trustworthiness as Christians that other people seek us out when they need help. If that’s not the case, then something is wrong with our witness.
There is no shame in confessing a need, especially before fellow believers. That’s one reason why the Church exists.
Many of Evangelicalism’s most intractable problems would vanish if we adopted the confessional booth.
We must start seeing discipleship in terms of an entire lifespan and not what we can accomplish in the moment.
Preaching is most effective when it’s lived by the preacher.
We do a great disservice to families in our churches when we split them up the second they hit the lobby.
If we wish to see the American Church be all She can be, then let’s welcome persecution.
A youth minister’s primary responsibility isn’t to teens directly but to their parents. A good youth minister teaches parents how to teach their own teens, leaving the bulk of the responsibility to them.
The way we so easily judge people offends the One who said, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”
We are too obsessed with heretics and not concerned enough with understanding what their heresy says about our own shortcomings and failures.
It costs us nothing to judge others, but an enormous amount to walk beside them and help them grow.
Bible study works best when led by highly-trained, Scripturally-knowledgeable people who have lived what they believe.
Busyness is crippling the effectiveness of the American Church, but no one wants to fix the root causes because doing so would call into question the very nature of our modern society.
True love is laying down our plans and schedules to help a person in need.
One of the worst things a Christian can be is unteachable.
God never rescinded His first command to Man: Steward the Earth.
The man who recognizes the goodness of God in nature and sees Christ in the stranger has the more complete theology.
A man is only as deep as his prayer life.
A message every church in America should learn: You never have to advertise a fire.
The more we restrict God in what He can and will do, the more He’ll honor that restriction.
The Holy Spirit is a gentleman; He only shows up where He’s gratefully invited.
Our neighbors should know that our houses are always open to them.
Love truly does cover a multitude of sins.
If we haven’t died at the cross, we’re worthless to the Kingdom.
Who we are in secret is a better gauge of our spiritual maturity than who we are in public.
Not seeng results in prayer? Better check how grateful we are to God for the little things He gives us.
We never know enough of someone else’s story to judge them perfectly. Better to listen carefully, then admonish…carefully.
No great, wise saint of God started out that way. We never know at what stage we meet one of those future saints, so we must always be gracious when interacting with others.
The perfect recipe for helping someone grow in Christ: Six parts love to every one part admonition.
God makes all things beautiful in His time, not ours.
If there were no people, there would be no reason for the Gospel.
If we are unwilling to help others work through the admonitions we give them, we should instead remain silent.
On Judgment Day, God will be far less concerned with how well we knew the Scriptures than how we practiced what we knew.
Too much of what we supposedly do for the Kingdom comes from the arm of flesh, not from the power of the Spirit.
There’s no reason each of us can’t lead at least one person a year to Christ.
Most churches never once consider what it feels like to be an outsider, which is why so few visitors take root.
Most of the West has heard about Jesus (even if they’ve heard incorrectly), which is why our practice of our message is as vital as our pronouncement of it.
A person may have perfect doctrine and a form of religion, but if he doesn’t care about his neighbor, it’s all for naught.
The reason we learn the Scriptures is to be equipped for every good work.
The more tender my heart is toward the least of these, the more tender it is toward God—and vice versa.
We minister best from the overflow of our Spirit-filled hearts, not from being poured out until empty.
For some reason, we stopped making heaven the ultimate destination.
Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.
We make an idol of the nuclear family if we raise it above the needs of the household of Faith.
If a fellow Christian has a financial need, forget about buying that plasma TV. And remember this: someone is always in need.
The first thing the new Church did after being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was to see that no one among them lacked for anything.
Fear drives almost all human failings. The opposite of fear is love.
You can tell the effectiveness of a church’s discipling program by noting how many of the leadership staff came from within.
A king’s ambassador, when sojourning in a foreign land, is the full representative of the king and wields his complete power and authority. Never forget that we are Christ’s ambassadors.
We perpetually underestimate Satan’s wiles; at the same time, we underestimate our authority over him in Christ.
Most lost people aren’t consciously looking for ways to sin; they’re only trying to get by.
You and I have benefitted greatly from the prayers of others, but most people have never had someone pray for them.
Because our God is a God of beauty and truth, we Christians need to honor our artists and intellectuals as much as our pastors and preachers.
Most of the Lord’s finest servants labor in obscurity.
We Christians should spend every day working to depopulate hell.
We may know what it means to be a sinner, but few of us have appropriated what it means to be a saint.
Our communion meals should be feasts as big as we eat on Thanksgiving Day.
Wine is the drink of celebration, not Welch’s.
A church-hopper is a carrier of dissension.
We need to treat our pastors as imperfect fellow laborers, not as Grand Exalted Poobahs.
Without the Lord, we can do nothing.
If we Christians stopped worrying about what others think of us, the Church would be transformed and the world along with us.
We spend too much time trying to keep our youth from sleeping with each other and not enough time teaching them to be husbands and wives.
Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.
We were all born to serve.
American Christians are more concerned about what’s in their bank accounts than in their treasure chests in heaven.
Joy can only well up in a grateful heart.
Gossip destroys anyone it touches.
In Christ, there is no shame or guilt.
Christians who pray prayers with enormous faith get enormous results.
If we don’t reach people with the Gospel before they are 21, most will never come to Christ.
We have not because we ask not.
It is best to think of the Scriptures not as what we can read through in a year, but as what we can read through in an entire lifetime.
We come to Christ full of holes. Whatever hole we forbid Christ to fill will instead be filled by the world.
If we’re discipling correctly, no Christian in a church should be irreplaceable.
A community of Christians is only as strong as its weakest members.
If our lives are filled with everything but Christ, then we are impoverished indeed.
We are all dust.
God is always nearer to us than we believe Him to be.

