Anna Rendell lives in Minnesota with her beloved husband and their two children (2.5yr old little Boy and 3mo baby Girl). She is a monthly contributor to (in)courage and the Twin Cities Moms Blog. Anna works on the (in)courage social media team, is the social media coach & manager at Vibrant Faith Ministries, and shares her heart at girlwithblog.com.
As I enter my seventh year of blogging (seriously. I’m like a bloggy dinosaur), I realize that I’ve learned a lot about it. I’ve learned how to write for my audience. I’ve learned how to create a pinnable graphic. I’ve learned what [I think] makes a good blog post or site design, which social scheduling tools can do what, and that email is actually my ‘stickiest’ platform. I’ve learned enough about blogging and social media to have started a career out of it, both managing several online communities and coaching ministries in how to use social platforms.
But here’s the biggest thing I’ve learned: write from and for the heart or don’t write at all.
If you write from your heart, it will almost always resonate with someone. Because you shared words deep from your being, someone else will be able to say, ‘me too.’ You will give someone else the gift of companionship within a circumstance or emotion, a voice to their story, a chance to connect. Your words will always contain passion and honesty, two things readers adore in a writer.
If you write for your heart, you won’t just write for writings sake. Sure, when we’re in a rut and sit uninspired, putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) will always pay off. It’s important to write through being stuck. However, if you’re publishing posts for pageviews alone, the content not really anything you love, reviewing items just for sake of publicity, or it brings us here:
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1
If we, as writers, aren’t writing for our hearts, we’re using our platforms to say nothing. If we’re not writing to light up our own hearts, we’re not lighting up His with our words. We’re only making noise, and we all know how noisy the internet can be.
Let’s stand out instead.
Let’s write when we have something to say, when something won’t get off our hearts, when we truly love a product and want to tell the world. Let’s write when God is prompting. Let’s write when we can’t sleep, kept awake with an idea for a post that won’t let go. Let’s write on a napkin while in the grocery store line, inspiration striking from out of nowhere. Let’s write honest fears before attending a conference, and write about the amazing time we had after attending the conference.
And let’s write love. Let’s draw attention to others, building them up, sharing their posts and links, and fight the fear that if someone visits a different blog, they won’t visit yours. There is SO enough room for all of us online, with plenty of space to go around!
You belong here! Our heart is to equip you to be an effective Christian communicator.