On and off over the past couple of decades, I have had various blogs and websites that I posted semi-regularly to. Some were fairly political, others more technical in nature, and some were just random nonsense. Why? Essentially, I am a communicator. Whether we’re talking about my professional careers (of which I have had several) or my personal hobbies, communicating ideas has always been a central part of what I do.

Well, of course, everyone “communicates” in their jobs, their hobbies, their personal relationships. Human beings are quite chatty, after all, as a species. But what I’m saying here is that I not only do a lot of writing and speaking, but I do a lot of thinking about writing and speaking. I actively enjoy thinking about writing and speaking. I am most happy when I am creating something, and the kinds of things I most enjoy creating all involve words. Whether I’m telling a story or explaining an idea or exploring a theory or telling a joke, I can’t stop thinking about the how of it all. I’m a structure nerd when it comes to this sort of thing, for instance.

Anyway, that still doesn’t make me particularly special. However, I’ve been doing a lot of self-evaluation and self-observation over my lifetime, and I’ve recently been really working on honing in on whatever appears to be the essence of what I do when I am doing something well. And, well, “communication” seems to cover that category rather nicely.

So here I am once again writing a blog. Why this format? And on what topic? And for whom? Slow down, I’ll get there.

First of all, my main creative and communicative output is in other areas right now. I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking and also YouTubing (I guess that’s a verb now), and those two areas will continue to be my main professional focus for now. But I’m working on developing my overall communication skills through the building up of new habits. So I’ve decided to experiment with the discipline of a weekly blog post. Those of you that already subscribe to the weekly email I send out (typically on Fridays) about happenings at the Washington New Church may say, “But you already do that!” Well, yes, I do. But those emails have a very specific agenda, despite the fact that they sometimes drift dangerously close to mad ramblings at times. This new weekly blog post plan is something else entirely.

Instead of having a focused agenda (like letting people know what’s going on at the church I am pastor of), my Monday blog posts will be a lot looser. They could be about anything, really. If it’s on my mind, and I can generate some words on the subject, it’ll show up here.

Which isn’t a very good way to build an audience. So I guess the answer to that third question (who is this for?) is…well, no one. But if you’ve stumbled across this, then you’re more than welcome to come along for the ride. I can’t promise it’ll be enlightening. Heck, I can’t really promise it’ll be anything at all, other than weekly.

So if you’re in the market for a blog/column/whatever that has no target audience, no particular subject matter, and no agenda other than to be reliably weekly, then you have come to the right place! And as a bonus, since I have no agenda besides consistent output, you can have a big influence on what kind of out I’ll be putting. (Puting? Put-ing? Hm…) Just drop a comment here and let me know what you think I should write about, and the odds are good that I’ll be desperate enough for ideas each Monday that I’ll just write about whatever you want. Until the suggestions start to outnumber the Mondays, of course.

To conclude, here’s a nice picture, because blog posts are more visually interesting when they have pictures in them:

?