Blessings! Have a great day.

Justice Is for Losers

My son’s been playing soccer at the YMCA this last year. He’s now on his third team. He played on two 5-6 year old teams, then graduated to 7-8 this year. Even then, he’s barely seven.

We had our first game of the season today, and it was clear to me that he’s outclassed. His first year he scored a goal in the last game of the season, and I could not have been prouder. His second team showed him improving his skills; he scored three times for that team. From what I saw today, he’ll be lucky if he gets a dozen good kicks in the entire season—and by that I mean making actual contact with a soccer ball. A goal seems almost ludicrous to expect.

In previous seasons, the Y fielded about six 3-4 yr. old teams, four for 5-6 yr. olds, two for 7-8 yr. olds, and two 9-10 yr. old teams. This season, they couldn’t get any 10-yr. olds at all to play and could not even fill up their 7-8 yr. old teams. That means we have only two 7-9 yr. old teams.

The Y must compete against SAY and Select soccer in our area. The Y has one practice and one game per week. SAY and Select have two practices and two games per week. (Now imagine having two or more kids in those programs! Is it any wonder we’re so ridiculously busy!)

I have to be realistic. My son, no matter how hard he works, may simply lack the inherent talents he needs to play in those two highly-competitive leagues. But what makes it sad for me is the reality that parents don’t want their kids to play in the less competitive Y league because (I believe) they think their own kids will never play for USA Soccer and win that elusive World Cup unless they shun the less competitive Y program and go for the REAL kids’ soccer leagues.

Here’s to ratcheting all of life up a notch or two. (For some reason the phrase “metal fatigue” keeps popping into my head.)

I hate Darwinism, especially Social Darwinism. The idea of the Selfish Gene theory driving all that we do, that our mantra for life is reduced to survival of the fittest, just makes me nuts. And what makes me even more despondent is that, too often, Christians are the ones driving that Excellence At All Cost mentality. So much for fun, fairness, and good sportsmanship. It lost out to Kill or Be Killed—in pre-tween soccer.

It seems to me that the Gospel of grace stands in stark opposition to this non-stop treadmill of competition that drives our lives. If nothing else, it demands we seek justice for the oppressed. Anymore, the oppressed may very well be anyone who isn’t deemed “a winner.” While I’m definitely not into the highly PC idea that we forgo having winners and losers in sports to shield our children’s fragile egos, I don’t think we have to naturally fall into the other extreme. We’ve made every aspect of life into a competition, and that’s simply evil. In our free country, we’ve traded political oppression for social and economic oppression. And let’s be honest: that may be the worse trade. At least in the politically oppressed nation, it’s only the government that’s against you. In ours, everyone is.

The Bible says this:

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.
—Proverbs 21:13
The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.
—Proverbs 21:10
God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah. Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
—Psalms 82:1-4
“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
—Acts 20:35
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
—Micah 6:8

Last week, I discussed issues facing men. One of the fallacies that the modern Christian men’s movement upholds with religious fervor is the power of the strong. Something about a song Beck sang... But in the Bible, on the whole, strength is only good when God wields it. When Man throws it around, people wind up crushed. Sadly, too many of us root for the crushers rather than defend the crushees.

When we speak of justice, we must remember that justice is for losers. As Christians, we’re to minister justice on behalf of the losers of this world, the ones who cannot keep up, the ones who do not have the strength to carry on. As much as we rant about righteousness, I hardly ever hear Christians begging to be more just in their hearts.

But David says this about God:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
—Psalms 89:14

Justice is one of the pillars of God’s throne. Heaven itself is established on justice! Why then do we ignore justice in our lives? Why do we American Christians throw in our lot with the popular and not with the ignored? Why do we love winners and hate losers? Why is our theology based on Social Darwinism and not on justice for the weak?

If the Church in this country is doing justice right anywhere, it’s in the anti-abortion movement. We’ve got that down to a science. Good for us. I hate to think what it would be like if we ignored that justice issue.

But what is the Christian’s obligation to workers crushed in the wake of unjust business practices? What is the Christian’s obligation to the children who go unadopted because they are the wrong age, or have a learning disability, or simply aren’t good looking enough to make it in a culture obsessed with appearances? Does God not hear their cries for mercy?

I cannot say that I love my neighbor if I do not seek justice for him. The two go hand in hand. Yet when was the last time you heard this preached from your church’s pulpit?

Consider the following:

Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
—Proverbs 24:11-12

God does not care for our excuses. No, our justice will never be as perfect as His, but He still calls us to fight on behalf of others.

One last Scripture from the lips of Jesus:

You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.
—Luke 21:17

You see, we Christians should understand that the world sees us as losers. For this reason, how can we not understand justice? How can we ignore the plight of those who cry out for justice?

I have to wonder if our lack of concern for justice has turned us into friends of the perpetrators of injustice rather than friends of God the Righteous Judge.

How will that look on the Day of Ultimate Justice?