In the spring of 2009 I decided to give blogging a try. After doing a little research, talking with several friends and colleagues who had already been blogging for awhile, and brainstorming possible names, I launched So What Faith in June 2009.
While I’d love to say that when I launched the site I knew what I was doing and imagined that the site would still be going strong a dozen years later, in reality I simply knew that I was ready to share some of my short form writing about matters of faith that matter more broadly.
Over the years, I’ve paused to reflect on my blogging journey especially at milestone moments, including:
- Celebrating 11 Years of So What Faith (2020)
- Celebrating 9 Years of So What Faith (2018)
- Top Posts of 2015 (Jan. – June) (2015)
- Celebrating 1,500 Posts! (2014)
- 1,000 Posts (2013)
As I reflected on the first 12 years (and writing over 1,925 posts), I created a list of 12 items that stand out to me:
- Consistency. While my life has changed a great deal in the last 12 years – including serving five congregations and an ecumenical mission center – blogging has remained a regular part of what I do. I’ve written at least 50 posts every year, and managed to write in excess of 300 posts for three years in a row at the peak of my blogging activity.
- Search for a Church. When my family moved back to Texas after nearly a decade in Florida, I stepped out of the world of congregational ministry. Naturally, when my wife and I searched for a church to call home, I blogged about the experience in a series called Search for a Church. Our 70 week journey included visits to 36 congregations featured in 18 posts (the longest series ever to appear on So What Faith). When we relocated to Fort Worth, I wrote 11 posts in a series called Search for a Church 2.0, which ended after 57 weeks with Our Search for a Church 2.0 is Over.
- Books. I’ve always enjoyed reading, and sharing my thoughts about books. It is appropriate that the first ever post on So What Faith was a book review, and that book reviews were my most frequent content in the earliest season of the blog. Over time, I’ve shifted from full-length reviews of select books to ratings of all new books I read, rating 100+ books published in a given year for each of the last several years. In addition to sharing great books, I’ve been blessed to connect with many authors. (325+ posts are focused on books.)
- Giving Up the Church I Always Knew. My only series so far this year considers how the church is changing and likely will continue to change during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Prayer. When I was serving in parish ministry, I turned some of the prayers I used in worship into blog posts. I had no idea these would become some of my most popular posts. (As of December 2020, the two all time most popular posts were prayers).
- Social Media. While SoWhatFaith.com has always been the primary source for all things So What Faith, I have found considerably more engagement through sharing and discussing the content on other platforms, especially Twitter. (Feel free to connect with me: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.)
- Mainline Decline. I’ve approached this topic through nearly ever imaginable lens. And, I’ve done my best to write more about the denominations I’ve invested more of myself in. The work involved in writing these posts and the interactions around that content has taught me a great deal about decline, and also about congregational vitality. (Interesting, the most recently written post to make my top viewed posts of all time is about decline more generally: Are 10,000 Churches Closing Every Year?)
- Future Church. One of the first series I ever wrote for So What Faith was on Future Church. It is content I revised several times over the years, and also presented in many congregations. I certainly didn’t get it all right, but the assumptions that underlaid my predictions clearly contributed to how the church has changed in the years I’ve been in ministry. (My initial attempt at such a list was published here in 2010: The Future Church: Top 10 Changes.)
- Photos. When I started blogging, I knew I needed visual content. Early on, my focus was clearly on the written content. In more recent years, I’ve given more balanced attention to the creation of the written and visual elements of each post, and relied more heavily on visual content I created.
- Guest Contributors. At a few points in time, I considered expanding So What Faith to include posts written by guest contributors. After further consideration, I opted to only post my content on the site. And, nearly all of the posts on So What Faith are original content not previously published elsewhere.
- Updates. The technical expertise to create, maintain, and update So What Faith exceeded my abilities. One of the best decisions I made was to delegate that work to an expert. (If you are looking for a team to help you with your personal ministry site or with a church or non-profit, I’d encourage you to consider Faith Growth.)
- Questions. While So What Faith has evolved over the years, posts have often ended with a section called “So What,” featuring questions for conversation. So What Faith seeks to provide thought provoking content that leads to engagement, and engagement that contributes to action.
Thank You
Thanks for reading these reflections, and for your support of So What Faith.
As I begin year thirteen, I welcome your input. Let me know what you most appreciate about So What Faith, and /or the type of content you are most interested in reading in the future.