In the words of one reader, things have been “heavy” here lately. I agree. To remedy the situation slightly – here are some sloths.
THE CUTE SHOW: BABY SLOTHS from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.
You’ll also find this video at HeySoph.com
Author: Nathan Campbell
Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
Two fallacies I really like: judging by company and tone
The more conversations I take part in with strangers on the Internet, the more sure I am of two things – I’d rather agree with the people who are nice and balanced, humble and winsome in their responses to criticism than with those who fire up, and I’m more convinced by a gentle and loving word than a robust and spiteful word – even if I naturally sit with the positions advocated by the angry mob.
It’s a bit of a fallacy to judge the strength of an argument on the basis of its supporters – it’s a modified argument from popularity, or authority – so I could say I prefer the people who are relaxed about owning a “too cool for school” iPhone than the people who have chips on their shoulders about their Android phones that don’t quite work. The gloating of an Android user whenever Apple stuffs something up is enough to reinforce my views about both Apple and Android.
There are other more serious issues where this is true – I tend to find most liberal (not Liberal) politics pretty despair inducing, but I’d rather talk to people who hold such positions than to people who angrily argue against them. Much of the backlash against the “new atheists,” who are pushing a pretty serious philosophical position in an important debate – perhaps the most important debate – has been on these issues – the tone of debate, and who the New Atheists look to to champion their cause. This is why Peter Jensen won Q&A – according to both impartial judges, and even according to many atheists who were disappointed with the tone Catherine Deveny employed. There’s also a push-back, somewhat rightly, on this sort of decision making because caring about a speaker or their tone is essentially a fallacy. The problem is – people aren’t running around looking for fallacies, or judging every argument on merit – these things create biases, or colour people’s judgment.
It’s particularly true when it comes to theological issues – the first group to make a non-crucial issue into a salvation issue in a debate almost immediately loses my vocal support. I’d rather hang out with the group who are being charitable to the people who disagree, than the people who think that disagreement is apostasy. But that would put me in cahoots with a lot of heretics – because judging sides based on the niceness of the people who take them is logically, and theologically, flawed. It’s also why most forms of fanboyism, when they come at the expense of some other category of product, person, or group, is pretty dumb. Unless, like in the case of Apple, the product is clearly superior.
The cringeworthy response Guy Sebastian and his fans have displayed in the hubbub about the coverage of his move away from Christianity, and the gracious response (see Guy’s interactions with another open letter writer here), are enough to bias me towards those who are asking Guy to reconsider his words and position (admittedly a position I already hold).
It’s a fallacy though – that people you like hold a position doesn’t make it true, it’s possible to be lovely and well-intentioned, and gentle, and wrong.
This means I have to read carefully when people who don’t seem all that nice criticise something I agree with, or worse, have written myself. Because I’m automatically biased against them (plus, I’m not great at taking criticism, so I’m already on the defensive).
It has implications for how one writes, and who one promotes or supports, because making yourself, or the people you agree with, an obstacle is doing your argument a disservice. We need to be careful about the company we keep, or are seen to keep. I don’t think it’s enough to say that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Christians are far too guilty of this. We hear someone trumpeting a position we like – and jump on board with them, or worse, give them a platform, straight away. And that’s dangerous. Bad company corrupts (1 Cor 15:33), especially when it’s within the church (1 Cor 6)…
The company you keep is important. It’s why it’s important to speak against extremists from your own camp, rather than letting them create collateral damage by lobbing rhetorical grenades at your opponents (see the Alan Jones fiasco).
The second, and related, fallacy, is a matter of tone. I find it hard to read arguments that are nasty, personal, and malicious. I want to dismiss them straight away. I find it easier to stomach something that is written with grace, charity, and a bit of epistemic humility. But this is equally fallacious.
Sometimes this nastiness itself can be fallacious – it can caricature your opponent’s views, or their motivations, or it can raise questions about the nature of their argument on the basis of who they are, or who you paint them to be. But again – these arguments can be true.
The same principles that applied to the company we keep also apply with tone.
Interestingly – both these factors come together when it comes to arguments or conversations on Facebook – a statement with a disagreeable tone gives a pretty quick opportunity for assessing the company one keeps – based on the number of likes it gets. Have a look, for example, at the vitriol that gets launched at anybody who dares to disagree with Guy Sebastian’s approach to Christianity on his wall post, by his fans, and the likes the harshest criticisms of minority voices accumulate. The company side of things kicks in when you start censoring out those minority voices, or calling for them to be silenced simply because they disagree with you. Interestingly, a couple of posts I made on that thread, one containing a link to my open letter, and another explaining that I believed it was important to contact people I write about, because that has integrity, have been deleted. The first sat between the first two comments in this picture.
I’m not necessarily suggesting Guy was censoring disagreement – he probably has someone else moderate this page, and my post did contain a link – so there are good reasons it may have happened, but not deleting the comments about that comment seems an odd decision. Especially when I would like to think that comments with the more gracious tone have been replaced with comments that label people (in this case, me) as “rude””so-called Christians” writing “judgmental garbage.”
Anyway. This didn’t actually start out as a continuation of the Guy Sebastian conversation, it was an observation of disagreements I’ve been part of, or read, online – and that was one. And all this seems rather obvious – but it helps me if I can articulate why I’m struggling to agree with people I agree with, and disagree with people I don’t, and it makes me want to work harder at being agreeable in my tone, and clear when the people who agree with me are agreeing with me in a harmful way.
Wipeout: Join my campaign against one verb conference names
Figure 1.0: What can go wrong when Biblical verbs are functionally shifted, nominalised, or gerunded, then homophoned, and removed from context…
Maybe this is me showing my age. Though I’m still under 30. So I don’t feel that old. But I yearn for the days when Christian conferences had descriptive names, names that didn’t need to be explained with a subheading, names that explained in a nice tight way what attendees could expect.
Names like the Queensland Youth Convention, National Training Event, Mid Year Camp, Katoomba Youth Leadership Conference. These names meant something. They may have been a triumph of substance over style. But so what.
Marketing can be about substance. I’d argue that communication/marketing is more effective when you know what you’re getting when you make a transaction.
Tell me what the following things are – from their titles:
- Stir
- Spur
- Thrive
- Engage
- Kickstart
- Grow
- Forge
- Refresh
- Twist
- Merge
- Transform
Some are better than others. Some of these verbs carry a pretty strong idea. None works without some sort of clarification that takes, time, space, and creativity (to link an obscure verb with the substance in an authentic way).
Disclaimer: I have been to many of these events and believe they are valuable. I enjoyed them, was stirred, spurred, transformed, refreshed, and engaged by them – I think they are valuable and worthwhile. It isn’t my intention to undermine the work people are doing promoting these – you should go to them because the events are good. The product is worth investing in. This should be the case with everything you choose to invest your time and money into… But the one word verb thing is cliched, and, in my opinion, wasn’t ever a great idea anyway.
