I am almost at the end of my first year of blogging, so an email from WordPress that arrived yesterday surprised me. I did not know that I was going to get an evaluation from them.
Of course, I was interested in the raw statistics. As of just sixty seconds ago, WordPress recorded 14,972 views since the first blog on February 10. Now that does not represent a large number in Blogworld, nor is it the actual number of people who read some post. It could have been my mother clicking hundreds of times, trying to figure out how to get my blog to come up with her WebTV (yes, it still exists!). No, really, I know people are reading because you tell me—and I appreciate that!
I have to say that I have really enjoyed writing this year. I’ve enjoyed the discipline, the challenge, the exchange of ideas with many of you, both on and offline, but perhaps most of all, I’ve enjoyed being of some benefit to you.
Many commented on the “Great Churches” series. A lot of you enjoyed the “Raising Your Kids To Be Missionaries” project, and I got lots of great feedback on the “History of LST” I did in September. On the other side, the Advent series did not seem to resonate—or maybe we were all just too busy. Timing does seem to make a difference, and I have a lot to learn there.
As we start this new year together, here are some of the things that I want to do make this site more useful to you and to the Kingdom!
- Re-do the basic site so that I can control the pages a little better and make them friendlier.
- Allow comments to show up more readily and try to encourage more dialogue.
- Show popular posts that some may have missed.
- Make the site more useful with ready links to other pages like LST, and FriendSpeak as well as other important blogs.
Content-wise, I want to focus a lot this next year on the area of Leadership. I’ve already got two major projects I want to tackle, one being a look at the leadership style we promote at LST called 1A Leadership.
The other area I want to explore with you will draw on Sherrylee’s and my experiences over the last thirty years in starting, building, and continuing to lead a non-profit ministry. The non-profit sector is growing rapidly. More than 30,000 new non-profits registered with the IRS between January and August 2010, and many of these are faith-based.
In addition, I’d like to go a little deeper into some of the topics we touched on this last year—not too deep, just a little more, along with a chance to respond to some of the comments you made.
I’d love for you to make suggestions, comments, or criticisms. Tell me what you would like to talk about. I promise you that I will listen!
If you and I were sitting down in a cozy room together with an hour to talk about anything, what would you want to be sure and talk about?
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