allume

real light living

Go Fish

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So, Allume has passed, and I’m still finding myself pondering some of the same things that the Lord has had me pondering for months now. Much of it, I shared in my session at Allume on Blogging as Discipleship.  I’m going to share a few snippits from that session below, but if you want the full on thing (complete with Monty Python impersonation) then you can download my session, along with the whole bundle of almost 30 other incredible speaker sessions HERE!

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I’ve always been a people person. I am an extrovert if there ever was one, but I think the proverbial “lights came on” in my mind when I realized something years ago about myself.

I love a good party. I love to plan them to the enth degree….to decorate…to create atmospheres and environments where people can just come and have a good time.

Christmas Decor

I’ve been decorating for Christmas, as I’m sure many of you have been as well.  We’ll host a Christmas party this year at my home again, and so the decorating gets amped up a notch.  It’s even more fun to go to great lengths when you get to share it with others.  But… as much as I love to create and prepare, in the end…none of that matters to me as much as the people who walk into my home. When the first person walks through my door, worrying about the environment is done…and the people are what’s important to me.

And my blog needs to be the same way….

The blog has to be about the people reading. And whether we have 50 followers of 500,000, we ALL have the opportunity to impact lives.

When we blog, most of us all have little buttons on the side somewhere for all the myriad ways that people can follow us. They can follow us on Pinterest and see what we think is beautiful or interesting. They can follow us on Twitter for little snippits or links to what is going on with us in 140 characters or less. They can follow on Facebook, or subscribe to receive our posts in their email. We welcome “followers,” and sometimes it can even be easy to get hung up on if we have enough of them or not.  A disciple is by definition “a follower…a pupil of a teacher.”  But my question to you, and to myself is, “What are we asking people to follow?”

Jesus said in Mark 1:17, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” So if we’re following Jesus, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that our blogs would reflect that somehow?

I’m not saying that means we should all write devotional or spiritual blogs all the time either. Some people are gifted to be able to do that all the time, but some of us are called to make disciples other ways too.  

They say that people are the happiest when they’re giving themselves away. So I want to encourage you to give of yourself from your areas of giftedness. Give of your talents, and your passions, your wisdom, and your struggle….give them all to the glory of the King. Invite people into your journey…into your creativity….into your elements. Chances are if you’re blogging, you’ve got a few followers….and whether you realize it or not, you are making disciples.  We have the privilege of sharing our journeys, our daily living, the funny, the mundane, the beautiful, and even the hard….all to the glory of our King.

Our lives tell our stories, and I believe that the world needs to see what authentic journeys with a loving God look like. The journey is the guts of a story and what makes the testimony in the end hold weight.  It’s following one story that starts in the hard of here and ends in the peace of there. And the thing I’ve realized is that what God does in one life…in one journey, he can do in thousands.

We write. And we have a voice that has the capacity to reach farther than voices have been able to travel in all of history.  And, there are hungry people out there. People are hungry for authenticity, but not just a boldness without a filter….people are hungry for what is real. People are hungry for a journey that leads them to peace and truth in the end.  

Jesus himself said “Follow me..and I will make you fishers of men.” People are following….so the question then is “Where are we leading them?”  And if somehow in the end, they don’t catch a glimpse of what it means to be discipled….to be led in love….then what are we doing?

My dear friend Kristen Schell said to me in a conversation before Allume when we were talking about fishing for men, that “the call is to be fishers…the Lord will provide the catch.” We are simply a conduit ya’ll. The glory is to the Lord and so is the haul.   The question is, will we drop our nets?  

Fishing boat

 

Image Sources: 1)My living room from www.LifeforDessert.com, 2) Fishing Boat on Flickr

Comments

  2. Love your blog and the way you share Christ with the world. Hope you Christmas party rocks like a good Monty Python movie! Love ya, Girl!

    • My son broke our Monty Python movie the other day! *Sniff* There is truth and healing that we can find when we’re willing to stop trying for perfect and just start living with nets dropped…holes and all!

  4. I so needed to remember this today, friend. I need to remember to invest in those around me, not seek to grow that group. I need to listen to where He’s leading me to serve, how He’s wanting me to give of myself–not seek to duplicate other’s gifts. Thank you for speaking truth!

  5. Absolutely! As we sail the wild bloggy seas and drop our nets, I see us as fishermen who help gather others on our way to the greatest banquet of all. Wherever we tell our tales, whether in warm and familiar waters or in dark and unpredictable seas, we can still hold out our hands to others and invite them to step into the boat with us as well.

    • yes…yes…and yes Kim! Love the continued metaphor and idea of holding out our hands to others to step in the boat with us. Keeping in mind too, that sometimes God himself will ask us to step out of the boat onto the water in the middle of the ocean….with all the people we brought with us in the boat watching!

      • Ack! You are so right. He has done that before and it has turned out for the best, yet I still get butterflies when I think about it happening again…which I know it will. 🙂

  6. Thank you for this encouragement! It was needed in my life as I just released my own personal story last week on my blog and was so fearful to expose my life before my readers. It can be scary to open your honest journey before others and I need the daily reminders…it’s for the glory of God. You are so right, “the world needs to see what authentic journeys with a loving God look like.” AMEN! People are so hungry for authenticity, for what is real, for Jesus in our story. Thank you so much for sharing and encouraging me today!

  7. This is what I’m trying to figure out. I’m not one of those devotional writers. I fail as hard and as often as most – probably more – and I often share it, but I don’t think that’s where my passions lie. I really like what you said about being happiest when we give ourselves away. I am a completely random menagerie of do-dad interests and I want to have a yard sale of life on my blog (did I take that analogy a little too far?). I want people to feel my passion for whatever and let it light a spark in them. You’d think I’d have this figured out by now, but this seems to be a long journey. Thanks for being one of those dots on my map that keeps me going in the right direction.

    • Have your yard sale of life then! I’m buying! And I’d bet others will too. I think that when we blog for the audience of One with the followers that he’ll bring along, we’re in the right spot. Find your element, write from that place and those experiences, and people will get you and your passions! You become real that way! People like what is real….

  10. I needed this today! Boy, did I ever! Out of all the places on the world wide web I need to go today, I am so very glad I made it here to read this. I love this line, “So I want to encourage you to give of yourself from your areas of giftedness. Give of your talents, and your passions, your wisdom, and your struggle….give them all to the glory of the King.” LOVE, love. And this thought, “People are hungry for authenticity, but not just a boldness without a filter….people are hungry for what is real.” I pray I can give that.

  11. As we approach a new year, I am thinking about the focus of my blog and writing. This was a perfect time to read this, and to be reminded that no matter what I write or which design I pick or where I host – the important thing is that I bring the realness. The rest is all decoration.

  12. Thank you Logan for such an encouraging, truth-filled post. As I fish through my thoughts that pour onto page, I realize that some fish with nets–others with lines that gently reel in one fish at a time. When I cast into deep waters where I cannot see, I realize first that I am the fish and God is the Fisherman. He baits me with His love, holds me gentle on the hook, reels me to release. And then I swim free to tell other fish what it’s like to be held in the hands of my Maker. One by one, they bite the bait. One by one, they are released.

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