12 Witnesses

12 Witnesses is not my first blog. Louie Giglio used to publish an online journal of his spiritual thoughts and I read it constantly. This was ten years ago or so. Louie had a profound impact on my spiritual life through “Choice,” a Bible Study that was the precursor to the Passion Conferences that are now national and powerful.

I followed suit. I published an online journal on our church’s website, which I designed and ran. I was hopeful that it might inspire our students as Louie inspired me.

Years later, I got involved with some of the forums at the Youth Specialties website. Many of those folks spent time blogging, but I didn’t quite know what that was. I researched a little, started one, and then ditched it. It was a personal, family blog, but I worried about putting too much about my kids on the internet, for obvious reasons in this time when lurking predators are many.

Finally, I started Theoblogian Today in September of 2005. I was just intending to talk about general ministry and theology. I thought the name was witty. In January, 2006, I read my state Baptist Paper and found out about the stir brewing at the IMB. The Archives of that time will reveal the growth process, including why I changed the name. If you don’t want to sift the through the Archives, it was because the name sounded pithy and shallow in light of the serious things I was discussing.

12 Witnesses then moved from the original site url, theoblogiantoday.blogspot.com, to the new one, twelvewitnesses.blogspot.com. Recently, it has come to rest in a permanent place: twelvewitnesses.com. I purchased the rights to the name, url and some server space to make sure I never had to do that again.

Here are a few thoughts about all of that.

1. No one much read what I was writing early on because I never interacted on other blogs. Commenting insightfully is the quickest way to get people to follow the link back to your blog and begin reading what you are writing.
2. I commented anonymously at first, because I was afraid that I might hurt my chances in future ministry. I started commenting and posting under my own name because I noticed that people tended to ignore folks who didn’t own their words, and I felt that if I was afraid to own my words, they must not be worth much.
3. Blogspot blogs were the easiest and most well known originally, but blogger became a nightmare. I can’t tell you how many times it crashed my blog, ate my template and froze up at just the wrong moment. I finally quit blogger, well after many of my fellow bloggers moved on, when it allowed a slew of sexually explicit spam in my comment section, despite the security measures.
4. I now use Wordpress. At first, I wasn’t all that impressed with the software and wondered why everyone raved about it so much. In the end, I found many benefits to Wordpress software that have made me very happy with my current situation.
5. Throughout the year of 2006, I have occasionally posted on other subjects beyond the SBC, but I know that my readership, while interested in those things for the most part, have the SBC in common.
6. The blogosphere is a free marketplace of ideas. If you have something to say, particularly if you are adept at writing, people will read what your thoughts.
7. Not everyone who reads your thoughts agrees with you. I have had over 200,000 individuals and over 500,000 pageloads on the various forms of this blog in the last year. Certainly I have had my fair share of folks who disagreed with me. That’s fine. It’s about conversation. Well, it is supposed to be, anyway.

Believe it or not, I have a lot more. Future posts will include my thoughts on time management and the tricks I’ve learned to streamline my blogging experience, as well as the programs I use and why. Also, I will write on why I think it matters to do what I have done - invest the time, energy and money in this blog, 12 Witnesses.

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Blogging, Church, Family, General Christian, Pastoral Blogging, SBC

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