12 Ways to Serve Your Readers

Mike Leake

This morning I noted that the word platform makes me cringe a little. I shared my philosophy to worry more about loving and serving my reader than building my platform. Here are 12 ways you can love and serve your readers:

  1. Point to Jesus. Always.
  2. Work hard.
  3. Make them laugh.
  4. Write to your audience and not someone else’s.
  5. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
  6. Respond to comments with gentleness and respect.
  7. Don’t provoke them to sin by hosting needless controversy.
  8. Listen to them.
  9. Be vulnerable. If I’m struggling or asking a question someone else probably is too.
  10. Be hospitable. none of this, “it’s my blog home, leave if you don’t like it”.
  11. Quit when you’ve made your point

Today in Blogworld 03.26.13

Mike Leake

8 Practical Ways to Celebrate Easter

Chuck Lawless gives eight practical ways to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

On Creating a Disciple-Making Culture

It seems like everything Tim Brister puts together lately is immensely helpful to the church. This post also does not disappoint. These are 6 means that pastors/leaders should implement to help create a disciple-making culture in our churches.

10 Traits to Identify Potential Leaders

This is helpful for me at present. Ron Edmonson gives us 10 traits to look for in potential leaders.

The Old Man and His Big Book

David Mathis and Tony Reinke tell the story Robert Duncan Culver. Pieces like this warm my heart. I love hearing of men in their 90’s who still are enamored with Jesus and still plodding away for the sake of the Kingdom.

Micah Fries shared this new song from Aaron Keyes. I love it.

Why the Word “Platform” Makes Me Cringe a Little

Mike Leake

Platform.

I keep hearing that word. And every time I hear it, or read it, I cringe a little. In his book, Platform, Michael Hyatt says that “a platform is the thing you have to stand on to get heard.” He then notes that “today’s platform is built of people”.

That bothers me.

It causes my stomach to churn because of who it makes me as a writer. Not to mention what it makes you the audience. I don’t like calling my readers a platform. For one, I’m not a product. Secondly, you aren’t something that I desire to step on in order to be heard.

Once I begin viewing my readers as a platform it changes the questions that I ask. As I sit down to my keyboard, I want my controlling thought to be “will this build them up?” I don’t want my driving question to be, “will they promote this?” My goal is to build others up through my writing in such a way that they make Christ the only boast of this generation.

Yet, here’s the difficulty. And this is what Michael Hyatt is saying in Platform. How will I be able to build others up in Christ if I am never heard? That is why I need a platform. One of the tricky things to navigate, as a Christian using Web 2.0, is the fine line between standing on a platform that people built for you and standing on people as your platform.

My philosophy for navigating these tricky waters is simple, but hopefully not simplistic . It seems to be working…slowly but surely. Make it your aim to help people by pointing them to Jesus. Work really hard to love and serve your readers. Spend more time serving your readers and less time pimping your articles. If you love them and serve them they will come! And they’ll start bringing their friends too.

Though there are probably ways to create higher platforms and gain a wider reach in a shorter time, I am convinced that the best way to truly be heard is to think about your readers first and your platform much later.

Life After the Fires of Affliction

Mike Leake

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. –Isaiah 48:10

It was a terrific dog. For three whole weeks I had spent my time in 8th grade Art class crafting this marvelous ceramic dog. Now only one step stood between Fido and a sweet blue ribbon. That final step…cue the drums and dark music…was the furnace.

Fido didn’t make it. He kind of made it. But not really. He lost a leg, a tail, and his ears folded over. Truth be told he went into the furnace as a beautiful dog and came out the other end as a three-legged pig.

I had only one option. Fido’s dog days had to be over. He’d now have to become Wilbur the pig. So I put on him a curly tail, a new leg, and tweaked his face a little. One quick trip into the kiln and out came Wilbur the pig that used to be a dog.

The moral of the story: The furnace of affliction changes us.

As believers the Lord puts us into the furnace of affliction for our good and His glory. It is in the furnace of suffering that he chisels away our impurities. It is here that we become more moldable and easier to be used for His glory. We often go into the furnace as an arrogant dog, sure to win first prize. We come through the other end a maimed pig–but a maimed pig that is more fit to be used for God’s glory and more receptive to enjoying God.

Yet I find in my heart a terrible tendency on the other side of the kiln. After I’ve been through the season of affliction I expect things to soon return to normalcy. “Normalcy” meaning life before the kiln. I long for things to go back to how they were before the furnace.

But it can’t. Life can’t go back to how it was because I am no longer who I was when entering the furnace. And I’m not meant to be. Nor should I want to be. The furnace is meant to strip away the old and shape us into who God wants us to be.

When I come out the other end of the furnace I’m not charged with getting my life back to how it was before the season of affliction. I am charged with learning to live and walk and breathe in the new. Trying to live like Fido doesn’t work when God decided Wilbur the pig was a better option.

Walk in the new.