Blogging Can Be Doing, a Response to @PastorMark

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Pastor Mark Driscoll* tweeted this last week:

TweetDeck

That he is no fan of bloggers is no secret. He’s been known in the past to be quick to use his sharp wit to lampoon the critical blogger. I realize also that by responding to him I am probably becoming one of those “pontificating” bloggers that he so disdains. Fair enough, but I thought this might serve as a decent opportunity to share the benefit of blogging.

On one hand I totally agree with Pastor Mark. Pontificating about what others are doing while doing nothing yourself can be very annoying. There is no doubt that one of the negative aspects to blogging is that people can waste away their days arguing about semantics more than discussing that which is significant. Blogging certainly has a dark side. Yet, at the same time I find Driscoll’s words very unhelpful (not to mention hypocritical in that he is pontificating about what others—bloggers—are doing).

Mostly Pastor Mark’s tweet is unhelpful because he paints with too broad of a brush (as often happens on Twitter) and is marked by unhelpful assumptions. 

Two Assumptions

  1. Bloggers aren’t doing. The massive assumption in this tweet is that bloggers aren’t doing. I strongly disagree. If I believed that my blog had no kingdom value I would quit this day. But I believe that what I do here at Borrowed Light in some small way displays Jesus Christ as the only boast of this generation. I believe that what I write can be helpful for pastors as they disciple people. I also believe that what I write can be helpful to disciples of Jesus as we attempt to follow Him. Blogging can be doing if it is done well.
  2. There is no value except for doing. I imagine that there is a story behind this particular tweet from Driscoll. Perhaps he read a harsh critique by a blogger (or maybe even a legit one). Again, I agree that it’s much easier to sit back and be an armchair quarterback than to actually do the work of ministry. But at the same time let’s not assume that there is no value in someone using the Scriptures to assess what we are doing. There is value in receiving criticism—even if it from a pontificating blogger. I doubt Pastor Mark is arguing for a total pragmatism here but it’s hard not to read his tweet that way.

These are two of the assumptions in this tweet. Driscoll has highlighted the dark side of blogging but he paints with such a broad brush that he also belittles and minimizes the work of faithful bloggers. If Driscoll’s tweet applies to you then perhaps you ought to close up shop. But for those that are faithfully presenting Christ through their blogs I say keep it up.

Blogging can be doing if it is done well.

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*The point of this article is to use the words of Mark Driscoll to not only disagree with his statement but mostly to say that there is a place for faithful blogging in the kingdom.

This is not an invitation to make this a discussion about Mark Driscoll or his ministry, only about what he tweeted on this particular occasion.

Today in Blogworld 01.14.13

Mike Leake

Why Tim Tebow’s Life is a Tragedy

My friend Tom has a great post here. He notes that Tim Tebow’s life is written as a tragedy. He concludes that “the media will kill their hero. They have to.” Interesting piece.

What is the Philosophy Behind Monergism.com

I have benefited greatly from the work of Monergism.com. Here John Hendryx explains their philosophy.

How Andy Stanley and Tim Keller Preach to Non-Believers

The two are quite different, but Trevin Wax shows how they have a commonality in the way that they approach preaching to non-believers.

How Important Is a Christian Writer’s Influence?

John Piper provides an answer.

This is beautiful. Steve Nash makes passing a basketball look so easy:

A Week Without Google

Mike Leake

A few months ago I wrote on an article called The Googlization of Bible Study. Here I lamented the shortcutting that was happening to my Bible study. At the time I considered doing a little experiment to see how indebted I really am to Google. I put it off until now. This week I am doing it:

ONE WORK WEEK WITHOUT GOOGLE*

I am primarily concerned with the way that Google has impacted my personal Bible study, my sermon preparation, and the things that I do as a pastor. I want to see the influence that it has. Therefore, I will keep this confined to a work week. That means that if I am at home and Isaiah asks me a crazy question about the length of a frogs tongue we can Google it. But if that question pops in my skull at work I can’t.

Starting at 8:00 AM this morning I will not use Google during my work week. This experiment will end at 5:00 PM this Friday.