I’m an equal opportunity offender – so if you’ve got examples from outside the organisations that I’m familiar with (or involved with) – feel free to share them.
One of the problems here is that you’ve got to invest a whole lot of energy into developing and explaining the concept behind the verb as it relates to your product, and if the product doesn’t match what you’re aspiring to, it very quickly becomes just another stupid product name.
And tell me – if not me – a guy conversant with Christian culture, engaged in the Christian scene, who likes camps and conferences – who are these titles for? Who do they appeal to. I don’t get it.
And that’s the problem – these names offer nothing except some sort of wishy-washy aspirational verb.
And where do we go next? Adverbs? Conferences called:
- Faster
- Better
- Stronger
- Higher
Enough. The conferences or events I’ve gone to and benefited from most in the last two years had such sexy titles as:
- QTC Preaching Week
- Piper in Brisbane
- Don Carson: Looking back, looking forward
Conferences rise and fall on the quality of their content – the quality of the speaker(s) and the relevance of the topic. Fancy names might help build a brand over the long term, but if the product quality drops your brand takes a hit. A hit it may not recover from. Personally I think you’re far better off having a strong brand behind a series of events, where people trust the organisation involved to put on something worthwhile. Investing in an essentially meaningless brand name is pretty short sighted. I think.
Plus everyone’s doing it. So it’s not cutting edge anymore. It’s blunt.
Why you must read Macarisms (if you don’t already)
Dave McDonald has been blogging his way through a battle with cancer – he’s apparently up to 80,000 words worth of reflecting on the fight, and his faith in Jesus as it goes on (hopefully for many years to come).
Dave has been faithfully serving Jesus in Canberra for many years. He’s a good, long term, family friend, a contemporary of my dad’s, and his blog is poignant, candid, and an incredible reminder of what this medium can be – it’s gospel centred and encouraging, it’s a must read for everybody, but of particular value for those who need to be reminded to pray for, and think of, those suffering from terminal or chronic illness, and thinking about how to care for, or experience, suffering when life goes in a different direction.
I’ve tried to write a post telling you to read his blog a couple of times – but words failed me. Which is, given the abundance of words stored in the archives of this blog, a surprise, for you and me both. The richness of Dave’s reflections, and the generosity of sharing them publicly, is something pretty special and encouraging.
His latest post – on the legacy of words that its increasingly possible for any modern person, especially a preacher, to build – is a fantastic example of the kind of things you’ll read at Macarisms…
“I’m keen to leave my children, and my children’s children, a legacy with my words. It’s kind of nice that each of them currently follow the blog and they’ll be able to read back over things once I’m gone. It’s pretty special that they’ll even be able to listen to my voice if they download talks. But it’s the content of what I say that’s important. My prayer is that I’ll leave a legacy that flows from my words and is supported by my life. I desire to point beyond myself to the one and only God who loves each one of them. I want to share the good news of Jesus, his life, his words, his death, and his resurrection, and show them why I believe it. I want to speak about the goodness of God in the face of suffering and evil, and show the true joy that comes from confidence and contentment in God.”
I hope that what I write on my blog, and elsewhere, gives people a pretty good picture of who I am, but ultimately I hope that it’ll achieve the purposes Dave articulates in that quote. I want people to know Jesus.
He ends with a powerful reminder that God has left us a living legacy in the personification of his word – Jesus, and the good news of the gospel.
“I know that even if I were to write books and archive my talks in the safest of places, there will come a time when my words are no longer remembered. That’s just the way things go. But there are also some words that will never be wasted, words that will always achieve their purpose, words that will endure and live forever. The Apostle Peter wrote to Christians in the first century…
23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”And this is the word that was preached to you.
(1Peter 1:23-25, my emphasis.)
The game they play in heaven?
Last night I went to my third Rugby test. I think it was my third. They all sort of blend together. It was definitely the first time I’ve seen the All Blacks play, and the Haka was pretty incredible – even from our spot behind the try line.
We were lucky enough to score tickets in the Qantas Wallabies Hood – that means we got to wear these (a bargain at $15 – but a steal, for us, because you get them for free with seats in the hood)…
Robyn loves Union. She comes from a family of Union lovers. I try pretty hard to tolerate it – and I’ve watched enough to understand some of the nuances of the game – like what constitutes a penalty in the breakdown. I watched enough when I was a kid to know that the international Rugby being played now is nothing like the attractive Rugby of old – even if it’s no longer a case of playing force-em-backs until you get a good enough chance to run the ball.
The game was close, which added an element of tension – and there was a post-siren chance that either team could snatch victory in a deadlocked contest – but tension and drama do not make a game inherently worth watching. I enjoyed watching the game with Robyn and my father-in-law – but not so much with the boorish All Blacks fans standing behind me, one of whom inadvertently spat in my face while laughing at our ridiculous hoods, and then, as he got more intoxicated, began harassing the poor lady next to us. About her hat. Because new material was beyond his wit and remit. His was the role of “drunken idiot who ruins the experience for everybody,” and he played the role with aplomb.
I don’t want to cover old ground too much – in terms of why I think Rugby League is, objectively, the superior game. There’s a list here. I stand by it.
I simply wish to cover the problems with Rugby Union, as I see them…
Fans of Union used to argue that it is a “free flowing” game, where the ball is in play. This is a throwback to the halcyon days where players kicked for position and the ball moved quickly – though this, too, may be a myth – it isn’t true of the modern game. There are stats from this season’s Super 15 competition that make this pretty clear. These stats matched my experience last night, where every point was scored from a penalty kick and there were stacks of errors and scrums.
Lets look at the facts.
Union officials are celebrating the “improvement” in the time the ball spends in play since 1991 from 31% to 44%. SANZAR – the organising body responsible for the Super 15 – is celebrating that the ball, on average, was in play about 44% of game time this season. Just 35 minutes per game. The clock doesn’t really stop in union – which means tired players dawdle to scrums, meander their way down the field to lineouts, and stop for tea and crumpets every time a penalty shot is being taken in a bizarre athletic filibuster.
It’s not like there are long periods where the ball is in play followed by long stoppages either. It’s stop start stop start stop start… Here’s a stat from this PDF analysis of stoppages in the 2012 Super 15 season:
“The average number of stoppages per game was 57. Each stoppage averaged 49.5 seconds while each time ball was in play averaged 37.4 seconds.”
People defend Union on the basis that it’s a game of tactics, possession, and field position – which is true – but there is no ball sport this cannot be said of. Except, perhaps, for golf, where the less time the ball is in your possession the better – though the other two elements are true.
