Tall Skinny Kiwi

TallSkinnyKiwi BLOGIVERSARY, and I am taking a break.

Tallskinnykiwi is 8 Years old today. Well, it was actually June 3, 2001 when I shifted from Andrews Tea Salon (1997) to Tallskinnykiwi, but whose counting? Thanks to everyone who has been receiving my feeds and popping over occasionally to this blog to see what's going on. Normally I do something special on these blogiversarys, like hosting games or taking a retrospective look back at TSK through the years.

Today, I want to celebrate by stopping the blog for a while. A few reasons:

1. This blog has 2,777 posts and most of it is buried deep under much rubble. TSK has become too unwieldy and its probably time to wrap it up or at least sum it up. I will be doing some posts over the next month or so that add some perspective to what I have been observing over the past 8 years of TSK blogging. But what I will NOT be doing is trying to stay updated with all the current events. Plenty of other bloggers are doing that now.

2. Another reason to cool it off for a few months is because of our heavy travel schedule. We leave today, from the most western point of continental Europe (near Lisbon, Portugal) and start heading east, sweeping across most of Europe (and perhaps some of North Africa) until we reach Turkey in October. A lot of the time we will not have WIFI and we will not always have electricity. If you are interested in following our family's journey, you can watch us at a new blog that will launch in about a week called Jonesberries.com This blog will be a way for our whole family to blog about the food and countries and cultures we experience as we travel the world in a 20+ year old truck named Maggie. But it will NOT be a Christian blog about the global emerging church.

3. Many of the people we are in contact with right now are spending time in countries where it is not safe for national believers in Christ to practise their faith. I dont want my blog to endanger anyone though name-dropping or having their faces in photos. Which is why my blog has been a little less personal recently. My monthly emails, sent to those who pray for us and support us, are far more detailed. I probably need to prune my email list and rebuild it. Let me know if you want to be on it.

If you are interested in supporting our family in our missionary journeys, please send an email to tallskinnykiwi at gmail dot com and we will send you details of where to send your support. In case you were wondering, our support is less than we were expecting due to the recession and we have cut back significantly so that we can stay on target to fulfil what we believe God is asking of us. A big part of that is mapping out what God is going in the next generation around the world and helping to support and encourage those movements. If you want to partner with our family in that way, please let us know.

So, expect a few conclusive blog posts in the near future. And thanks for being a big and wonderful part of our lives.

The Tallskinnykiwi Twitter Flock on Twittersheep

Twittersheep tells me about my Twitter flock. What about you.

Technorati Tags: microblogging, twitter

New York Times: They LOVE Me there!

Talk about David and the Web Goliaths. Look at me on the New York Times!

When I first discovered the internet in the mid 90's, the New York Times was my website of choice. Reading it for free, from my little cyber cafe in San Francisco, was an absolute blast. When I went on the web today, I found my blog headline on their paper [thanks to Blogrunner] and a stream of NYT readers coming over to my humble TallSkinnyKiwi blog. Gotta love it! God bless those NYT editors for their impeccable taste and faultless wisdom. God blessem, every one!

What post did they pick? They chose the post called Without God - which was a short Facebook message Alana Hurst from Portugal sent me today and asked me to pass it on.

PASS IT ON? HAH! I can do better than that . . .

Technorati Tags: new york times

Female Christian Bloggers

I just had a peek at the top ten UK Christian female bloggers in the previous post and noticed a few things:
- half of these blogs are PINK!
- most of them deal with theology
- most are creative in the comments section - one uses French language and a few of them have hacked into the instructions for a more personal touch.
- most use the blogger platform
- most come from a conservative evangelical background.

Maggi Dawn should probably be there somewhere. Maybe next time around. Her blog is really popular and full of good content, esp. regarding worship.

A few months ago at GodBlogCon, I met La Shawn Barber who has a fantastic blog and is really one of the best female Christian bloggers I have met. She doesnt consider herself a political blogger but her blog does seem to focus on politics, at least recently. Politics in the USA is a hot topic for the blogosphere and the audience is massive - much bigger than "religion" or "theology" or "mission". Helps with the blog traffic, doesn't it La Shawn?

And there are plenty of other killer bloggers out there who are not male.
- Cynthia Ware (American) at The Digital Sanctuary rocks the blogosphere.
- Becky Garrison [also American - yeah - the Americans are finally catching up] is all over the web but never on her own page.
- Cathryn Thomas [the Texas 'pomo charismystic'] blogs at Love Fiercely. She is an absolute scream and I visit her blog a lot.
- Kerstin Hack from Berlin - everyone should know Kerstin.
- Gabi Ngaboca from Hungary has an exciting life following God and her blog reflects that. Some blogs are boring because the blogger's lives are boring. Not Gabi!
- Barbara from Portugal is an blast. She lives off-grid in a Christian community and blogs at Shantii Pilgrim. Baba recommends Lisa's blog from Tanzania.
- Wendy Cooper from Canada has been blogging as long as any other woman I know. Her husband Jordon has been a blog superstar since last century but Wendy is a great blogger in her own right.
- Rachel Cunliffe [yeah New Zealand!] is an award winning blogger and blog designer.
- Amy Chapman is a gifted writer and blogs with her crazy husband Derek at The Bearable Light.
- My wife Debbie had a well known blog on motherhood called MumJones but gave blogging a break for a few years as an attempt to reign in her husband's blogging addiction. I could probably mention a new blog that she and my four daughters have started called A Van Down By The River but then you would discover some secrets about our family plans that i have not revealed yet.

