Blog

Tips on Blogging Frequency

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Pending on your goals, a blog format may really work for a non-profit web site or your own personal home page. Yet the medium of blogs with dated content, can create pressure to keep things fresh. Many bloggers buckle under the pressure of posting daily updates, but this may no longer be necessary.
Eric Kintz says that daily blog posts can sometimes be a liability.

ProBlogger Darren Rowse adds some qualifiers.

The bottom line for me is that each blogger must determine the goal and audience of his/her blog. For example, a more specialized blog such as cooking, history, or theology may only require weekly posts. Tech, politics, and news may be a different story.

[tag]blog[/tag]

When Words Fail

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

I wrote up a short essay on prayer called “When Words Fail” and posted it on inamirrordimly.com. Here it is:

He put the prayer book down knowing that nothing had changed. His heart was frozen solid. Pride still clutched to his breast and self reigned in his thoughts. Where is God? Could God still have a use for me? What next?

Emptiness. A chilling void.

Adoration, supplication, scripture, hymns: words. All words bouncing off his hardened frame. Utterances were just noise vibrating from his throat and flipping off his tongue without meaning. Any notion that rolled in his consciousness crackled with static and disappated without taking shape.

He groped and crawled about his earth-bound soul only to finger the ordinary human scemes that had always burrowed into his waking hours. All was stamped with his own design. If not originals, he had adapted the creations of others and appropriated them to his religious cache.

Cold letters, grammar, and texts bound his spirit, dooming him to the inhospitable earth. Could his spirit escape, find relief, and connect with someone “other?” Was God reaching out to him? Could God do anything?

Falling to his knees, a storm thundered from his darkened eyes. The droplets pounded the earth, sowing seeds of despair. As if squeezing his final remnant of faith in clenched fists, he pounded it into the ground, mingling tears with fleeting faith. His downcast eyes failed to catch the first gleam of the sun as it rose over his storm-swept soul. Though imperceptable, his faith began to grow.

[tag]prayer, faith[/tag]

Short Story in the Southshire Pepperpot

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

You can now pre-order the Southshire Pepperpot. It’s a collection of stories by writers in South Western Vermont called the Southshire Roundtable. I’m actually part of a group in Manchester, but the Southshire group put this anthology together.

My story is called “A Bittersweet Land,” a story about my first experience with Turkish coffee while studying in Israel for a semester.

Windstorm creative now has the anthology available for pre-orders: here.

Fund Raising with Christine Graham

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

If you’re looking for some some help in the non-profit sector with fund raising, a good place to start is with Christine Graham and her web site: www.cpgfundraising.com.

Christine has a lot of experience with non-profits and has published a wide array of books, newsletters, and other materials. She describes herself on the web site as the following:

“Through CPG Enterprises, Inc., Christine Graham offers fundraising advice, support and training to a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. Services include consultation, workshops, and publications. The goal is always to identify and meet the goals of the organization with careful attention to the culture and needs of its community.”

[tag]non-profit, fund+raising[/tag]

Connecting Through Blogs

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

The Wall Street Journal Reports that churches are currently using blogs as a way of connecting with those outside of their congregations.

“In a bid to attract new members and shed their persistently Luddite image, churches across the country are embracing technology and Web sites like MySpace. Blogs and podcasts have become part of religious leaders’ communications with congregants, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr are increasingly used to depict a fun-loving, casually-dressed community of churchgoers.”

The whole article.

While many non-profits are loath to add another item on their “to do” lists, this is such an important area. Non-profits must learn to communicate with today’s upcoming generations in their media formats of choice. Blogs and web-based applications are the future. A good example of a web accessible non-profit is The Well.

[tag]blog, church, non-profit[/tag]

Simple Tags

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

My friend Todd Hiestand just walked me through the installation process for a WordPress plugin called “SimpleTags.” A plugin is essentially a ready-made component you can add to your site that provides a nice extra feature after a few quick clicks.

The nice part about SimpleTags is that you do not have to copy and paste the lengthy technorati code in order to tag your blog posts. Tagging makes your posts easier to find and provide additional categories that are far more specific. The tags only require making brackets around the word “tag” before and after your tags.

[tags]technorati, word press, simpletags, tags[/tags]

Review of Google Calendar

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

googlecalendarI just began using Google Calendar this week and have pratically driven my wife crazy with my excitement. The beauty of Google calendar is two-fold, but there are many other parts that are good-looking as well.

Nevertheless, the two best parts are: it can be accessed anywhere and it can send reminders to your gmail account. This is what makes it truly useful. I check my gmail often, but would not always think to pull up the calendar. Also, I’m on 2-3 different computers in the course of a day, so it’s essential to have the calendar online.

Google has cleverly set their accounts up so that a gmail account unlocks the door to all of the google services. This calendar is just another one of the nice tools you can use with gmail.

Another nice feature is “event sharing.” The Google Calendar site says,
“If your website mentions events – including reservations, appointments and shows – Google Calendar can help you stay on people’s radar. You can let people quickly add single events from your site to their calendars, or list public events you want people to be able to search for within Google Calendar.”

googlecalThey even have buttons that you can place on your site and program with the relevant information about the event. By simply clicking on the button, friends and family can add that event to their own Google calendars.

So I’m sold, though there surely are other worthy calendars out there. If you have not made the switch to gmail and want to give it a go, just post a comment and I’ll send you an invitation.

Posted in Web

Christian Blogs: Fulfilling Grenz’s Communal Vision for Theology

Posted on by Ed Cyzewski

Two months ago I wrote up a tribute to theologian and noted author Stanley Grenz. It was in response to a call for papers. Knowing that a many theological giants would be submitting their own reflections and tributes, I figured that I didn’t have too much of a chance to get in

Nevertheless, I spent a bit of time on my research and determined that if it didn’t make the cut, I would at least make it available for free to all who are interested in reading an analysis of the impact of Stan Grenz on Christians who blog. The title is: Christian Blogs: Fulfilling Grenz’s Communal Vision for Theology.

As you probably have figured out by now, the article was returned. So, in keeping with my original intention, I have loaded the article below.
You may read it here: Stanley Grenz and Blogs