What Union is not, in its current form, is an entertaining spectacle for viewers, a free flowing athletic contest, where individuals other than the goal kicker are able to demonstrate any form of prowess, providing value for money. What it is is a game of chess, where players shift around the field trying not to lose any advantage, rather than trying to gain any, hoping to eventually earn a penalty, where they, provided the ball is anywhere within 50 metres of the goal posts, will take a shot at goal and earn 3 points – more than half the points available for an unconverted try. Even field goal fests would be more entertaining viewing than what was offered last night.
By my calculation, on the basis of these stats, the ball was out of play for 23 minutes of penalty goal time last night – that’s the time between a penalty being given, the option being chosen, the player lining up the kick, and whatever restart is required. And I reckon last night’s kicks took longer than normal because some of them were from a long way out, and only one or two were relatively straightforward jobs from right in front.
I understand it was an historic draw for an understrength Australian team coming up against arguably the best team of the modern era, or ever (though the All Blacks are missing a couple of faces from their World Cup win – notably Brad Thorn – who today signed on to play another year of Super Rugby, and Sonny Bill Williams – who is boxing/galavanting/whatever his doyen Khoder Nasser is arranging him to do on some other corner of the globe).
I understand that the scrappiness of last night’s game was the result of a high pressure environment with inexperienced players taking on this machine.
But there’s no excusing, or hiding from the fact, that all the points scored last night were a result of taking the no-risk option, and came at the expense of any real form of attack – and that the ball was in play for less than half the game.
I, for one, hope the sport we play in heaven looks nothing like last night’s game. The only real winners last night were League, Football (soccer), and AFL – the sports competing for the hearts and minds of Australian sporting fans – even the long term supporters catching the bus home with us last night were disillusioned by the outcome and process of last night’s game. So I know I’m not alone in thinking this…
How would you fix Union? Or am I off the planet – is Rugby still deserving of beatification?
Six minutes of stuff breaking
Therapeutic. Cathartic. Cool.
Sensational slow-mo lightning video
This is incredible.
Get a pad: note this social media life lesson from a feminine hygiene company
Warning – if the use of the word “penis” offends you, or the thought of natural bodily functions like “periods” – then don’t read on, though it’s probably too late.
A guy, of course it was a guy, complained to women’s hygiene product maker BodyForm on Facebook because their mystical picture of a happy period didn’t match the reality when he got a girlfriend. His post got more than 90,000 likes.
Here’s what he said:
“Hi , as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years . As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn’t I get to enjoy this time of joy and ‘blue water’ and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn’t wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen …..you lied !! There was no joy , no extreme sports , no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving , gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform , you crafty bugger”
We loved Richard’s wicked sense of humour. We are always grateful for input from our users, but his comment was particularly poignant. If Facebook had a “love” button, we’d have clicked it. But it doesn’t. So we’ve made Richard a video instead. Unfortunately Bodyform doesn’t have a CEO. But if it did she’d be called Caroline Williams. And she’d say this.
The advertising company behind the this move, Carat, has explained their rationale…
“Yulia Kretova, brand controller for Bodyform said in a statement: “We found Richard’s post very amusing and wanted to continue the positive dialogue around periods that this generated. Working with the brand for five years, breaking down the taboo around Bodyform and periods has always been a challenge, and I hope that we have started to address this. Carat has created an original and uniquely personalized response, brilliantly PR-ed by Myriad, allowing Bodyform to quickly engage in consumer conversations in a meaningful way.””
It’s no secret that social media requires respond to criticism with personality – it’s much easier to do this when the criticism is humourous, because everybody wins – the guy who posted the initial complaint gets some attention and a brief moment of internet celebrity, the company comes off showing a human side, and we all get a laugh. Everybody wins.
It’s harder when the criticism is serious and substantial. Getting tone right is important – you don’t want to mock the people who are concerned about a big issue. And it pays to have developed a voice and personality for your online presence before you get hit with a big complaint, so that people can see you’re being consistent and authentic with your brand, and your dealings with customers, not fake.
Body Form smashed this one out of the park, it gives them something to build on, like Old Spice a few years back.
Probably the most helpful thing I’ve read on developing and maintaining a social media personality is the book Likeable, which I reviewed here, and another book, called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World
But it doesn’t really help when the criticism is nasty, personal, or just down right wrong. All of these are frustrating. All of them happen on the internet with alarming regularity that leaves you despairing about the corporate human intellect. Treating people like they’re dumb, or responding in kind, is a pretty quick way to lose friends and alienate everybody.
This got me thinking about how I deal with criticism. I’ve been struggling with this in recent days – particularly some of the comments here, but I’ve been struggling with it for much longer – because I’m a creature of pride, with a quick tongue (and fingers, when it comes to typing).
It’s easy to talk about dealing with criticism well online – in my experience it’s incredibly difficult to do, especially when you feel like you’ve been involved in the criticism personally. I tend to write passive aggressive posts here, and try to respond to comments in a gentle way while gritting my teeth and wanting to reach through the screen and throttle the person who has dared to attack me, sometimes the anger and hurt comes through – but this is not the way. Responding with actual love and concern for the person you’re responding to is a better way.
I should keep these Proverbs in mind when I’m responding to people:
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger – Proverbs 15:1
A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel- Proverbs 15:18
This bit from James 1…
“19My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.”
And this great bit from Romans 12…
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
I’ve got to admit – part of me enjoys the idea that by responding in love you make the person who is attacking you feel uncomfortable, and in some way you’ve got to imagine the guy who wrote that post to Bodyform, while enjoying the response, feeling a little uncomfortable with both the attention he received, and the amount of effort the company went to to respond to his joke.
But the ultimate way to respond to criticism, joke or otherwise, is modelled by Jesus while he’s on the cross. Beside criminals – being taunted, having his clothes gambled for, dying (Luke 23:34).
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
I wish I was better at that.
My number one piece of parenting advice: The Jesus Storybook Bible
Parenting is fun. We love it. Getting advice about parenting, well, that’s a mixed bag. Some is helpful. Some is odd. Most is well intentioned. Some is revenge for the years of pain I’ve inflicted on other people’s kids.
Anyway.
Here’s my number one piece of parenting advice. Buy your child this kid’s Bible. The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name
It’s a sensational example of why a Christ centred Biblical Theology brings the whole Bible together.
I am looking forward to Soph being old enough for me to complement it with pictures from the Brick Bible. I have the Old Testament already. And you can find the kids talks I did once with pictures from the online version of Judges in my Bible Stories for Boys tag.
Book Review: The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission, John Dickson
I’ve found John Dickson tremendously helpful at just about every stage of my Christian life – even when he edited a magazine called Zed magazine that I remember reading as a kid. His books are helpful. His take on public Christianity is pretty paradigmatic for me, and his apparent commitment to excellence – particularly as manifested in his approach to scholarship, and the resources he produces – is something I aspire to.
