Hope you are enjoying some time with friends and family today as here in the United States we celebrate Independence Day! Rather than post something about Scripture or theology, I decided to give you a few laughs to help you enjoy your day.
Happy Independence Day!
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Goodbye to Google Reader
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For the last eight years, I have done most of my blog reading on Google Reader.
But now Google is pulling the plug on Google Reader!
Today is the last day of its existence.
Tomorrow will be the end of Google Reader.
In the words of my favorite Monty Python sketch,
Google Reader has passed on! Google Reader is no more! It has ceased to be! It is expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It’s pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now history! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleeding choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-FEED-READER!
If you use Google Reader, I hope you have found an alternative by now! If not, I have a few suggestions at the bottom of this post….
When I first found out Google was shuttering Google Reader, I was shocked, disappointed, and even a little upset. Of all the things for Google to shut down, why Google Reader? It couldn’t have been that expensive or difficult to maintain…
The reason I used Google Reader is because I read a lot blogs. I mean A LOT. Hundreds. This would be impossible to do without some sort of service like Google Reader which pulls all the blog posts together into one place and lets me know on one simple screen when new posts have been published from the various blogs I am interested in reading.
Of course, I don’t literally read every post from every blog I have subscribed to…. I treated my Google Reader page like my own personal newspaper. I decided which writers I wanted to write for my newspaper, and then subscribed to their blogs. When they wrote new articles, Google Reader would give me the title of their post (like a newspaper headline) and the opening line or two. I could quickly and easily scan through hundreds of articles and pick the 5-10 that sounded interested for me to read that day over a cup of coffee.
I not only read blogs about Scripture, church, and theology this way, but also obtained my world and local news, learned tips and tricks about blogging, gained insights into writing and publishing, and even subscribed to a few blogs which were purely for humor (you know, like the comic section of your newspaper).
So when Google announced they were closing Google Reader, it was like your favorite newspaper (if you still get one) announcing that they were going to stop publishing. How was I going to stay updated on all the blogs I read? How was I going to keep up with current events? How was I going to remember which blogs I was reading?
Anyway, I found two alternatives…. both of which you can use if you are a regular reader of this blog.
Get Email Updates
First, there are a few blogs which I read almost every time they post. For these, I went and subscribed to their blogs so that I would get regular daily email updates in my email inbox. The nice thing about doing this is that bloggers who offer email subscriptions often give “insider news” and special updates or offers to their newsletter subscribers. I often get free books this way and advance notices about special trainings or webinars that are helpful as an author and blogger.
If you would like to subscribe to my blog through email, I offer similar things to my newsletter subscribers. You can choose to get daily updates or a weekly summary of my blog posts. And just for signing up you get a FREE digital copy of Skeleton Church, and then every time I put out a new eBook, you get a free digital copy of that book as well.
In fact, I am only a couple of weeks away from putting out my next free eBook, so if you subscribe now, you will get two free eBooks in the span of a month or so.
Help the Lost Get Found
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Frank Viola put up a post yesterday about a website that helps you find people. Here is what he wrote:
Have you ever wanted to find an old friend from high school? You tried finding them on Facebook or those lame “high school reconnect” sites, and you’ve come up empty.
Or how about an old college friend or even an elementary school buddy?
Or more seriously, how do you find a missing person? For instance, how do you find a biological parent? How do you find a missing child? How do you find a missing friend? How do you find a missing parent?
Well, Reconnect: Find Lost or Missing Persons was created to do just that by using the ubiquitous power of the Internet in a strategic way.
Mourning with those who Mourn
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Do you know someone who is mourning a great pain or tragedy? Maybe they lost a parent, a spouse, or a child. Maybe they contracted a terminal illness. Maybe their house burned down or they lost their job.
In such situations, Christians have the bad reputation of saying and doing the wrong things. We sometimes believe it is our job to “fix” people’s problems by giving them pat answers to painful experiences, or by trying to get people to overcome their pain. If you have ever been in a painful experience, you know how upsetting some of these comments can be.
For myself, I am no expert in dealing with the pain and mourning of others, but I have had some painful experiences in my own life, and have talked with many people who have told me about painful experiences they went through and how people responded. The following are some suggestions for how to be with those in pain without making their pain worse. These are suggestions for mourning with those who mourn.
There are four things NOT to do, and four things to do.
Don’t Blame God
Christians don’t intentionally blame God when tragedy strikes, but often, if we really listen to what we are saying, we tell people that God is responsible for taking their child, their husband, or their parent.
We say things like, “This is all in God’s perfect plan. He must have wanted to take little Bobby home to be with Him. God has something better in store for you. His ways are higher than our ways.” When talking with people in their pain, make sure that not a single Christian cliche comes out of your mouth. Not only are Christian cliches never helpful, they almost always border on heresy.
In one of my times of personal tragedy, I actually had someone tell me that God was using this tragedy to prepare me for something worse. That was encouraging. So not only was God destroying my life in the present, but it was all to prepare me for some way He would destroy my life even more in the future? This just doesn’t sound like God.
No matter what a person is going through, don’t put the blame on God. He doesn’t take children away to teach parents lessons. He doesn’t send cancer to teach us to pray. He doesn’t burn up houses to help us depend on Him.
Don’t Judge
Along with blaming God, some Christians also like to blame the person who is hurting. The classic example of this is in the book of Job where Job’s four friends tell Job that the only reason bad things are happening to him is because God is punishing him for some sin. If Job would just repent, they say, everything will turn out okay.
1,000,000 Pageviews!
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I hit 1,000,000 pageviews yesterday! Yay!
As you can see from the time frame above, it took me five years to get to 1,000,000. And really, this website is actually over ten years old. I only installed Google Analytics on it five years ago, so I have no clue when we officially hit 1,000,000 pageviews…
Of course, some bloggers get this every month of the year, but still, we all have to start somewhere… if you are just getting started, or have been blogging for a few years, keep at it. I would say that for the first five years or so, I averaged about 10 pageviews a day. Then for the next three years, I got about 40 per day. Finally, about two years ago (in January 2011), I figured out a few things about blogging, and things have been steadily increasing since then.
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