Fifth Blogiversary

Posted by Alan Knox on Mar 21, 2011 in personal | 3 comments

Today marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. I started blogging on March 21, 2006 with two posts: “Welcome!” and “Questions.” (By the way, if you’re interested, I later answered – as best as I could – those same questions at the prompting of a reader and friend in a post called “Answers to Questions.”)

I began this blog to parallel by PhD studies. I was accepted into the PhD program in Biblical Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in the spring of 2006. I actually started the program that fall in August 2006. My desire at that time was to study the purpose for the church gathering together according to the New Testament. I’m currently writing my dissertation on that same topic.

However, over the years, the purpose and scope of my blog have expanded. Why? Because issues related to the church are so interconnected. It is impossible to explore the gathering of the church in depth without also studying the nature and essence of the church, church leadership, spiritual gifts, community, and other aspects of ecclesiology. And, of course, ecclesiology is a direct outflow of theology (proper), Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, etc.

In fact, I’ve found that in many ways, what a person believes about the church – and how a person interacts with others as the church – demonstrates more about what that believes about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, etc. that what the person may profess to believe.

When I first started publishing this blog (it was a blogger blog at that time), I would only write two or three posts per week at most. I didn’t start blogging regularly until the end of November 2006. Since then, I’ve posted an average of around 550 posts per year, which works out to about 1.5 posts per day. Last year, though, I posted 844 posts, which averages to almost 2.5 posts per day. I don’t remember making a conscious decision to post more regularly. Instead, I began to read many, many more very good blogs (mostly newer and lesser known blogs), and I would link to some of their posts more regularly.

Apparently, that trend has continued, because last month (February 2011) I published more posts than any other month: 93 posts for an average of over 3 posts per day. I’m not sure what March 2011 looks like as far as numbers of posts. (I think that part of that increase can be explained by the links to the articles that I write for Examiner.com.)

Five years ago, when I first started blogging, I wanted this blog to be an outlet – a place where I could write about the things that I was studying. Obviously, I was hoping for comments and feedback. My very first comment came in on my fifth post called “Members or Membership?” It turns out that the comments and discussion and interaction (through comments, emails, and even face-to-face when I get to meet some of my readers) has become a very important aspect of this blog. Obviously, content is important for a blog. But, without a blogging community (that would be you), this blog would not be what it is today.

So, thank you. I appreciate you. I learn from you. I pray for you. You are all special to me.

If you are interested, here are links to my previous “blogiversary” posts:

“Blogiversary”

“2nd Blogiversary”

“Fwee Years Old”

“Fourth Blogiversary“