This comes as a sort of disclaimer to be read to account for my bias in this treatment of his exceptionally useful book – The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission: Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips
This isn’t a new book, it has been around for a while, but we’re doing a series at church this term on connecting with people, where the book is suggested as a good way for understanding what evangelism looks like as a church family – it takes the pressure off a little bit, by lowering the bar – and treating evangelism not just as God’s work – which is a robustly reformed understanding of the task, but as the church’s work. A team effort.
My experience while reading this book was quite bizarre – almost an out of body experience. It was like I was reading my own thoughts written to me. This was scary, and somewhat reassuring. Though I hadn’t read the book until a month ago, this is largely the framework I use when I’m thinking about church, mission, and our role as individuals within those contexts.
My take on his foundational premise – that our lives, our whole lives, essentially function as a declaration of who we are, so we should think about that and live intentionally in a way that our lives are consistent with the gospel, in a way that promotes it – means I think it’s an incredibly useful resource, especially as it applies this concept to real life, it’s not abstract, and its incredibly well argued, with occasional references to the author’s PhD thesis, which I read a lot of for an essay once, and found equally helpful.
Here’s a lynchpin sort of paragraph…
“But perhaps the best kept secret of Christian mission is that the Bible lists a whole range of activities that promote Christ to the world and draw others toward him. These include prayer, godly behaviour, financial assistance, the public praise of God (in church) and, as already mentioned, answering people’s questions. All of these are explicitly connected in the Bible with advancing the gospel and winning people to Christ. They are all “mission” activities, and only a couple of them involve the lips at all.”
But wait. You say, observant reader that you are – this sounds exactly like that Sir Francis of Assisi misquote (h/t Gary Ware) that you don’t like: “always preach the gospel, when necessary use words” – you’ve said before that words are necessary. Thankfully, I’ve also said that I think a whole bunch of other stuff that communicates the truth of the gospel, deliberately, and alongside the use of words, also counts as word ministry (how we live/act, how we sing, multimedia, though I remain unconvinced about gospel mime).
I think words are necessary for word ministry, and for mission, but they aren’t the only part of our testimony. I think this book seeks to avoid people saying “words alone” – because our testimony will be much richer if we’re living them out, together, and letting people who are gifted in particular areas carry the load in those areas.
I like this quote from Augustine on the place of good works.
“Now of all who can with us enjoy God, we love partly those to whom we render services, partly those who render services to us, partly those who both help us in our need and in turn are helped by us, partly those upon whom we confer no advantage and from whom we look for none. We ought to desire, however, that they should all join with us in loving God, and all the assistance that we either, give them or accept from them should tend to that one end.”
Dickson is not denying that the gospel is words – he simply says we promote the gospel with more than words. Importantly he says this:
“Does this mean that people can start believing in Christ without hearing the gospel at all? No. As the apostle Paul makes clear, “faith comes from hearing the message” (Romans 10:17). First Peter 3:1 shows us that the gospel’s role in conversion is more complex than we sometimes realise. It is not enough simply to affirm that people are won to faith only through the hearing of the gospel. Let me explain. Leaving aside the important theological observation that all conversion is ultimately the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit, let me try and account for conversion from the human side of the equation, which is what Paul and Peter are talking about in the above texts. Humanly speaking, hearing the gospel is the necessary and sufficient cause of faith in Christ. It is necessary inasmuch as people cannot put their faith in Jesus without first learning the gospel about him. It is sufficient in that the gospel can bring people to faith all on its own—it needs no other factor (other than the work of the Holy Spirit). However, none of this means that hearing the gospel is the only cause of faith, or even that it is always the primary cause of faith. Other factors (on the human side of the equation) will frequently play a minor or major role in winning people over to the One revealed in the gospel.”
I could wax lyrical about this book and its benefits for a couple of thousand words – or you could just buy it and read it.
I’ll start with what I thought was a question I would have liked a bit more time spent on, or where I think something could be added – the first is his definition of the gospel…
“The gospel is the announcement that God has revealed his kingdom and opened it up to sinners through the birth, teaching, miracles, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will one day return to overthrow evil and consummate the kingdom for eternity… Any account of the Christian gospel that does not narrate the basic content of the books we rightly call the Gospels does not deserve to be called a “gospel outline”. It might be a true and accurate statement of biblical truths—and, for that reason, valuable and useful for our hearers—but it is not the gospel that Jesus said must be preached to all nations (Mark 13:10).”
I largely agree. I think the best three word reduction of the gospel is “Jesus is Lord” – if it was six words it would be “the resurrection shows Jesus is Lord” – but reductions suffer because they are simplifications… I’d want to suggest that while this is an incredibly useful description of the Gospel, it kind of cuts loose the Old Testament, especially creation and fall – which, though I have hesitations about the predominant usage of 2 Ways to Live (seriously, how many other conversations do people walk up to somebody, and unless they’re a professional cartoonist, or playing pictionary, say “can I draw you a picture”), though I have hesitations about this use – starting the gospel account from creation and fall is, I think, an essential part of the gospel narrative, I think John’s gospel, in the prologue, agrees with me, as does Matthew with his fronting of the genealogy – so this insight isn’t precluded by the summary above. I just think making it explicit is useful.
God’s role in creation, as the sole author of creation, is the foundation of his commitment to the act of promoting the gospel, so it’s not absent from his thinking. He says:
“There may be different ways of expressing it but I think I would have to answer this question with the simple statement: there is one God. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible makes the resounding, unapologetic declaration that there is just one Creator and Lord of the world. It begins in the Bible’s opening line: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). To ancient readers, this was not simply a sensible way to start a holy book. It was a huge swipe at the entire religious outlook of the time. The opening lines of the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, to give just one example from the period, list no fewer than nine separate gods, each with its own part to play in the events leading up to creation. Saying that “God created the heavens and the earth” was tantamount to saying that no other deity was involved in the universe… If there is just one God in the universe, everyone everywhere has a duty to worship that Lord.”
Tying the motivation for preaching to the Lordship of Jesus, rather than to fear of judgment or as some sort of good work, is incredibly freeing – from guilt, and from any sense of obligation, outside of the joyful gratitude that being one of the people of the true Lord of the universe brings. This is very helpful. He says:
“We promote God’s glory to the ends of the earth not principally because of any human need but fundamentally because of God’s/Christ’s unique worthiness as the Lord of heaven and earth. Promoting the gospel to the world is more than a rescue mission (though it is certainly that as well); it is a reality mission. It is our plea to all to acknowledge that they belong to one Lord.”
