Keep your blog alive in 2007- Missionary blog tip #8

When I was doing my recent feature on A year of new blogs, I was sad to discover that many of the blogs that had started in 2006 had also died in 2006.  That’s really too bad.  Other blogs have continued – and we can now look back on almost a year of interesting, and sometimes challenging posts.

So what can you do to make sure your blog isn’t a casualty in 2007?  Here are a few suggestions:

• Make a schedule. I know, I started with a boring sounding suggestion.  But it’s important!  Plan how often you’re going to blog as a minimum.  Once a week is good for a lot of busy people out there.  So put a little peice of paper on the wall beside your computer with a little box for each week.  When you blog during that week, check it off.  In other words, if you blog 3x a day this week, that doesn’t count for next week – you still need at least one post next week (unless you cheat and make it post automatically next week, as you can in some blogging software).  And if you’ve already posted this week, it’s ok to post again.
• It doesn’t have to be fancy. Really, every post does not have to be inspired spiritual prose that people will remember for generations to come.  If you learn something about the culture, write a few sentences.  If you’re going to see Mr. Jones tomorrow and you’d like prayer, write a short paragraph.  If you saw something interesting on the internet, link to it.  I’m not saying you should be rash and write things you’ll regret, but don’t tie yourself to a level of posting you can never hope to keep up with.
• Write down ideas. When you think of an idea for a post, jot it down.  Pretty soon you’ll have a page or two of ideas.  Next time you get writer’s block, take out that sheet and write about something.  It doesn’t always have to be today’s news.
• Start again. No, I don’t mean you should create a new blog and start over!  I just mean this:  If you haven’t blogged for 6 months, just sit down and post today.  It will only take a few minutes.  You don’t need to catch people up on everything that’s happened over the past 6 months.  You don’t need to spend the entire time apologizing.  Just post!  Believe it or not, sometimes things come up even more important than blogging.  But that doesn’t mean your blogging days are over forever.
• Get a blogging buddy. Find someone who you can be accountable to.  If they’re blogging too, remind them and they can remind you.  Give each other ideas.  You can even invite someone else to write a “guest post”.

Here’s hoping that more blogs will be born, resurrected and grow strong to God’s glory in 2007!