Top 10

As we’re approaching the end of the year 2010 it seems that everyone is thinking about the Top Ten list of some sort or other. What are the Top ten news stories, the top ten movies, the top ten songs or tv shows or novels or whatever? Did the BP Oil spill or the Chilean miners’ rescue or the Haitian earthquake make a greater impact on our news consumption? How does one compare Toy Story with Inception, Harry Potter and Social Network? I don’t know; I didn’t see any of them!

Yet, I do want to get into the spirit of year end and suggest a Top Ten list for us to think about. Reflection is a good thing; it’s one of the ways we learn our best life lessons. So let us reflect a little on where we’ve been. Your task, dear reader, is to provide the content for our Top Ten list.

Do you have a favourite Blog post? What topics do you remember best? Are they the ones that received the most comments? Those would be dealing with community involvement, books and reading, fair trade practices and why people do or don’t come to church! Do you recall those conversations?

In 2010 What’s the Good Word signed on to facebook with more than 200 friends and followers. It’s not unusual for us to have more than 400 “hits” on any given post on our facebook site. Of course, some of those would be me checking on how many hits we’ve had, but be assured, I don’t have time to be running up those stats unduly, so I know someone out there is reading The Good Word.

People ask us how we coordinate out messaging. We don’t! Blog posts arise out of what we’re thinking about, what we’re paying attention to, what the current issues, challenges and good news items are coming to our attention. Carman and I do not compare notes or decide who will write which message. We just post when we feel prompted or have an idea. And we’re usually as surprised as our readers by what’s on each other’s mind.

We know that we are being urged by Church leadership to engage in the ongoing dialogue and discernment process, to figure out together “what matters most.” This Blog is just part of that ongoing conversation. It’s one important reason we do keep urging you to add your Comments, to send us your ideas and feedback. We very much intend for this conversation to have more than one (or perhaps two) perspective(s). I am also assured that the conversation does go on, even when there are no Comments posted. You tell me that you are reading and that you are thinking about what you read and even that you’ve quoted us in sermons or conversations in your congregation.

We appreciate that sometimes the technology isn’t quite as welcoming as we might like and that it just isn’t as easy to comment as we’d prefer. [Just an aside here: if you want to comment, the easiest place is on facebook where you don’t need to create an identity or type a secret password…just Comment for all to see.]

So there you have some of the Insider information about our Blog. Now I challenge you to offer your nomination for our Top Ten List. What was your favourite blog post of 2010?

Posted by Marion