To which I say: “Amen”…
I think this paradigm really helpfully anchors the good that we do – promoting the Lordship of Jesus should be behind our care for the environment, and our love of other people – we do these things because both creation and people are good objects to love, but we ultimately do them because we live for the Lord Jesus, not ourselves – and the act declares something about that Lordship. It’s a complex relationship. I think “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
“Good deeds must never be thought of as a missionary tactic, a means of getting people onside before hitting them with the gospel (“throwing cakes to children”, as Emperor Julian would say). They are the essential fruit of the gospel. Good works must be done for their own sake, in obedience to the Lord. God’s grace proclaimed in the gospel finds its essential outcome in the godly life of those who believe the gospel. Nevertheless, it is precisely because good deeds are an essential fruit of the gospel that they so powerfully promote the gospel. Although we must not find ourselves “doing good” simply as a gospel ploy, there can be no question that Jesus expected unbelievers to observe our acts of love (for the world and for one another29) and through them to be convinced to worship the source of all love: “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).”
He also says:
“Following the example of Paul and Jesus does not necessarily mean that we do what they did. It means that we live by the same flexible ethos, seeking the good of many so that they may be saved. Every aspect of our lives—including our social lives—can and should be directed toward the glory of God and the salvation of our neighbours.”
Being already convinced of the place of mission in the Old Testament – or the place it should have occupied in Israel’s approach to the nations – I found his stuff on Israel’s role as proclaimers of this truth convincing and helpful. Sadly, there was nothing that specifically supports my theory that the wisdom literature was a model of evangelism through participation in an international wisdom dialogue, as far as I know I’m still essentially alone there… but his understanding of how Israel was to promote the good news of God in their words, their life, their worship, and their distinctiveness from the nations is useful, and surely forms some of the working in developing a Biblical Theology of mission.
The sections relating to what it meant for Israel to evangelise by being Israel is, alone, worth the price of the book. This is one of the money paragraphs:
“Worship by the Book, Tim Keller of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church writes: Israel was called to make God known to unbelieving nations (Ps 105:1) by singing his praises (Ps 105:2). The temple was to be the center of a “world-winning worship.” The people of God not only worship before the Lord but also before the nations (cf. Isa 2:1-4; 56:6-8; Ps 47:1; 100:1-5; 102:18; 117). God is to be praised before all nations, and as he is praised by his people, the nations are summoned and called to join in song. This pattern does not essentially change in the New Testament, where Peter tells a Gentile church to “declare the praises” of him who called us out of darkness. The term cannot merely refer to preaching but must also refer to gathered worship…
Passages like these illustrate just how natural it was for biblical writers to see corporate praise as public proclamation, as a type of evangelism. This doesn’t mean that all gospel proclamation is “praise” but it does mean that all true praise has the potential to be gospel proclamation, for in it we recount the wonders of Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection and return.”
I love it. If you read this post – that won’t come as a surprise.
This leads to a particular approach to how church is conducted – it’s not about being seeker sensitive, but about being clear about who we are praising, about why, and concerned about how we conduct our gatherings – concerned for their quality.
“There are all sorts of reasons some of our churches have visitors – location, architecture, demographics and so on-but, in my experience, the most significant factor is the quality of the church service. By “quality” I do not mean the professionalism of the leader or the standard of technology and music. I mean the degree to which the congregation revels in its experience of praising God and encouraging one another…
I want to stress in the strongest terms that visitor-focused services are not an evangelistic necessity. Normal church meetings conducted exceptionally well will not only inspire the regulars; they will draw in visitors and, through the powerful vehicle of our corporate praise, promote the gospel to them.”
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this book, in terms of its reception, and the bit that I took the most convincing on, is the question of the semantic range of the word “evangelist,” and specifically whether or not everybody has a responsibility to speak the gospel, not just promote it. Dickson’s take is interesting. I feel like he’s onto something. Especially because I’m pretty committed to the idea that the body is made up of different people with different gifts – but I feel like in the absence of other people gifted in evangelism, or in smaller manifestations of the body – people have to be evangelists, I don’t think this is something that Dickson would deny… but I can’t put words into his mouth, here’s what he says:
“We are involved in God’s mission, and so we must allow his Word to shape our part in it. The slogan “Every Christian an evangelist” has a noble purpose, but it is not a biblical way of speaking. For Christians in general—as opposed to evangelists in particular—telling the gospel to others (evangelism) could be described as the icing on the cake of mission.”
His argument essentially seems to be some people are icing specialists (evangelists), some people are cake makers (promoters of the gospel), and that it’s fine to just make cake because that’s where the substance is, and its the harder bit. I guess I’d want to say that everybody should be able to make the icing, and evangelists have to be pretty good at making cake too. Again. I don’t think he disagrees. His tips for picking those people who are especially called, or gifted, as evangelists are valuable – but I do think that each one of the characteristics (keenness to share the gospel, relate well to non-believers, Christian maturity, and clarity on what the gospel is – including speaking intelligibly) is something that all Christians should aspire to.
One other very minor criticism is only really relevant if you’re convinced that Bruce Winter is right about what Paul is doing at the Areopagus, in Acts 17, if his exercise is an exercise in wisely assessing the situation, and meeting a social convention for his audience, which expected to be introduced to “foreign gods,” while presenting the gospel, then I’d say Paul’s speech there isn’t an anomaly, but rather, an essential demonstration of his approach to gospel preaching. I’d argue that rather than simply being an apologetic to their concerns, it is a presentation of the gospel that adheres to how they expect to hear about new gods. But that’s not a point that in any sense undermines this fantastic book.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for me – personally – coming from a guy whose excellence I admire, as someone who is too often tempted to think that my own pursuit of excellence in evangelism will be what produces fruit, came in this paragraph…
“A few years after these strange days, I asked Glenda [the lady who led him, and many of his friends from school, to Jesus] what she put her “success” down to. Without blinking she answered, “Prayer. We prayed earnestly, regularly and specifically for your school, and the Lord in his grace answered us.” As an evangelist who is sometimes tempted to think too highly of skill, style and creativity in evangelism, her words were (and are) a salient reminder that the “harvest” is the Lord’s, not mine. The most basic gospel-promoting task, therefore, is not evangelism; it is prayer to the Lord of the harvest.”
This is really powerful stuff for anybody who thinks too highly of their own God given skills, and ability to think. I thoroughly recommend this book that you’ve hopefully all read already.
Things that kill: smoking, sin, being boring
I once bagged vaguely funny (or not funny at all) church signs for very rarely being “on message” or at all related to what goes on if the people the signs are for (passers by) choose to come through the doors of a church building. I was, perhaps, too dismissive, and my discussion with a guy from Outreach Media on that post presents a bit of a middle way… But my position hasn’t really changed all that much – most church signs are used poorly, and if they make Christians cringe, must be worse for outsiders.
