Since I’m paying for TXAB’s domain name, I figured I may as well use it for my email address too. Problem is, whenever you post your email address on a website, people find it and send spam to it, and now most of my spam goes to that address instead of my personal email address. So if your comments get lost in my spam folder: Sorry! I try to fish them out.
Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. And if it’s something like these questions, I’ve already answered it! Isn’t that handy?
Anyway it’s time I caught up on some correspondence, isn’t it? And today I’m gonna answer some of the emails I typically get.
Q. I love your blog! Would you consider linking to my blog? I really need to rise in search engine rankings. In return maybe I can make a small donation to you, or a ministry of your choice.
You really would not believe how often I get this request, or a variation of this request, from people who want to make a living by blogging. I turn them all down.
There are many ways to get a lot of traffic to your blog. My way has been to just keep generating relevant, informative content for 20 years. Works great! But I understand if you don’t have the patience for that… especially if you have a day job you’re kinda desperate to quit.
I have noticed certain blogs taking off big-time, and quickly, because the blogger wrote a book. I would recommend you do that. Find a literary agent, ask ’em if there’s anything on your blog that might make a good book, develop a whole book out of it, find a publisher who’s wants to produce and publicize it, and use your blog to help promote it. Watch the traffic pour in.
The downside: If your blog permits comments, you’re gonna spend a whole lot of time moderating comments. Lotta nutjobs out there! You might have to turn them off entirely, as I did. But if you have the time, and can filter out all the chaff from the wheat, your commenters can also attract people to your blog. There are a few sites that I visited regularly because the commenters were just as insightful as the writers.
Moving on!
Q. I have a ministry in
Oh I’m sure it would… if I had the money.
People regularly confuse my blog traffic with wealth. They don’t realize I don’t monetize this blog. In fact I get a fair amount of spam from people who wish I would monetize the blog—and they wanna help me, and get a cut. I ignore them because I’m not going to. I support this myself with my day job. You remember how Paul, Aquila, and Prisca used to make tents for a living?
So if you think I’m rolling in dough, and can give to every charity and missionary who asks me for money… well that’d be nice, but you need to ask someone who’s actually rich. I would recommend any of those pastors who owns a million-dollar house. Any of
Q. I’ve been reading this book, and find it wonderful/informative/revelatory/confusing/false/aggravating/blasphemous. What do you think of it?
I don’t. I have my own pile of books to read, and have little to no interest in adding your book to my queue, just so I can confirm your suspicions or your love.
But you realize you can start a book club at your church, right? My church has a few of ’em. Unfortunately they call them “bible studies”—and they’re not really, because they’re not studying the bible; they’re studying their book. The book might be about the bible, but they’re nonetheless studying the book. Only sometimes do they refer to the bible—but it’s mainly to make their comments about the book.
Anyway, if you started a book club, you could get a few people to read that book with you. You could ask ’em questions. You could bring up your concerns. I’ve been involved in a book club or two where I had big concerns about the book—to the dismay of the person leading the club, who loved the book and didn’t want us to criticize it any—but the bible’s the only infallible book, so we should be able to apply some healthy rigorous criticism to any other book. If you’re leading the group, you can encourage that sort of behavior.
If you’re starting the book club because you want people to love the book as much as you… well, let that last paragraph be a warning. They might not! And you need to be open to healthy rigorous criticism, because if the book’s wrong, we need to be able to say and admit the book’s wrong. If you won’t let people do that, don’t expect them to stay in your book club.
Q. I enjoy your articles, but every time you criticize the president it really bothers me. Could you stop doing that?
Oh you have no idea how much I already restrain myself.
Yes, I’m aware these comments bug
Okay, let’s say I hear similar rebukes about a president I voted for. Even campaigned for. Am I gonna flinch at these things? Nah. I might not agree with them… but then again I might. Because I’m fully aware no politician is infallible. Nobody’s infallible but Jesus. Everybody else is
Everybody, even my guy, deserves rebuke from time to time. Even our favorite people are guilty of flawed decisions, bad behavior, lapses of character, poor judgment, or just plain evil. Especially when they’re thrust into the sort of pressure cooker as the presidency; I’m sure every president has slipped up and done awful things that their staff members have desperately hidden. And not just because I’ve read Bob Woodward books which record a number of those awful things.
Yes, I did write a whole article about
If your politics has numbed your conscience that much, if you value Donald Trump more than the Holy Spirit, then he’s become your Messiah instead of Jesus, and
