New Kids on the Blog

A new kid on the blog, and a couple of others that are new to me:

Dorinda Gates is a “home missionary” in Dallas for Gospel for Asia, and her new blog is called Through the Gates. She told me about it in an email:

You quoted a blogger in your April 2002 article [Blogging for the Lord] as saying: "I can imagine a blog would be a great way for a missionary to keep his home community up-to-date on what’s happening. Lots of possibilities here."  I agree with that statement and plan on experimenting along those lines.  That was what led me to consider blogging - the need and desire to keep in touch with my prayer and financial supporters on a regular basis.

I replied:

I wish you luck with your blog. The problem of course is that you may get plenty of readers in the so-called “blogosphere”, but very few within your own church or Christian circles. I’ve been running my website for nearly 20 months, but virtually no-one in my own church even knows about it. Even those who know about it don’t seem to read it, or if they do they don’t say anything to me about it. So I do wish you luck, but I can’t help thinking that blogs and websites are still a bit too “revolutionary” to serve as an effective communication medium within the church. But I hope I’m wrong.

Yes, I do hope I’m wrong, and I wish Dorinda luck.

The Happy Husband, subtitled “Celebrating Marriage in a Hostile World” is a blog from Curt Hendley, a self-described “sort of a cross between a dork and a geek”. He writes:

I see the real-life marriages of my friends, family members, and acquaintances fall apart every day, while the new national pastime is finding unique and humorous ways to complain about spouses. It almost seems like a societal conspiracy to discourage contentment. I’m hoping now to begin undermining the conspirators. On this blog, I plan to celebrate marriage and to communicate things I’ve learned about being married, but mostly to encourage and be encouraged by others who might feel oppressed by the pervasive negative sentiments in our culture.

Marriage: It's a beautiful thing.

Curt’s blog is a beautiful thing, too, full of gentle reflections and subtle humour, and I recommend it.

Finally, Ecumenical Insanity, from Athanasius, and most people will know from the title whether or not this is a blog for them. Here’s Athanasius on media releases from the National Council of Churches, after a NCC visit to North Korea:

There's a surreal quality in the treatment of this crisis. There is absolutely no suggestion that the famine which has caused the deaths of at least two million North Koreans over the last several years had anything to do with the catastrophic policies of the government….Once again, it seems the NCC is singing from an old songbook: pat totalitarian regimes of the left on the head, and blame all their problems on the United States.

Read it.