I’m also not generally a fan of outdoor advertising – partly because it’s visual clutter, partly because in my opinion, unless you’re saturating a city with a very clear proposition to the people of the city, they’re a fleeting reminder of something people don’t care about – they’re intrusion marketing personified. Or boardsonified. They work for Coke – because Coke is in every shop you walk past after seeing the billboard, they work for people promoting longer lasting satisfaction in the bedroom – because they get media coverage for being shocking – and generally, they haven’t worked all that well for Christianity (thanks Harold Campling and the ACL). They do work if they’re attention grabbing and controversial, and an attempt to be part of a conversation that is actually happening – not the conversation you think is happening that people cared about 30 years ago.
Many churches have the capacity for outdoor advertising – be it a small sign, a letterboard, or a big space. It does not follow that all churches should use them. But if you’ve got the time and resources to think carefully about what you’re going to say, it’s the low hanging fruit of communicating with the people around you.
If you’re going to do them, you may as well do them well… While my preference would just be for clear brand information and a clear, and related call to action, something like: “This week here at church we’ll be looking at X – will you join us at TIMES” – but in a much more engaging, non-boring, non-templated way. The rationale for this approach is – statistically speaking the same people are passing by your church on their way to school, work, home, etc, so the sign outside your building is a long term visual presence for them, and if you can, over time, build the expectation that you’re not a weird cult, but are a church that tackles interesting issues in an interesting way, that will make their decision to come through your doors a little more informed.
I wonder if there’s something like the equivalent of a lectionary for church signs – where the whole gospel is communicated in a year, and if that could be made more winsome and engaging – maybe something like a catechism for church sign writers… but I digress.
This has, indeed, been a rather long digression. A setting of the scene, if you will…
A Sydney Church has cracked the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald for using this poster from Outreach Media.
Image Credit: Outreach Media
I have mixed feelings about this – I’m not sure, following the unfortunate issues of a few weeks back, that I want smoking and sin being associated so closely together. It’s a bit like Tony Abbott using the words “die of shame” – there’s going to be an immediate association drawn, especially when part of the argument is essentially the same, just with an explicit, rather than implicit, reference to the theological underpinnings.
But the story is pretty brilliant and engaging – and doesn’t draw the comparison.
St. Peters Anglican Church is on a highway. The sign is getting plenty of attention. I’m not sure how big it is, and how legible it is from the road – someone from Outreach Media might care to comment on that… but the “warning from the Bible” box is pretty gold.
Ignoring the response from the anti-smoking lobby – who used this as an opportunity to stay on message for themselves – this article is pretty brilliant, Andrew Bruce, the man on the ground at St. Peters, got a great opportunity to get some good quotes in, and he took it.
“Better to be a smoker that goes to heaven than a person who doesn’t smoke and falls under the judgment of God,” the Reverend Andrew Bruce said.
The billboard outside his St Peters Anglican Church, on the Princes Highway, is seen by about 40,000 cars a day, he said.
“Jesus is good news for smokers and non-smokers alike.”The health risks for smokers are not a patch on the prospect of eternal damnation, he suggested.
“One is eternal and one is only for this life; I think that’s the point.”
Love it. I love this endorsement of Outreach Media too – at first read I had a problem, but I’ll explain why I don’t think it’s a problem after the quote…
“Mr Bruce said the organisation’s posters and billboards, which some churches pay to use each month, were deliberately designed to attract attention.
“I think the biggest sin of the lot is being boring. If we put up a sign saying ‘Jesus loves you’ that’s what people expect us to say. You need to strike deeper than that and engage people or it’s here today, gone tomorrow.””
Yes. Being boring kills. You won’t get an argument against that in these parts… I’d rather see churches put up signs about Jesus love than signs that aren’t about Jesus at all – but this quote isn’t saying “we’ll engage by not talking about Jesus” but “we’ll talk about Jesus in an engaging way”… the first is a possible interpretation of that quote, but the idea that we’re to “strike deeper” not “strike elsewhere” is pretty critical, and a point well made.
What needs to happen for people to get over the idea that disagreement=division?
Why is modern thinking so binary? Why is every debate framed as a black and white issue of adversity where choosing a position means picking a team? It’s the case in politics. It’s the case in sport. It’s especially the case in the internal mechanisms of Christianity. And frankly. I’m over it. Life is complex. Life is a constant stream of sacrifice and compromise – tolerance even – so that we can love people despite our differences, not hate people because of them.
I don’t mean this in a wishy washy way – we are going to disagree on things, and though I’m sure some questions are more complex than others, there is, in most cases, a right answer, and in other cases, a better answer.
The answers we come up with to any problems are a product of the quality of the conflict, or debate, that produces them. Ideas are best clarified by criticism, by cutting out the rubbish, by considering new perspectives. Argument is part of the process. It’s profoundly part of being together, working together, and striving together.
This is profoundly, and obviously, true. Especially within teams, but also within, say, politics – a healthy debate where both sides are actually listened to, and both sets of political priorities (say – the concerns of employers, and employees) are properly considered – will produce better policy outcomes (though not necessarily from the perspective of the employer, or employee – because we act most naturally out of self interest. In fact, mitigating self interest, or special interests, is one of the best parts of healthy debate… And yet, there’s a certain stream of thinking so put off by the overly robust approach to argument, that equates disagreement with hostility, or put off by the sanguine approach to argument that merges all answers into no answer, that insists the answer is we must all agree on everything, if not at all times, at least in public – especially in the church.
This is dumb. It’s going to lead to a watered down and unhealthy church where the strongest willed wins. Where either the overwhelming will to move with the times, or the underwhelming will to stay exactly as things were 40 years ago, will win unopposed.
Disagreement, public disagreement, direct and robust public disagreement, is vital for the health of the church and its mission. Disunity can be unattractive – but disagreement isn’t disunity. Unless you say “this person is not a Christian” you’re ultimately not dividing over the issue that unites you – who Jesus is… so it’s not division. It’s debate. And the fact that we debate, in public, not only shows that we care, it brings others with us – others who are on mission with us, and others who are interested in what Christians think, and how they think, and how they make decisions.
Tone is important – speaking lovingly is important – but it’s not loving to pull a punch. It’s not loving to not express the seriousness of an issue in order to avoid the appearance of disunity. It’s like my old soccer coach used to tell me – if you’re in training and you go into a tackle with a team mate half heartedly – you’re both more likely to be injured. You put things in the wrong spot. Everything is askew. To continue the analogy – If all you do is train without tackling, the first time you’re properly tackled by an opponent will break you. But if you’re on the same team, you’ll pick the guy up after you smash him, and you won’t hold a grudge or be out to get him in a different context. Because hitting each other is part of the process of being on a team – and it doesn’t mean you don’t think you’re on the same team, and it certainly doesn’t mean you don’t like the person… if the principle is so easy to see in the context of team sport, why is it so difficult in the rest of life? Why are we so sensitive that at the first inkling that somebody might think someone else is wrong about something? Why do we assume that the only way to interpret any disagreement that is articulated is to assume the people who disagree don’t like each other?
