A clarification as to what this blogsite is about

A clarification as to what this blogsite is about

Khen Lim

Image source: RCCG Household of Faith

A little more than a week ago, I shared an article with a pastor that I drafted on the sovereignty of God, which I plan to publish here in a fortnight from now. Seeing that he had years of experience running a Bible College in the West Indies, he would be a good person to ask for suggestions to improve what I wrote.

In turn he wrote an email back to me, remarking that Systematic Theology is a very difficult topic to touch on let alone explain. And I couldn’t agree more. But that led to more challenging questions he asked, which, for the benefit of my readers, I’ll attempt to answer: 

Why am I doing this research and blogging?

The original purpose of this blogsite was to serve as an official presence for the church I used to attend (and help run). Although that church has closed since early December 2016, there are plenty of traces of it around the whole blog as I have not had the time to revamp it. Despite my best laid plans, I’m very much behind time and struggling to make it run as smoothly as it used to.

As of today, this blogsite is reaching three years of age and in that time, I used it to write articles that reflect the messages that the pastor of the church was giving every Sunday. 

For an ‘official’ site, there are little to no content on church activities, which is why there are no photos of whatever events that took place. What it was for the past two years was a place to read articles that are based on the Sunday messages.

Slowly, as time permitted, the range of articles slowly expanded. Of all the possibilities I entertained, I was able to introduce a second series on the history of the Church. 

These are weekly articles that record the events of the day throughout Church world history. I did try other ideas out but sadly, I lacked the manpower to do anything more adventurous than that.

What is my actual objective in writing a blog?

Now that the blog has no more connection to the original church, one can say that it has somewhat lost its identity. In a way, that is true, but if I’m honest about it, I’d say that the relationship between the blog and the original church was something that I personally established out of my own initiative. In other words, it was not a plan that the church espoused on its own.

Being a church with the size of the congregation you can count with the hands of two people, I was never really going to get any help running the blogsite. I also wasn’t going to get any funding – not even a cent – to get it up and running, let alone maintain it. 

Since the day the site began, not one cent has been invested into it. No one gets paid running it either. And no one other than me alone keeps the site alive. Furthermore, I am the only one writing the articles.

The one other thing I relished with the blogsite during the early years was that I get to study the Word more comprehensively. About four days before every Sunday, the pastor would inform me of the Scripture passage he intends to preach on. 

That gave me enough time to study it, work on it, frame a message around it and then write and publish it on the blogsite. That has been very inspiring and satisfying for me to do regularly. No matter how squeezed I was for time, I somehow got it faithfully done every week. And it fulfils a part of me that wants so desperately to be of service to God.

Given that two things had come in the way of me continuing my seminary studies – the arrival of my pair of twin girls and the passing of my beloved mother in late 2015 – being able to do my own Scripture studying and writing was at least a (feeble perhaps) alternative form I could capitalise on. It was better than feeling isolated and lost.

So what’s my objective with the blogsite today? 

In all honesty, I really don’t know. I can search and search for a reason why and frankly, I can’t come up with a good answer. I know somehow I need to keep it running. I feel some kind of importance that I do this even though it’s gotten a lot tougher without that sense of purpose that came with the original church.

The blog now stands on its own. It has no church to connect to. It has only me to lead it along. Maybe one day, God may send someone else to help me but until that happens, I am to keep it alive and make it work, week in week out.

Yet, for a blog that seems to serve no purpose, it is doing as well as one can imagine. Let me explain.

The articles I write are spiritually inspired. I have no real plan of my own that I can fire up and put into motion. All I have is a strong desire to want to serve the Lord. I have this desperation welled up inside me that is looking for creative outlets and I have long sensed the calling to go and reach out to others.

The problem (for me) of course is that I don’t know who these ‘others’ are. But God knows. And so with this blogsite, the articles would be read by people I don’t know and will likely never get to meet. And yet, these may well be those whom God wants me to get the articles to. 

With the Internet so easy to access these days, God’s power can motivate this blogsite to move anyone who gets to read the articles, inspire them, transform them and drive them to serve and glorify Him.

And so, in the end, my actual personal objective of this blogsite is to be of service to Him in any way He deems appropriate. It’s no longer my objective but His.

What readers am I hoping to attract with my blog?

