Things look different here, eh? Blogging has changed over the years, and I’ve been experiencing WordPress envy. I’m proud to roll out the biggest change since moving this blog from Blogger to TypePad in the summer of ’93: Blog One Another now runs on my own server, on WordPress, woot woot!

Why am I excited? Because everything has changed underneath. I plopped down some money for a hosting service (Dreamhost) and a WordPress theme (Standard Theme), and spent a chunk of time moving everything over from TypePad. You’ll experience a number of improvements, including:

• Speed: Pages load quickly. And I mean super-fast!
• Comment avatars: Just sign up at Gravatar, and your smiling face will make your comments more fun!
• Comment threading: Now more than a single level of replies! The threads of conversation will be clearer going forward.
• Comment subscriptions: No more need to check back manually! Just click the checkbox when you add a comment, and you’ll be notified when anyone adds something new.
• Easy sharing: Buttons float along the left side of each post. This makes it easy to share a post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.

I want you to get the most out of the new setup! Here are things you can do to maximize your experience:

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I didn't know there was a book!

I did a little soul-searching recently. I decided I could make the purpose and focus of this blog clearer. And it’s tied to my background as a Third Culture Kid (TCK).

…On the one hand, this is just a personal spiritual blog. There’s nothing necessarily focused about that.

…But on the other hand, this is my personal spiritual blog! What you get at Blog One Another is what I’m seeing and experiencing, that I want to pass on to you. So I had to ask myself, “What’s so unique about my perspective?”

A TCK lives in two worlds

Answer: I’m a TCK, a Third Culture Kid — I grew up in Japan, as an American. I’m used to being the child of two cultures, while not fully belonging to either. It colors everything about how I see culture, belonging, and what to do when cultures clash. I found myself sketching these ideas on a whiteboard:
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1.21 gigawatts?!

Back… back… back in time! Unless you go way back on Blog One Another, this will all be new.

It’s common for bloggers to wrap up the year with a “best of” summary. But that doesn’t work for me this year, since I only recently came back from a one-year hiatus. So instead, let’s stretch back to 2003. I give you classic posts from my first year of blogging!

• Postmodern Daydreaming — I brainstorm about what a “postmodern” worship service might look like. I don’t understand why these things are still so rare.
• Postmodernity Schooling — Cutting-edge classrooms have changed to adapt to a new way of thinking. Why haven’t churches?
• “The sick and demon-possessed” (Mark 1:32-34 Lectio) — In my lectio divina series, I meditate on how “You are a sinner” no longer works as a starting point for evangelism.
• Sunday Services Overrated? — Why do church plants often begin as small groups, but then pour 80% of their effort into a large weekly meeting?
• Heat and Light: An evangelistic conversation — A friend asks me if he is going to hell.
• “Stories” (Mark 4:1-20 Lectio) — Another lectio divina, in which I think about how my decision to stop evangelizing my friends has led to more conversations about spiritual things.
• Stop Inviting Friends to Church — I tried inviting my friends. Believe me, I tried.
• Ritual and Meaning — Kids respond to “all that pomo touchy-feely, multi-sensory stuff.”
• Adventures in Nametagging 2 — An experiment in wearing a nametag in public makes me a bolder servant.
• A Different Approach to Evangelism — What if we turn the tables? Not “I am helping you,” but “You are helping me.”

Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing Blog One Another with others! I’m looking forward to what the new year brings. (2012, that is.)

Photo by Team Tanenbaum (license)

Photo by Kaptain Kobold (license)

Hey, Jon here with an update on this blog. I have shifted to an email service that lets me do more than just repeat blog posts. It’ll let me create a “blog one another” monthly newsletter.

I think we’ll find that a newsletter will help deepen the relationship we already have.

(Did I mention the free song I’m giving to subscribers? Oh, not yet. Read on…)

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Photo by sheeshoo (license)

Do you remember those “N things about yourself” memes that used to float around the Internet, especially on Facebook? They seem to have fallen out of vogue for some reason. Darren Rowse posted a “7 Link Challenge” that is just the thing to jump-start me out of my funk and back into this blog. But instead of things about myself, they are things about this blog…

Your first post

That would be My very first blog! Short, but it gives a brief explanation of why I started.

A post you enjoyed writing the most

Easter: The story is bigger than sin and hell shows what our best family devotions are like: a little nutty, and fun to re-read!

A post which had a great discussion

14 Reasons to Stop Evangelizing Your Friends prompted a lot of discussion, including some radio time.

A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written

Chad Estes shares a lot of good stories, including Three Preachers and a Sinner meet up at a Party. (My daughter just read this over my shoulder and said, “It sounds like the beginning of a joke.”

Your most helpful post

This was actually a guest post on ChurchETHOS: Social Acceptance: A Missional Metric.

A post with a title that you are proud of

Heck, why not: Frank Zappa shows our evangelism sucks.

A post that you wish more people had read

Listening as a Spiritual Act may be one of the best things I’ve written that you’ve never read.

This was fun! Were any of these new to you?

Photo by Kenneth Barrett (license)

As I shared in Refocusing this blog, I have been part of a gang of bloggers. We have been working through 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which we simply call 31DBBB. Truthfully, I have not been able to keep up with the daily exercises, so I have not been getting the full benefit of receiving feedback on my posts and tweaks.

But today, they’ve come for me at last.

A quick introduction to my blog: I want to rock the boat a bit, for two reasons. One is to show people that they can begin to follow Jesus without “becoming one of those church people,” that there is room not to conform to church norms. Another is to prod people already following Jesus into living more missionally, to be willing to break out of the norms if it will help spread the gospel more effectively.

All right, give me your feedback. I can take it. Here are some touch-points to help guide the process:

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Photo by Dani Ihtatho (license)

It may be a little late to celebrate, but this seems like a milestone worth noting: I have been blogging now for over seven years! (I actually rounded the corner on January 3rd, to be precise.) But I thought I’d mention it since I’m giving blog one another more careful attention. You may have noticed:

• The domain name has changed to www.blogoneanother.com
• The look has changed, especially the banner image.
• After seven years, I have changed my tagline to something new. What do you think?

But even more than those cosmetic changes, I have been working on making my posts more focused. In my 2009 Blogging Retrospective, I asked, “What would you like me to write about?” Samia responded,

I really enjoy reading what you have to say about evangelism, and the church. I guess your posts on spirituality in general are the most interesting to me.

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