It is, quite frankly, bizarre. And unhelpful. And, for Christians, profoundly out of kilter with what we know of how Christian community should work. As Christians our unity is in Christ.
Lets assume. For the moment. That the Bible is a public document – that it was written to be read as something other than private correspondence. Now read
The objection – that Paul rules out lawsuits amongst believers (1 Cor 6) – therefore any public disagreement is wrong – is an attempt to extrapolate a general principle from a specific example. I’d suggest this general principle is fatally flawed – and ruled out by 1 Corinthians itself. It runs counter to the fact that Paul is writing a public document that criticises the Corinthian Church on several fronts, and when he gets to the disagreement that’s happening in the church about food and being involved in temple life – he not only publicly takes a position (he takes the position that idols are nothing, all food is from God (1 Cor 8, 10), and they shouldn’t take part in emperor worship (1 Cor 10)), in what was obviously a public debate (the gatherings weren’t private, if they were, the Christians could have been charged as being a seditious and illegal association, he writes a letter to be read in the gatherings)… he also lays down the proper principles for disagreement – to make sure that unity in Christ triumphs over individual freedoms in those passages – he says do what is loving and doesn’t destroy people’s weak faith. He obviously doesn’t think discussing the disagreement, or suggesting a solution, is a threat to people’s faith – or that it should be.
He also names people who are doing the wrong thing, and spells out past disputes (Philippians 4:2, Galatians 2:11-14) where necessary.
Disagreement isn’t wrong. Public disagreement isn’t wrong. I’ve tried to make this case in many more words here…
Where those who have genuine concerns about debate have a point is on the question of manner – I don’t think the substance of a debate is the problem, provided both sides are representing one another clearly, and avoiding fallacies, is the problem if people are genuinely seeking the same goal, and operating from the same starting point. Wrong thinking should be sorted out pretty quickly by right thinking, all else being equal – this is the basis of our court systems, our democracies, and televised debates – unless there’s an unhelpful power disparity (which, incidentally there was when it came to law suits in Corinth), good and right answers should usually be reached, or at least. Adopting an unhelpful posture or manner is a rhetorical short cut, and it works. The reason strawmans, ad hominems, well poisoning – all those fallacies when you attack the person you’re debating, rather than the issue – the reason these keep being trotted out in arguments is because they are effective.
Tone matters. Paul makes this pretty clear in 2 Timothy 2.
“24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”
Tone is a two way street. Or rather, charity is a two way street. One of the things that has struck me most about some of the criticism I’ve copped, public (in comments), or private (in rebukes sent to me personally) in response to what I thought was a fairly gentle and genuine post about Guy Sebastian was that the expectation that I should be nicer (based on assuming that I wrote sarcastically, which I didn’t), and that, in the case of the comments, this point was made in a fairly nasty way. It seems people will tell you in whatever way they see fit that you need to speak nicer.
It also seems that people don’t really like to read things charitably – several people jumped to the conclusion that I was sarcastically calling Guy Sebastian out, or picking a fight with him, over his decision to publicly describe where he’s at with God. That couldn’t really be further from the truth. It required a deliberately uncharitable reading of what I wrote, with little regard to interpretive tools like genre, context, tone, and intent – and with almost no interest in what I’m increasingly thinking is the essential interpretive tool – no regard to the ethos, or character, of the person producing the text. You can’t, I don’t think, assume sarcasm under every word on the internet. Sarcasm is usually indicated by context. I don’t think you can call somebody out on what they’ve written without first asking if they meant what they’ve written a particular way. I hope that when I read something I disagree with the interpretive mindset I bring to the table is “what is this person actually trying to say, what are the thoughts behind it, and what is the reading that puts their words in the best possible light?” I fail at this sometime. But it’s my goal. It’s a good rule of thumb for avoiding stupid quarrels on the Internet.
This isn’t the first time people have deliberately chosen to be offended – not necessarily at what I’ve said, but because I’ve said something that might cause division, or cause people to think that Christians aren’t united on every issue – there are several examples I could point to where I’ve written something that somebody doesn’t like, and rather than gently being corrected, I’ve been insulted, told I’m damaging the kingdom (in a relatively public setting), and then the clincher – unfriended on Facebook… Well. That was just one. Other people have just done the first two… sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. Pretty much based on some assumptions about what speaking graciously and lovingly is, and on what division is…
It’s all well and good to tell somebody to work on their tone – and I certainly need to be told that frequently, especially when I so often blog while I’m feeling passionate and engaged with some issue, rather than dispassionate and objective – but if you’re going to do that, it behooves you to make sure your tone isn’t just creating a prevailing sense of irony.
To conclude this rambling rant – I think a quote often misattributed to Augustine is a nice principle for writing, reading, and commenting on things as part of the process of conversation on the internet… and for thinking about how disagreement can happen without the idea that somebody is less than human or ‘the enemy’ simply if they happen to voice an opinion contrary to your own…
“In necessary things: unity, in uncertain things: liberty, in everything: charity.”
I no doubt need to work harder at this – but when I’m talking about other Christians, including the ACL, I assume they are Christians – and explicitly say that whenever it might appear that I’m bringing this into question – just Christians who are wrong. I assume they’re free to be wrong, but that I’m equally free to disagree – rather than unite with them, and I hope (though I often fail) to speak about people I disagree with, and read and interpret what they’ve said, with charity.
We’re not called to be united on every issue – we’re called to be united in Christ. This aspirational “unity on essentials, unity on uncertainty, unity on all things” mantra is unhelpful. We have our unity – most necessarily – in Christ. There are other necessary things, but without this foundation, they’re trivial. Unless somebody is questioning that unity or undermining its necessity some freedom to charitably disagree without one’s contribution to the work of the kingdom being called into question would be lovely.
That is all.
Blog mythbusting: is less more?
Someone gave me some advice about my blog yesterday – its advice you hear so often that its simply assumed to be true – I was told that I’d probably get more readers if I wrote shorter posts. Now, I think this person is an occasional reader, rather than regular reader, so I suspect his view on my typical content strategy is slightly skewed by the posts he’s read, and we’ll get to how that is relevant in a moment…
I’ve given this advice myself before. It seems sound. People digest information in relatively small chunks, and scan the internet relatively quickly. There are some stats that support this from my all time visit figures…
The average visit length here is just under 90 seconds. 78% of visitors “bounce” – they land on the page they come to, and click no further.
