Not here, but I'm still there....

I'm not using this blog service anymore, but you can still find me at http://gleasonjim.wordpress.com

a different path...

With this blog as my first trial venture in blogging, I didn't keep it up (at least not here on Blogger). But trying a new blog resource, I seem to be doing a little better with the discipline of sharing more regularly. So you are cordially invited to come on over to that new blog at http://gleasonjim.wordpress.com where my story continues . . .

So, how did we get here?

In what always seems to be a complex trail of events, I often find myself down some unexplored street. Launching this new blog site is yet another example of this serendipitous fun filled life experience. From a facilitator role with a church development process called NCD (Natural Church Development) I found myself exploring a solution for the problem of providing a way for churches working on improving their "minimum factor" to share experiences and best practices. Blogging communities for each of the eight NCD characteristics seemed like a possible answer. Easily launched, the next question came to be how to attract and publicize participants for each blogging characteristic. The statewide church conference newsletter provided the vehicle, and being the one to suggest that, I ended up with the writing assignment for an article about blogging best practices. Discovering a book in the conference library, The Blogging Church, I at least had some help in learning what those best practices might be. From the many examples offered in that book, I found myself intrigued and going online and experiencing blogging as a visitor which in turn led to an in depth discussion at the weekly computer class held at our local church. As I shared that book’s author’s passion for blogging and to help in explaining blogging to this class, I find myself tempted to apply this emerging technology as a way of sharing the many and varied thoughts and life events that occupy my thinking each and every day. It just seemed such a natural outlet to share this enthusiasm for life and new experiences, and so, here we are with my first serious blog entry (or should I call it a "posting")?

I welcome you to join me in this journey of exploration and sharing. If you too are new to this blogging experience, just read along as I attempt to apply the technology to my daily stream of consciousness shared in what I hope to be regular postings. Somewhere along the way I hope you will be prompted to add comment to my blog site, moving to the next stage of the blogging experience, interacting with the blogger. I promise to respond to your comments and in so doing enter a dialogue with you and anyone else who chooses to join our little blogging community here. Be careful, I expect that this will be contagious, and you may find yourself taking the simple steps of creating your own blogging site as the next step in this experience. If and when you do, I look forward to reading your own thoughts and adding comment as appropriate.

Let me leave this first posting with a question for you. How experienced are you with blogging? Is this your first time reading and interacting with a blogger?

PS: Possible topics for posting here are running rampart in my head as I begin this, and to control that flow and capture the thoughts for future blog postings, I started an electronic notebook from which to draw each day's posting. Very curious to see how this works out.