Image source: Photobucket

This is the interesting thing about this blogsite. I began it in 2014 under the guise of an ‘official’ church site. In fact I’ve been talking about the church needing some form of Internet presence as an outreach project for years prior but no one had the energy, the vision or the determination to see it through. 

Everyone thought it was a ‘good idea’ but the same people would ultimately leave it all for me to do. In the end, I decided that if it meant that I would soldier on my own, so be it.

The first year impact was low but I thought that was understandable because no money was spent on developing it. As for my skills in getting the site up and running, they are at best rudimentary. 

My idea was to create a clean look free of clutter where possible. It would be functional but it would also be as informative as possible. I wanted a site that would be fairly easy to maintain on a weekly basis; therefore, I did not want to incorporate too many things to have to constantly update.

With zero funding, that meant zero advertising effort. Decidedly, this was one area I left entirely to God to work on. I told Him that I would do everything I can to put it up and keep it up. The rest, I said, was up to You. 

So although the first year looked uninspiring in many ways, I persevered because I knew some undercurrent was happening even if I felt nothing there. Somehow I understood that all would be in good time, His time.

When the second year came, all of a sudden – whoosh! – the readership numbers expanded out of nowhere. Readers were coming in from all over the world. 

And it wasn’t just that – the one article that set the trail blazing was a seemingly innocent one on a Japanese diplomat that goes by the name Chiune Sugihara who helped save thousands of Jews from extermination during the Second World War. The article came in three parts and all of them proved to be popular, often the most read every week uninterruptedly for more than a year plus.

Now the numbers were spiking at levels I never thought possible but here’s that lesson again – never underestimate what God can do. With a potential audience in the tens of millions, this is not a blogsite that has neither commercial appeal nor sensationalism. 

I sell nothing here. I have no videos to watch or download. I have no pictures of interesting people. I don’t run a rumour mill. And I don’t carry songs to listen to or lyrics to follow. Given that this blogsite is purely words – inspiring words of God – it would be a mountain that only He can move. And move, He did!

As of today, my readers come from ninety-four countries around the world. The breakdown is Europe (33), Asia (16), Africa (12), Latin/Central America (11), Middle-East (8), Americas (7) and Asia-Pacific (5). The list of countries is as follows:

A, B (13) – Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria

C, D (10) – Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo DRC, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark  

E, F (6) – Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, Finland, France, French Polynesia

G,H (9) – Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary

I, J (6) – India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan

K, L (6) – Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania

M, N (13) – Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway

O, P, Q (6) – Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal

R, S (12) - Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland

T, U (10) – Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay

V, X, Y, Z (3) – Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Former teachers, former classmates, Christian believers or the general public?

Image source: VideoBlocks

As you can see from the list of where my readers come from, it’s very diverse. Though the main regular bulk of my readership hails from America, there is also some appeal among the Europeans also. Yet I have readers who are located in very unlikely places within Africa as well as the Middle-East. 

Considering the numbers, I can certainly do better with Asia while any good numbers from Catholic-based Latin/Central America are always better than nothing. The latest readership number recorded just today came from Afghanistan, which is a big surprise.

But who are these people? 

Are they people I know? Certainly not, although maybe some of my friends and fellow church people might visit from time to time. 

Are they necessarily and exclusively Christians? Not necessarily. There are articles that appeal to non-Christians looking for true stories to read. That is a good and very positive thing. It is also tremendously encouraging. 

Are they the general public? I certainly believe that part of the readership comes from viewers looking for constructive things to read.

I didn’t set up the blogsite to reach people I know and can identify. I did not cede to any personal preferences in this sense but left it to God to drive the vehicle wherever He wants it to go. 

The honest truth is I actually hardly told my friends and ex-colleagues in Malaysia as well as Australia and the rest of the world about this blogsite. Many of my older friends would not identify this site with the ‘new’ me and so I left them untapped.

If you do post this blog, what will follow it? Do I have a plan in mind?

Image source: Truthdig

Without a doubt, I will post the blog on the sovereignty of God. It’s entitled ‘The Eternal Sovereignty of God’ and it should be out in a fortnight from today. It will likely be split into three parts but in following the pastor’s advice, I will do a minor rewrite in an effort to cut it down to size.

I certainly agree that it is a difficult subject to pursue. But it isn’t impossible. I personally feel it depends on the perspective the writer decides to take. I have written it, bearing in mind what the average person knows about kingship, imperial monarchies and sovereignties. 

