Over the last three weeks, two interesting things have happened that provoked this post:

1) A new author asked me to address the issue of disagreements, especially with regard to those who write books and blogs and those who read them.

2) I had a phone conversation with a well-known webmaster who read a negative review of one of my books. Before the conversation, the webmaster was almost certain that we bitterly disagreed about many things. After we talked, however, he realized that we didn’t disagree about anything we discussed. He also realized that the review had grossly misrepresented my book.

If you have ever had someone disagree with something you’ve said or written . . . or you’ve disagreed with what someone has ever said or written, then this post is for you.

Three things by way of introduction. When people disagree with you . . .

1. Some will be charitable in their disagreement.
2. Others will be defamatory.
3. Sometimes many of the people who think they disagree with you really don’t. Continue Reading…

Let me begin this post with an FYI. This past weekend, we compiled my top 50 most read posts and put them on one page. You can find the link to the page on the menu at the very top. It’s titled “Popular.” Or just click the top 50 posts.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a special interview I conducted with a fellow author on his fascinating new book. So stay tuned for that.

Now on to today’s subject.

Last week I offered a balancing caution to the almost deafening emphasis today on building a platform. If you have a unique message to share with the world, platform is essential. And I’ve spoken on it before myself, especially with respect to authors.

But while building a platform is important for anyone armed with a message, we must also be aware of the dark side of social media and the temptation to obsess over statistics. Continue Reading…

Hi Fun Seekers,

Today’s post is called “What captures your attention?”

What follows are the most shared posts since I resumed blogging in January 2012.

I’m listing them here because I have a related question at the bottom of this post.

Here’s the list with the number of Facebook and Twitter “shares” per the time of this posting. Some of these posts are quite recent, so when you click on the various links, the posts will have generated more shares than what is stated on this page.

I want to thank all of you who have shared my posts with your friends. It’s greatly appreciated.

God’s View of a Woman – 900+ Facebook Shares / 130+ Twitter Shares

Christianity in Crisis – 600+ Facebook / 100+ Twitter

20 Reasons Why the Christian Right & Left Won’t Adopt Me – 600+ Facebook / 70+ Twitter

What Makes a True Friend? – 500+ Facebook / 60+ Twitter

Don’t Waste Your Time Being a Christian – 500+ Facebook / 80+ Twitter

Why I Gave Up Trying to Live the Christian Life – 400+ Facebook / 60+ Twitter

Continue Reading…

Tomorrow I will post the second installment of The Forgotten Beatitude – so stay tuned.

Last year, Jeff Goins interviewed me on the subject of writing. I’m publishing the complete, unedited interview on the blog in three installments. Whether you are an author, a blogger, or someone who likes to post long notes on Facebook, I hope you will be inspired by the interview. 

Your most recent book Epic Jesus is a self-published eBook and seems to be doing rather well. I understand that you gave away a lot of copies of it. Some people say that there is such a thing as being too generous with your “art.” What do you think? Does “free” help or hurt book sales?

Epic Jesus is a short book (24 pages), but it’s dense. I’d call it a pregnant book that crams 200 pages of content into 24.

On November 1^st, we gave away a free copy of the book to our blog subscribers for a 72-hour window. It was a sneak preview. On November 3^rd, it was made available on Kindle, Nook, and PDF for $3.99 USD.

For the first three weeks of its release, the book stayed around #16 in “Christian Living” on Amazon Kindle. I was amazed by that, especially after we had given the book away to thousands of people just days before. It was humbling.

The PDF version is showing lots of interest also. The Nook version has had slow activity.

We regularly give away free resources (sometimes books) to our blog subscribers and our newsletter subscribers.

Since I don’t profit personally from my books, sales aren’t too big of a deal to me. Consequently, I’ve never researched whether or not our give-aways helped or hurt sales, and honestly, I wouldn’t know how to track that if I wanted to. Continue Reading…

Once in a while we bloggers will get someone (virtually never a regular subscriber) who’ll flip out over one word or sentence in a post, completely missing the big point we’re making.

Soooo . . . for those of you who will read what follows hot-under-the-collar with smoke blowing out of both ears and eyes blurred by rage just because I dared mention a “non-Christian” rock band as an illustration, hold your fire.