There will be three permissible uses of Google:

  1. Google Reader (I have to be able to check this for my Today in Blogworld feature or else it would take most of my day to sift through all the pages)
  2. Blogger or other Google platforms like YouTube. (I use Blogger to blog).
  3. Pictures for the devotional I am writing for Isaiah or for blog articles. Because I am finishing up the Colossians devotional that I am giving Isaiah for his birthday this week, I will still need to search for clipart and pictures. I will allow myself to do that. And also for blog articles.

Goals:

My main goal is to discover how indebted I am to Google in personal Bible study and other work related things. I want to discover how Google has shaped the way that I think. I will post a reflective piece within the next couple of days.

At around 5:00 every day I will post an article that will probably be quite humorous on all of the things that I wanted to search on Google. I might also share a couple of stories about the crazy ways I had to figure something out because I could not use Google.

It should be an interesting week. But I might be better equipped to survive the forthcoming zombie apocalypse because of this little experiment. Only time will tell.

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*Obviously, I’m just using Google as the example but I will not simply be switching to Yahoo or Bing or any other search engine to serve in its place.

Review of Sensing Jesus by Zack Eswine

Mike Leake

What does it say about the way we’re approaching the ministry if we who have been trained for it do not know how to follow Jesus when we have our pajamas on? –Sensing Jesus, page 286

That quote encapsulates what Zack Eswine’s book, Sensing Jesus, is all about. His desire is that we learn how to do life and ministry as human beings. Eswine is real about his own humanity and the humanity of many of our ministry heroes (noting at one point that Jonathan Edwards passed gas).

Eswine believes that “the stale waters of celebrity, consumerism, and immediate gratification” (17) has infiltrated pastoral ministry. As a response he has written a poetic and autobiographical book with the aims of guiding our hands into the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.

After the two introductory chapters, the book is divided into two sections. The first section exposes our temptations. Here Eswine tackles our desire to be everywhere, to fix everything, and to know everything. In the second part Eswine examines our mentoring. This is where the title sensing Jesus comes from. Here he considers the physicality of ministry and confronts such cultural idols as celebrity and immediacy. The book closes with a conversation with a young minister that serves as an apt summary of the book.

My Take:

Zack Eswine is not an old man. But he has been doing ministry for over twenty years. He is a seasoned pastor that we can learn from. The book reads as if this gracious and battle-tested pastor has agreed to meet with us once a week over a cup of coffee to discuss life in the ministry.

He writes poetically but it does not feel forced. It feels like a wise sage picking up a dandelion, blowing it in the wind, and teaching us about life as he does so. Here is an example. Read as Eswine describes a bagpiper at a funeral:

…the bagpiper stands as if ugly and holding a goose. He breathes in and out into a moaning that wheezes air into a haunting melody of ‘Amazing Grace’. A swan of music emerges and takes flight. Sobs and whimpers accompany the tune with red eyes, along with tear-stained mascara bleeding on cheeks. The wind ripples through the fall leaves…

The writing style makes the reader pause and feel. You can almost smell the coffee (if I drank coffee) rise to your nose as you listen to this pastor tell of his journey and the lesson that we can learn. Eswine forces pastors to feel. Which is something that many of us have perhaps given up on years ago.

I believe the book will stick with me. Much like meetings with pastoral mentors that I have had in the past. I might not even remember where it came from but as I guide others into an everyday relationship with Jesus, or shepherd other young men into pastoral ministry, I’ll be drawing from these encounters.

Should You Buy It?

Pastors really ought to buy this book. But not only pastors, any church leader would benefit from a month of Thursday’s over a coffee with Pastor Eswine. But not only church leaders, every disciple would benefit from thinking through doing life in Jesus as a real human being. The draw to celebrity snares far more than just pastors. We all need the message of doing life and ministry as human beings.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is not a quick read but it is a necessary read. I imagine I will be revisiting this one a few more times in the upcoming years.

Get it today.

Here is an interview that Zack Eswine did with Justin Taylor on his book Sensing Jesus: