Month: August 2007

  • Types of Blog Posts Day 2 of 5: Offering Advice

    In this 5 part series, we’re examining 5 Different Types of Blog Posts.

    Post 2 of 5 (red)
    One of the more helpful types of post is the advice post. Offering advice is a great way to generate visits to your website. And, when you offer solid advice, it also builds community and trust, which translates into repeat visits and a reliable audience.

    Offering advice means identifying a need and then providing an response to that need. The advice can take many forms, including:

    • teaching a skill;
    • reviewing a product or service;
    • conveying a message;
    • offering a commentary; or
    • demonstrating a talent;

    Your advice can take many forms, providing lists, explaining the subject in free text or providing pictures or video. Use the media that makes the most sense for the task at hand. Utilize all of the various tools at our disposal. On the web, we have the ability to post text in our blogs. We can link to video from YouTube and others. We can add pictures from our Flickr accounts. We can even include lists from our RSS feeds. Web2.0 makes possible numerous different methods of generating effective and memorable messages that won’t easily be forgotten.

    The important thing when offering advice is to speak from your own experience. Don’t simply regurgitate something that you read elsewhere. Put it into your own words. Apply what you’ve learned on your own. Speak from your own experience. Your message will be more convincing and you’ll be seen as more authoritative on the subject that way. And, don’t forget my 7 tips for Good Blog Content.

    One final thing… if your blog post is getting complex, consider breaking it into multiple parts, kinda like this 5 part series.

    Good luck and talk soon!

    Todd

  • Todd’s Search for Meaning

    I thought I’d take a few days to give a bit of biographical detail on my religious walk. I’ll take the next few days to give some commentary on the following topics:

    1. My background – Where I come from, what prompted my search, my ambitions, etc.
    2. Maintaining My Faith as a Philosophy Undergrad Student – this isn’t as easy as it sounds!
    3. Pastoral Experience – What have a I learned so far as a student pastor?
    4. Grad School – My experience so far at Divinity School.
    5. Next steps – Where Am I Headed? What are my plans?

    Today, I’ll talk a bit about my background and what prompted me to become so strong in my faith.

    I grew up in a Christian home and I went to chuch when I was little. But religion was never pushed on me as a child. I was given the choice to pursue my faith as I grew older. For a while in my teen years, I drifted away from the church. As I moved into my 20s and started to think about settling down and getting married, I started thinking about the importance of church in family life. I always had this idea that I would like to get back in tune with God, but it wasn’t until I got married that I found my way back. My wife, Julie, is a strong Christian and she became my catalyst for coming back to Church. We were married in her home church. I was baptized in that church about a year after we got married (there was no peer pressure from my wife – it was my choice.) I became comfortable going to church again as a result of these activities.

    That’s all fine and good, but why the strong attraction to religion? Plenty of people find themselves going to church as a family. That doesn’t mean that they go and sign up for divinity school and have ambitions of becoming a pastor. What prompted my desire to become so closely aligned with God?

    Well… around my mid-twenties, I started working on my undergrad degree part time at the University of Toronto. I was working full time and I wanted to finish my degree to further my career and also for the personal benefits of additional education. And, I was experiencing a reawakening of my faith, so I thought what better topic to study than my belief in God and my interest in Chrisitanity. So, I enrolled in a specialist program in philosophy and religious studies.

    This was just what I needed: the chance to learn more about my faith from experts in the field. Little did I know when I enrolled that this program that many of the thoughts that I would run into during this time would challenge the established views of the church. I’ll speak more on this next time though. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

    My goal during my undergrad was to firmly establish my faith and to learn how to intelligently articulate my faith to others. I wasn’t happy to just say that I believed because that’s what I was taught in Sunday school as a kid. I needed to be able to understand and explain my faith to others in a way that made sense.

    And, I also used my undergrad years to temper my faith. I quietly researched potential career options in ministry during my undergrad years, but I kept I pretty quiet as I wanted to see just how serious I was and I wanted to make sure that my interest in Christian ministry wasn’t just a short term fad.

    Well, I’m well into my graduate degree, and there are no signs of waning passion for ministry. So… looks like my faith has survived so far.

    Stay tuned! Next time, we’ll discuss Maintaining My Faith as a Philosophy Undergrad Student.

    Talk soon!