The Blog Manager says that comments like “Led Zeppelin is demonic” or “Haven’t you ever played Stairway to Heaven backwards?” (or words to that effect) will not be approved. The reason is because such comments benightedly miss the point. (The point of this post has nothing to do with the band’s personal life or beliefs.)

That said, if you’re an artist of any kind – whether an author, blogger, speaker, musician, painter, etc. – there are three things you can learn from Led Zeppelin: Continue Reading…

Last year, Jeff Goins interviewed me on the subject of writing. I’m publishing the complete, unedited interview on the blog in three installments. Whether you are an author, a blogger, or someone who likes to post long notes on Facebook, I hope you will be inspired by the interview. 

Do you have any funny quirks or tricks to get you in the mood to write? Or can you just start?

I was afraid you would ask that. Before I write, I drink a pint of Absinthe followed by a friendly atomic knee drop to my cat (which she loves).

Just kidding!

Actually, I only do two things when I write:

(1) I’ll often light a candle on my desk (Peppermint, Jasmine Sea Salt, Honeydew Melon, and Apple Vanilla are favorites).

(2) Turn off everything that has sound. I need absolute quiet when I write. So no background music, no television or radio, etc.

So a candle and absolute quiet. Those are the ingredients that work best for me. I do most of my writing on my desktop (I use a Logtech G15 keyboard which lights up at night along with a G9 Mouse which has adjustable weights in it). Writing on a laptop is more difficult, so I don’t do any serious writing on it. I use Word 2007 to write articles, books, and blog posts.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

You’ve become a practitioner (and advocate, it seems) of using social media to connect with people in your tribe. How important do you think tools like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are for writers and communicators now?  Continue Reading…

Last year, Jeff Goins interviewed me on the subject of writing. I’m publishing the complete, unedited interview on the blog in three installments. Whether you are an author, a blogger, or someone who likes to post long notes on Facebook, I hope you will be inspired by the interview.

How long have you been writing, and how did you get started?

In the mid-90s, I became the host of what was known back then as internet “Bulletin Boards.” Bulletin Boards were the precursor to blogs today.

Every two weeks, I’d write a short article on a certain aspect of ecclesiology and post it on the Bulletin Board. People would comment on it and we’d have an engaging discussion (much like a blog).

As time went on, more and more people began asking me for the articles in printed form. At first, I would print them out on my computer and staple them together. Then someone suggested that I hire a printer to put them into a book. So I tried it.  Continue Reading…

Last year I wrote a post entitled The Secret to Recharging Your Creativity. In it, I talked about the need for re-creation and recharge.

When we examine the life of Jesus, we discover that He would sometimes retreat from the crowds, and even from His disciples, to recharge spiritually.

“He departed to a solitary place . . .” (Mark 1:35)

“He departed to a mountain . . .” (Mark 6:46)

“Jesus went to a desert place apart . . .” (Matt. 14:36)

The word “depart” in Greek means to leave, go away, or retreat. Continue Reading…

“The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.”

~ Piet Mondrian

Anyone who is an artist – whether a writer, speaker, musician, painter, photographer, designer, sculptor, etc. – doesn’t view all of their art through the same lens. Artists have favorites.

In that connection, some people have asked which of my books I consider to be my favorite. That is, my best and most important contributions.

Whenever I’ve answered this question, it has surprised many people. In most cases, I discover later that they’ve only read one or two of my books . . . the ones that aren’t on my “best/favorite” list.

Since I keep getting this question, I thought I’d just answer the question here and now. That way, when someone asks it again, I can simply point them to this blog post (‘tis one of the wonderful assets of blogging!).

In addition, I want to ask the same question to those of you who are artists also. Continue Reading…

Perhaps a more accurate title for this post would be, “How I Read Long Blog Posts.”

It’s very simple. Perhaps so simple that maybe taking up bandwidth to address it isn’t worth the effort. However, I somehow feel that this post is going to help a few people. If it does, let me know in the comments, would you? I’d be curious.

For starters, I never read long posts online. While some people “scan” long blog posts, I don’t like doing that. There are two reasons:

(1) I don’t want to miss anything that’s of value in a post. If I scan something online, I’ll undoubtedly miss something. Perhaps a lot.

(2) If I comment on the post, I want to accurately understand what the author wrote before I make a remark. I’ve noticed that some people have missed important points in some of my posts because they scanned them. Their comments made this evident. I don’t want to make the same mistake. Continue Reading…