My time is more limited today than ever before. Between pastoring, being a husband and dad, establishing a growing relationship with Christ and writing a book, I have to be pretty selective on what activities I engage in and what activities I pass up. Here are five reasons I choose to invest a portion of my time in blogging. And while I’m directing this at pastors I think these reasons can apply to all of us who consider ourselves Christ followers.

1) We can change the world.

This is something I learned last year when I went on a blogging trip with the Compassion bloggers. Thousands of people around the world followed our eight day journey to India in real-time and hundreds of children were sponsored and rescued from poverty. Just a couple months ago I watched my friend John Acuff raise $60,000 on his blog to build two kindergarten’s in Vietnam. I’m praying we see more and more influential bloggers using their platform and influence to bring hope to the hopeless.

2) We can encourage other believers.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 tells us to “encourage one another daily.” I’m always looking for ways to use WithoutWax to bring a smile to someone’s face and at the very least just take their mind off of whatever they might be dealing with. Here’s a great email I got a while back from a reader.

Pete,

It’s good reading your blog. I’m deployed right now onboard a US Navy warship and sometimes it is challenging to get daily inspiration. You being a pastor and reading your blog is like going to church sometimes. No praise music or long sermon, sometimes just one sentence, one comment is enough. So thanks and keep it up.

Very Respectfully,

Adam Dye-USS BULKELEY

3) We can create community.

I’m tired of being a talking head. The last thing I want is just another platform where I’m talking. Blogs allow us to turn our sermons into conversations allowing people to interact, question, discuss and debate.  I so value the conversations that take place here in the comments every day.

4) We can establish relational influence.

People no longer want to follow you or me just because we have pastor in front of our name. As a matter of fact, this automatically puts us at a disadvantage. They want to know if we’re authentic. I am learning that influence is directly related to relationship. In other words no relationship, no influence.

In the future church leaders will have to exchange control for collaboration, individualism for community and affluence for influence.

5) We can show the world the origin of our hope.

Matthew 5:14 says, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden” (and neither can a blog).  While I love writing about my family, my church and all the other crazy and sometimes stupid things that happen in my life, ultimately I pray that people see the light of Christ through my life and posts.

So, why do you blog?

However Catalyst is a different story.

I love this conference because I think it’s the non conference-conference. It’s an experience.

I love the worship, the speakers, and the opportunity to network with 12,000 of my closest friends.

Several of you have contacted me about getting together at Catalyst. As you can imagine it’s tough to do at a conference this big, so here are two great ways to meet up. On Thursday night I’ll be at the Atlanta Bloggers Meetup and then right after that I’ll be at the Deadly Viper shin-dig, from 8-9:30 pm. You can CLICK HERE for more details. Looking forward to hanging out!

I’ll also be blogging from the conference, but for the best coverage you’ve got to check out the CATALYST BACKSTAGE BLOG hosted by none other than my colleague Anne Jackson. She’ll have unprecedented access to all the speakers you’ll want to hear from. So if you can’t go to Catalyst this year, you can experience it via the blog. Check it out…

Not going to spend a lot of time on that issue but do want to say this: I’m not suggesting you buy a lottery ticket. I’m not encouraging you to gamble. If I made you stumble or led you astray, I’m sincerely sorry. I think there are many more important things we can invest our money in besides the lottery, fast food, movie rentals, ice cream and other things that we blow money on to entertain ourselves.

The bigger issue is this: I understand the weight of my responsibility as a pastor and as a leader. I understand that I’m held to a higher level of accountability. I understand that some of you reading this think that blogging about my personal life is not a great idea. I want you to know that I don’t take my posts lightly. I usually have several people that read my post before I go public with them for that very reason.

But I also want to tell you this. This blog is not a place where you will find perfection. If you’re looking for that, you may want to drop this blog and pick up another. It’s a place where I talk about life. Specifically my life and what God is doing in my life and Cross Point Church. It’s a place where I will be open about what I struggle with and at the same time will share how Christ is forming Himself in me. It’s a place where you will find random fun posts about my family, my garden, and daily life, sprinkled among very strategic posts to make you think about where you are with God.

But use wisdom when reading this blog. I’m not always right. As a matter of fact, I’m often wrong. Don’t assume because I talk about it that I endorse it. Often I’m just trying to get us as a community to ask tough questions, and create community in the process.

There are times I write posts that I wish I could take back. There are times I write a post that I’m ashamed of, but it’s where I am. There are times I feel I may have made myself sound better than I am or wished I hadn’t been so honest.

I don’t know where the balance is in all of this, but I’m working on it. I know many of us are “working on it.” Be patient with me as I try to figure it all out and whatever you do, DON’T play the lottery.

How do you deal with the balance? Do you struggle with this?