I love year-end lists. Not only because it asks us to reflect on media intake but because it’s a great way to discover what we might have missed in any given year. It’s a chance, not to gloat in your own preferences but learn from others.

As many of you know, I partner with my great friend Mark Whiten in something called the Habañero Collective. We used to do a music/interview podcast exploring/challenging notions surrounding “Christian” music but we don’t do that anymore. Somewhere along the way, it morphed into hosting house shows. Future plans include world domination but I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, here are some of our favorite picks of 2011 in various categories:

• Browse Mark’s 2011 picks
• Browse my picks for my favorite concerts of the year
• Browse my some of my favorite songs of the year
• Browse my favorite albums of 2011
• Browse my 2010 picks
• Browse my 2009 picks

I hope you’ll forgive me a rather pessimistic reflection on the state of the “Christian blogosphere” today. You may or may not know that I used to have a blog called Colossians Three Sixteen. I wrote there, pretty much Monday-Friday for 3 or so years. I liked it. It was a happy little world that prompted me to think about cultural issues from a biblical worldview. And then some hackers inserted malware code everywhere on the site. Everywhere. It was unrecoverable. So, as we moved to AZ to plant Church of the Cross, I ditched three years worth of blogging and started fresh here at Holiday at the Sea.

But I just haven’t kept up with it. It doesn’t interest me like it once did. And I’ve spent the past couple of weeks wondering why (and not blogging really at all). Then, this morning, I saw this Tweet from Jonathan McIntosh:

The Christian blogosphere is one giant closed circuit, self-referential loop.

In 140 characters or less, J-Mac summed up months of frustration with blogging. Don’t get me wrong. I love Christians. But I get tired of them sometimes. I get tired of the stereotypes and the legalism and the doctrine police and the downright unloving, one-upsmanship and the self-promotion. I don’t think it’s any secret that someday I would like to write books. I’m not saying that I am convinced I’m good enough to do so or that it will ever happen, just that it’s long been a desire of mine. Several months ago I found myself saying that if I did not someday wish to write books, then I probably wouldn’t have a blog anymore at all. That’s not good and probably means I shouldn’t have a blog anymore. It’s usefulness has passed for me. It used to be a place where I thrived on the interchange of ideas.

I by no means claim to be a “veteran” blogger but, after doing it for around five years, I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen people stress about their blogs alongside stressing about their families and their ministries. I think there is a place for analyzing and discerning doctrines and trends within evangelicalism, but when every blog reads the same, I find myself growing weary of the whole thing.

I know that there are bright spots, I’m just tired of looking for them. McIntosh’s quote about being a “closed circuit” has resonated with me in an unexpected way. Am I the only one who gets tired of reading the same people say the same things to the same people over and over again? And yes, I have been a part of it (to a small extent), so I’m questioning myself.

I think it’s time we all ask ourselves why we have blogs. If it’s for self-promotion, then it’s probably not a good thing. If it’s so we can be a “watchdog” and point out everyone else’s inconsistencies and doctrinal errors, then it’s probably not a good thing. If it’s just to be in the conversation too, it’s probably not a good thing.

I can’t help but think back to Neil Postman’s argument that the medium is the message. The blogosphere is all about everyone believing that their opinion deserves to be heard. The blogosphere is all about immediate response and it is rarely the place for thoughtful reflection, much less humble dialogue. Blogs and blog comments give us the thinly-veiled mask of anonymous pride. Even if we use our real name, we don’t have to look the person in the eye and hear the tone in their voice when we disagree. Maybe that’s not the best place or way for thoughtful, humble, truly Christian dialogue to take place? Maybe we should meet over a meal or a beverage and talk in person? Maybe we should go back to letter-writing, which takes time and thoughtfulness? Maybe I’m just jaded and overreacting?

It seems that everyone and their mother has a blog. Whether or not it is a fad remains to be seen, though it has encouraged and challenged many people to express themselves and their views in ways they had previously never imagined. This is both a blessing and a curse. Everyone now demands the right to be heard and everyone is convinced that their opinion is the right one. And in the midst of this, I blog. I don’t update nearly as much as I used to and there are many reasons for that, none of which is the point of this post.