    Todd

  • Types of Blog Posts Day 1 of 5: Story Posts

    In this 5 part series, we’re examining 5 Different Types of Blog Posts.
    Post 1 of 5 (red)
    Story posts are meant to convey some sort of message. These posts can be long or short, depending on how much or how little you want to invest in the story at hand. The important thing with stories is to connect with your reader. With stories, you, as the writer, are trying to build a personal connection with your reader. Stories allow you to put the reader right in the middle of the action. Good storytellers will immerse the reader so completely that they feel that they are experiencing the story firsthand.

    Thinking back on my undergrad years as a philosophy major at the University of Toronto, I recall a writing assignment I was given in a course called “Modern Atheism”. The assignment was to write a dialogue between a Christian and an Atheist about the existence of God. This assignment took me completely by surprise. I was so used to writing argumentative essays that contained an opening argument, supporting points and a strong conclusion. How was I supposed to switch gears and write a work of fiction, albeit a fiction that contained relevant coursework that we had been discussing for most of the semester?

    Creative writing has never been my strong suit. Needless to say, I was glad when the assignment was over. Surprisingly, I did well on the assignment. More importantly though, being forced to write in a way that was so uncomfortable to me challenged me to grow and to expand my writing skillset.

    I learned a few things from my atheistic creative writing exercise. Here are some of the important points that I gained from this exercise:

    • Engage the reader
    • Develop more than just the facts and figures of your arguments. In fact, surround those facts with a personal story that engages the reader.
    • Expose yourself in your post. Share some personal information with the reader. This makes them more likely to connect with you and remember you.
    • Provide examples that readers can relate to. Stories allow for the sharing of like experiences. This builds relationships and strengthens bonds between people.
    • Feed the reader’s senses and emotions.
    • Engage the reader. Wait, did I say that already?

    Be creative. Wrap your message up in a meaningful story and watch how much more memorable that post will be. Personalizing your facts and figures is a great way to connect with your readers and to have them remember you.

    Talk soon!

    Todd

  • The “5 Days of…” Series: Different Types of Blog Posts

    Starting on Monday, I’m going to outline 5 different types of Blog Posts that you can utilize in your blog. I don’t claim to have a monopoly on all of the different types of blog posts, but I’m sure that this list will provide you with a great starting point and plenty of great ideas to continue to build your blog’s content.

    Over the next week, I’ll be covering the following topics:

    So, without further ado, let’s dig in! Stay tuned for 5 days of Blog Posting Fun!

    Todd

  • How do we provide unconditional love?

    Part five of my five part series entitled “Who Do You Love?”

    Is this possible? Are we able to love those that are against us? This is where the challenge comes in. Agape isn’t easy. It isn’t fair weather love. It doesn’t come and go as your feelings change. Agape is unconditional. It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t categorize people into lists of cool, smart, popular or funny. Agape is consistent with all people. It provides dignity, respect and compassion to everyone. This is what God asks of us.

    I’ll wrap up with a personal story of dignity and respect. When I was living and working in Toronto, I became friends with a guy named Larry. Larry panhandled a block from my workplace, just outside of the subway that I rode to work every day. For months, I would walk by Larry every day, not really acknowledging him. Larry became a familiar sight in the morning and at night when I would come and go from work. One day, I decided to stop and talk to him for a minute. I was curious to see what his story was. If nothing else, he was dedicated to what he was doing. I think he showed up for his work of panhandling on a more regular basis than some of my co-workers.

    I was curious to know who Larry was, what made him tick. Over the course of six months or so, we slowly got to know one another. We’d say hi and bye each day, we’d occasionally stand and chat for a few minutes while I was on my way to work or on my way home to my family. Through conversation, he shared some of his life story with me and I shared some with him. I learned that he was making ends meet through panhandling and by working part time as a youth street counselor. He felt the need to dedicate some of his time to preventing kids from making some of the same mistakes that he had made.

    I asked him what I could do to make a difference with some of the social problems that he was experiencing himself, or that he was witnessing in those kids that he visited on a regular basis. His answer summed up agape so well for me. He told me that just saying hi to people and making them feel like people was a good start. He said that just recognizing someone as a person and providing them with that level of respect made such a difference. It didn’t cure their problems. But it gave them a sense of dignity and worth.

    To me, that’s an example of agape in action. Just recognizing someone and acknowledging them is important. Ensuring that everyone can contribute and that nobody is marginalized is part of God’s plan. It’s about encouraging dignity and respect in the lives of others.

    It’s ultimately about community. Loving your neighbour, regardless of who they are, what they do or why they do it.

    I’m going to leave you with a question. Write it down and put it on your fridge or your bathroom mirror or somewhere that you’ll see it on a regular basis:

    What can you do this week to express God’s divine love?

    Thank you and God bless each and every one of you.

    Todd Dow