I wonder if this “myth” ultimately comes down to metrics – I think there’s probably something to it if you’re after comments and discussion – if you leave some things unsaid, people feel the need to say them for you – and that’s certainly been true of the discussions I’ve entered elsewhere. So engagement might be higher on short posts…
But if you’re interested in people reading what you have to say, and sharing it, then in my experience – it’s the longer posts where I’m attempting to provide something of value, or articulating something I think – usually on a timely issue – that traffic and sharing go through the roof…
Here’s my all time visitation in a graph… we’ll drill down in a sec…
There are a couple of noticeable spikes there, one, around the 29th of September 2009, was a real outlier – I was Pharyngulated – visited by some of the internet’s angriest atheists after I wrote this post. That was a list. It got more traffic, and more comments than anything else I’ve written – except, now, for my guide to making Sizzler’s cheese toast. These two posts, together, account for a significant chunk of my all time traffic, 5% and 4.7%, respectively. Other popular posts have been tied to getting near the top of Google’s search rankings for planking, a fake Martin Luther King quote, a Thom Yorke shirt, Ehud, Things to do in Townsville, and Instagram web profiles.
Interestingly, thanks to the comments, the atheist post became a long form post – and people spend, on average, 5 minutes trawling through the comments. In fact, there’s an interesting trend in my top 30 posts, where people spend 3 minutes or longer on site, on average.
What gets more interesting is if we just look at 2012, so far…
Something interesting happens around the 29th of February, the 22nd of March, the 11th of April, the 18th of April, the 16th of May, the 7th of June, the 8th of August, the 19th of August, the 1st, 5th, and 11th, and 27th of September and the 12th of October – those are the sustained 2-3 day spikes you see in the graph.
But why? Did I post a particularly funny youtube video? Share a pithy observation? A series of observations in the form of a controversial list? A fantastically popular “how to” guide?
No.
On the 29th of February I posted a couple of things – one, a video of two jumping Eric Cantona lookalikes who couldn’t sing or keep time, two, a lengthy piece on abortion and a controversial ethics paper that advocated after birth abortions – the first was shared five times on Facebook, which is significantly better than the average number of shares, the second, was shared 54 times on Facebook.
The first was 21 words long, the second, a staggering 2,881 words long.
What about the other days?
- On the 22nd of March I posted a 1,300 word post about a gay marriage protest the media called “pray away the gay” – 67 people liked it on Facebook.
- On the 11th of April I posted a 2,050 word piece on Easter, Q&A, and Richard Dawkins – it was shared 70 times on Facebook.
- On the 18th it was a 2,430 word long piece on pentecostals, healings, and public Christianity, it was shared 38 times on Facebook.
- On the 16th of May I posted a 1,600 word piece asking if Lobbying can actually be Christian – 128 people liked it on Facebook.
- On the 7th of June there was an outlier – a 450 word response to Jim Wallace’s appearance on Sunrise (the one in which he compared the pro-gay lobby to the Nazis), it was shared 29 times.
- On the 8th of August it was a 1,250 word post on non-verbal communication in church singing (47 shares)
- On the 18th, a 2,700 word post about a silly Facebook flowchart about homosexuality and the Bible (40 shares).
- On the 1st of September I posted the press release I wish churches would put out on gay marriage, which came in at 994 words (with 51 shares).
- On the 5th, an 1,800 word piece on the ACL comparing smoking and homosexuality (52 shares),
- On the 10th of September I posted two big hitters – the 5,600 word behemoth on my rationale behind publicly criticising the ACL (21 shares), and my 3,950 word wrap up of Peter Jensen’s appearance on Q&A (27 shares).
- Between the 27th and 28th my stats are split between the 2,800 word post on why clarity matters when we talk about homosexuality (6 shares), Vaughan Robert’s tremendous interview about his same sex attraction (325 words, 5 shares), and a post about Scarborough Baptist’s fight to be able to keep doing church stuff in their building (1,750 words, 23 shares).
- The 12th of October (yesterday) was my open letter to Guy Sebastian, which is still bouncing around the internet.
It seems from this data that there’s a fairly direct correlation (and, based on a more in depth look at my analytics – direct causation), between long posts offering some sort of substantial content, and increased sharing and traffic. Which are, I think, the best metric for my blog. Here’s the top 15 posts, by visits, from this year – this doesn’t include page views of the home page, it’s people who’ve clicked through to particular posts…
I don’t really go out of my way to cultivate comments or foster discussion (though I enjoy it), I’m more interested in contributing to a conversation with a more “finished” product.
By this metric, longer is better.
This isn’t true for all cases – I don’t think every long post I’ve written has been worth reading, but I think most of the stuff I’ve written that has been worth reading has been in long form. Some posts have been worth writing, and are now in the resources tabs in the menu above, though they weren’t particularly widely shared at the time… I don’t think this post is as substantial as some of the posts it links to… but the conventional wisdom doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
Looking at the posts that have been shared widely there’s also a bit of a common theme – which is certainly something for me to think about as a content strategy… they’re generally substantial posts about a public Christianity/PR/ethics kind of issue.
I’ve got a plugin currently crunching some numbers to tell me what the average word count of my posts is, but I’d suggest it’s somewhere around the 100-200 word mark. I’ll update this paragraph when the count finishes. If it does. – turns out, at this point, I’ve published 1.52 million words in 5,639 posts for an average of 270 words per post…
The number one rule, I’d say, is to produce content that people want to read, word limits are arbitrary. Some of the posts above were, in my opinion, longer than they needed to be, but hitting the right content, at the right time, while saying the right thing, will always trump saying something in half the words but four days too late.
I’d say the myth is busted, but there’s also a good reason I don’t only post long posts, or only post about the same thing – I’d get bored, as would the readers who’ve been here for the long term, and I do think there’s something to be said about sustaining the discipline of blogging regularly – there’s a reason I’m still going after almost six years, while most of the blogs in my blog roll (except for a few, like Simone’s, Ben’s, Anna’s, Findo’s, Andrew’s, and Arthur and Tamie’s have been either sporadic, or died).
How I’m hoping to aid clarity in online discussion
Some of the responses to some of my recent posts have been interesting. There are now more people reading St. Eutychus that I don’t know than there are people who I do. People who haven’t been following along for the six years I’ve been posting on this blog. So I’ve done some housekeeping.
I’ve updated my about page to be something more substantial than a staccato list of definitive factoids about me.
I’ve created a comment policy.
And I’ve edited my disclaimer.
I’m going to expect that people who comment here have familiarised themselves with these before they attack me (not before they comment), so they’ll be useful to refer people to. But they also say something about why I blog, what I blog, how I see this blog, and how I see conversation on this blog. They provide the interpretive context for reading each of my posts.
I’d love your feedback on each, or all of these – especially if you think my expectations are ridiculous or I’m incredibly wrong about any of it.
While I was doing some housekeeping I moved the Facebook comment form off the home page and onto each individual post, where previously it was on both. It was slowing down the page too much and a little too cluttered. Clutter reduces clarity.
October 20, 2012