What’s interesting is that, as I blog less and less, I’ve actually found myself thinking about blogging more and more. Part of the reason I blog is to cultivate the personal discipline and habit of filtering all of life through the Gospel. This has never been a pulpit for my personal rants, I don’t share a ton of personal information here, I don’t even link my blog from the website of the church I pastor. Instead, it has always been about the intersection of theology and culture, trying to help people, including myself, understand that the Gospel has something to say about every aspect of life. This blog has been some of my steps in the journey of that exploration.

But it’s not always easy. Creative people often speak about the coming and going of “the muse,” that creative spark that sometimes comes in floods and others in dribbles. I’ve come to recognize that this blog is dependent on something similar, something I’ve come to think of as the “blog instinct.” It’s difficult to describe, perhaps a bit like dancing about architecture, but let me give it a shot.

In order to accomplish the mission of this blog, the writer (myself and sometimes my good friend Adam) must be immersed in the Word and swimming in culture continually seeing the relationship between both. It is coming across a cultural artifact and naturally, instinctively seeing the implications. When Adam posted his piece the other day “Who’s To Blame for Homosexual Stereotypes: Gays, the Military, and Unfriendly Fire,” my first thought was that he had a great “blog instinct.” He heard a piece on NPR (I wish I had kept track of how many pieces I’ve written either directly or indirectly about NPR pieces) and his mind began to flesh out some of the implications. Sometimes the blog piece is more gospel centered than others, but the point is always to help us think about what’s going on around us.

Too many of us (including myself) simply float through life unconsciously. We get in the car and end up at our destination and oftentimes, don’t even remember the journey to and fro. We get in the car and just space out and far too often, that’s exactly how we live our lives. We’re not present in the moment and we’re certainly not thinking critically about what’s happening around us. This is the “blog instinct,” seeing something and immediately turning it over and over in your mind’s eye, filtering it through the Gospel, coming out the other end with timeless truth in a timely manner.

We don’t always succeed at that here at Holiday at the Sea, but at least we’re trying. I love the dialogue, the interaction of the blogosphere, I love being exposed to and challenged by a wide swath of perspectives, but ultimately, I blog to continue to force myself to keep these instincts sharp. I often say that part of my job is a pastor is to raise up leaders behind me. In a sense, to work myself out of a job, and I often think of blogging in a similar manner. If this blog can help others to think critically about applying the Gospel to all of life, then maybe the day will come when it’s no longer necessary (please don’t read that as me thinking this blog is more important than it is). But until then, let’s all keep sharpening the blog instinct.

As you may or may not know, I used to write a blog called Colossians Three Sixteen. That blog lasted over three years and somewhere in that period, I began to feel that it was time for a change. Also, somewhere in that period, nasty, mean people called hackers infected my host server with virus files that found their way onto my blog. Due to the infected server, it got to a point where there was really no way of telling how many of my files were corrupt. Every time we thought the problem was resolved, bad code would reappear. Whether they couldn’t or wouldn’t, it became apparent that the hosting company was not resolving the issue.

This situation left me with several choices: 1) I could try to continue with Colossians Three Sixteen, finding every bit of bad code and removing it, 2) I could try finding and removing the bad code and moving moving to a new server, 3) I could quit blogging altogether and 4) I could scrap it and start all over. I don’t have enough time to search through all my files looking for bad code and I like blogging, so I chose to start all over.

Welcome to my new blog. You might notice that it is being presented as a team blog from the beginning. I had guest authors on Colossians Three Sixteen but this will hopefully be a collaborative effort between myself and my good friend, Adam Groza. I’m not sure how often he or I will really be able to update, but the hope is that this will be an ongoing dialogue between two good friends and we hope that you will join us.

So what’s going to be different? What’s going to be the same? The overarching theme will be the exploration of the idea that we pursue joy in all the wrong places. We will look at culture and the the Gospel’s impact on all of life, that true joy is found only in Christ and that when we are found in Him, we find true joy. When we are filled with Christ-fueled joy, we are ready to change the culture.

You’re sure to notice that the interviews were the only things carried over from Colossians Three Sixteen. Unfortunately, the comments were not. We’re hoping to step up the frequency of interviews. Other than that, we’ll just see what happens.