I sense that many don’t know how to equate – or not equate – worldly kingships with the One King that matters. I wrote it not only to bring awareness but to help people to understand that what earthly kings can and cannot offer bears no relationship to the One King who offers the very thing that we crave but no one else can match – salvation in eternal life.

Ultimately, I can only write what I can sense to write. The matter of God’s sovereignty has perplexed many people and aroused heated debates for many generations and it doesn’t look like it will go away anytime soon. Having said that, I have not written anything that is revelational or unique or unheard of. I am absolutely positive that what I write, readers can read it somewhere else as well.

The point is writing on a topic as challenging as this is not about fleshing out my ego and putting it on display for the world to see. When serving God, my ego is not worth noting. If I’m writing something else, I might do so differently but when I’m used as a vehicle for God’s purposes, He is the driver, not me. It’s following where God leads and telling what He wants told. There is nothing more to it.

And for that, I have no clue what to follow it with. Regular readers may be able to tell that from one week to the next, the articles might not flow with any logical sequence. Last week’s message is likely to be completely different from the one coming next. And it has been like this for a long time. 

Unless I’m on to some continual series – like what I did on the New Testament Surveys and then also, the Ten Commandments (here and here) – it’s a matter of what seed of inspiration God leaves in me to work on.

The truth is I totally rely on what God tells me to develop for others to read. I surrender all such plans to Him purely because I believe I must hold the pen that is driven by God’s heart to reach out to others. My ulterior motive, therefore, is just to do His will and nothing more.

Am I struggling?

Oh, yes, I am and I don’t mean to sound excited about it! The blogsite has been nothing but a one-man show and I believe it shows. Irregularity has crept in since the original church closed its doors and render the site directionless. 

This irregularity is amplified by a personal struggle to cope. My family needs have increased once the twins came into my life. As well, following my mother’s passing, my aged father’s health has waned while attention to his medical needs has worsened since (here, here and here).

Because of this, even the weekly historical articles sometimes suffer hiccups, leaving certain Sundays gaping with nothing to read. When that happens, that’s because I ran out of time and with the now-traditional publish-on-Saturday-night-read-on-Sunday-morning practice, I would occasionally stumble and fail. There’s nothing I can do about this other than to apologise to my patient and long-suffering readers and to try harder.

What plans are there from here on?

I don’t know what God has up His sleeves. He might choose to end the blogsite or He might continue to use it. Either way, I accept. After all, my Christian life has been just as episodic – some doors close eventually while new ones will open later. I have no issue with this. As we do the will of God, acceptance of His will is important.

If you ask me personally what plans I hope to see unfurl, that’s a different question altogether.

Firstly, it is my wish that someone with a like mind and similar desire to serve God as well as share the same doctrinal understanding can share my load and pick it up with me. That would be miraculous and such a joyous turning point because there is so much more we can really do. Though I don’t have any interest in making it big – and turning it commercial – I think the goal is to reach as many people as I can make it, to the glory of God.

Next, I need to take a breath and then find the time and space to really sit down and plan out two long overdue things. I need to revamp the site and then I need to change the web address and safely migrate all the files across. One takes a lot of time and the other requires me to be technically savvy. Both are difficult to achieve.

The revamping is necessary to remove whatever remains of the connection with the original church. This involves a basic clean-up and redesign and while I’m at it, I might freshen the overall look wherever and however I can. 

At the same time, the original name, Lux Mundi, may or may not change. It depends on whether ultimately, that’s necessary and if our existing readers feel alienated with such a decision.

The changing of the web address, though challenging, is because I need to remove the church name from the URL. What this invariably means is that I have to migrate the whole site to a new address and in the process, avoid losing any of the articles and data files. 

The idea is to stay within BlogSpot, which through time, I’ve grown comfortable with. Being a one-man show, I have no help doing this. I only hope that nothing disastrous crops up.

Can you help?

If you think you can, drop me a line by clicking here. I’d love to hear from any of you!

But I must say upfront that I don’t have the means to pay anyone (let alone myself). Essentially, no money has been used to get the site up and running since day one. And no one has ever been paid for his contributions. 

All of what I’ve written is a labour of love to serve Him. I believe this is how God wants it and I’m going along with it.

My biggest immediate concern would be to transfer the blogsite to a new address. Once that’s possible, the blogsite can be redesigned (but not the other way ‘round).

Thanks for reading.