The Blogging Church

A few weeks after starting a blog and Facebook and Twitter accounts for my church, I decided I should know how to make the most of them, so I went to Amazon.com to find some good reads. I made a list of about 75 books that I want to read, but only ended up buying two: The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey and Less Clutter. Less Noise. by Kem Meyer. Those two books moved from flat surface to flat surface in my house for a couple months until I decided to add them to my 2010 reading list. And being the nerd that I am, I was actually reading The Blogging Church when the new year began.

The Blogging Church gives a great overview of the what, why, and how of blogging. So much that if you are an experienced blogger and have decent computer skills, you'll be able to skim and possibly skip several chapters. If you've never blogged before and you want to begin, buy this book, even if you aren't blogging for church. The same principles will still apply.

I think when people start writing about technology it's easy to get wordy, but Brian kept a good pace going throughout the whole book, and to help break up the book, after every few chapters is a five question interview with a blogger and/or pastor, all of whom had a slightly different take on blogging.

The great part about this book is that it tells you what to do, but the best part about this book is that it tells you what not to do in "Build a Really Bad Blog." That was my favorite chapter of the entire book because I have done a lot of those things and probably will still commit a few offenses here and there.

I'm not an avid non-fiction reader, but I do enjoy a book I can learn and grow from, and that's what I got out of The Blogging Church. It made me excited about my job, the church's blog, and my church, as well as excited about my own blog.