Blogging About Blogging

Recently, someone asked me about this blog. She asked such questions as “Who is it for?” “Why did I started it?” And the like.

I have to admit I was kind of taken aback. Not at the questions themselves. But at my lack of adequate responses. Actually, I thought they were excellent questions. Ones that I have been spending some time thinking about.

I originally started my blog immediately out of seminary. My first post [http://freeway-of-faith.blogspot.com/2006/06/day-of-pentecost-year-b-rcl-acts-21-21.html] was on June 6, 2006, and was the sermon I preached the day after my ordination as a deacon. I suppose I started the blog with the intent of it primarily being a record of my sermons. I was faithful to that purpose until 2011 when my rector suggested I start preaching without a manuscript. I comment on this here [http://freeway-of-faith.blogspot.com/2011/09/preaching-styles.html] No manuscript, no sermons to post. While I thought it was a good suggestion, and a good learning experience, there was that part of me that really did not like having sermon texts to post. The engineer in me did not like the lack of continuity. Of course, I have since begun posting my sermons again.

I suppose I also intended to use Father Fincher’s Freeway of Faith to post other thoughts or reflections that struck me as being of interest in one’s spiritual life – as one travels the Freeway of Faith that is the spiritual journey. More accurately, material that has been of interest in my spiritual life. And in my growth and development as a priest and as a child of God. I have been less faithful in this aspect of the Father Fincher’s Freeway of Faith than maybe I should have. There have also been a few posts that were maybe more political commentary, humor, or other “non-spiritual” things.

As to who the blog is for? I really don’t know. I really don’t know if anyone reads it. When I was regularly posting my sermons, I know my parents read it. And occasionally I will get an email from someone who stumbled across it or found a particular post through some sort of search and happened to find that entry helpful or insightful. I have never consciously advertised the fact that I have a blog. So I really have no illusions (or delusions) of it being for anyone in particular or of having followers.

I did recently receive an email from a former colleague at LSA Associates who was happy to see that I had started posting again. I had no idea that he had been following my posts, or that he was even interested in spiritual matters. It had just never come up in conversations. I guess I might be surprised who does actually check in occasionally.

I guess, if anything, Father Fincher’s Freeway of Faith has primarily been for me. A way for me to express at least a little of where I have in my faith journey. Even if primarily through sermons. After all, I heard somewhere that we preach what we most need to hear our self. And if others happen to find it and derive benefit from it, then that is a bonus.

But all of this has gotten me to thinking. If I am going to maintain Father Fincher’s Freeway of Faith, what do I want it to be for? What do I want it to seek to accomplish? Who would I like my audience to be? I suppose the answers to those questions will unfold over time. In the meantime, I suppose I intend this to be reflective of (although certainly not the totality of) my own faith journey, as laid out in my sermons, reflections, and other materials I decide to post. And my intended audience? Anyone who is seeking, who happens to stumble across Father Fincher’s Freeway of Faith and finds something here that speaks to them on their own faith journey.

Maybe having been prompted to think about all of this, I can be more intentional about posting more regularly than just my sermons.