I could go on, and talk about Whitney, Bea, Jen, Kristin, Juli, Maggie, Cindy, Shannon [when she feels like blogging] and obviously, i have ignored many many more who will no doubt give me a hard time in the comments. But what about you? Which female Christian bloggers do you read?

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, christian, christianity, female christian

Social Media Sabbaticals

[photo by andrew jones to make you say "I need a sabbatical!]

UPDATED [Oct 13] with huge apology to my friend Rhett Smith who blogged some excellent thoughts on social media breaks and boundaries.

ORIGINAL: Marcus Goodyear is taking a social media sabbatical, the Pyromaniacs are taking the month off and Darren Rowse of Problogger has just suggested in an email that we should take a RSS break:
"I'm not advocating that we all stop using RSS - but perhaps this week set aside some time to just sit with your own ideas. Get offline completely, take a paper and pen and start writing - see where your thoughts lead you!"

RELATED: The Spirituality of NOT blogging and blog fasting.

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging

Technorati's State of the Blogosphere

"blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream."
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere
I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago at Blog World Expo and one of the highlights for me was the State of the Blogosphere presented by Technorati representatives. The whole session is up on their site. Totally worth reading if you are interested in the blogosphere.

Also, Future of Web Apps in on in London right now. HT: Tim Anderson who is blogging it.

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging

10 Commandments of Blogging

HT: Clerical Whispers shares the story behind the 10 commandments of blogging loosely developed at the Godblogs event in England which was hosted by the Evangelical Alliance. The commandments were given in a "tongue-in-cheek" manner, a bit like my "Blogger's Prayer" back in 2002, but they are pretty good nonetheless.

The 10 Commandments of Blogging:
You shall not put your blog before your integrity.
You shall not make an idol of your blog.
You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.
Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.
Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.
You shall not murder someone else’s honour, reputation or feelings.
You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.
You shall not steal another person’s content.
You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.
You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

Like the image of Moses? Me too! In fact, I found myself COVETING it! I IDOLIZED it! I would have KILLED for it! And eventually, I decided to dishonor my parents by stealing it and then reselling it on the Sabbath. Nahhh . . just kidding . . God knows my witness is false. Actually, the image is from Times Online.

UPDATE: Richard Hall points to news articles on the Times and Telegraph as well as some other blogger's comments. Running commentary by Phil at ThinkHammer. Even better, Ben at Faith and Theology comes up with his own ten commandments. Where the heck was I when all this was going on? Oh yeah - I was in USA having just participated in GodblogCon, another Christian blogging conference on the other side of the pond.

RELATED: The Spirituality of Blogging

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging

Blog Manners

UPdate:
OOPS! This site I was talking about [below] took me by surprise and I thought a mindless political blogger was using my feed in a blasphemous manner. This is not the case. Sorry. I should have taken the time to actually read the blog in question and also I failed to extend grace and love in a forward manner [loves believes all things] and so I APOLOGIZE for MY bad manners and for jumping to conclusions. Read the comments for more info.

Original post with strikethrough:
There are a lot of websites out there that take my feed and stream it on their site WITH A LINK to my site and A NAME so people know I wrote it. Thats fine. I am honored.

Blog World Going Well

Lovin' it!! Having a great time in a session on corporate sponsorship right now. Before this was Wade Tonkin of Christian Affiliate Marketers who did a session for Godblogcon called How to Support Your Blog ( . . and stay saved). I am about to run over to hear Roger Overton from A-Team blog do a session on new media and then officially release his new book The New Media Frontier.

Technorati Tags: blog, blog world expo, blogworldexpo, godblogcon 2008

Standalone Bloggers

“The future of the new media, in my opinion, is moving away from personal sites toward online collectives that are focused on particular interests,” Joe Carter

Ted Olsen at Christianity Today contemplates the future of standalone bloggers, mentioning three of them [including me]. His post is a kind reference to Joe Carter's recent thoughts on standalone bloggers in which I am also singled out as a DYING BREED of bloggers in the midst of a mega-conglomorate-collaborative future. My words, not Joe's. I told you about Joe last week and his new site called Culture 11. Lovely guy! No hard feelings! I feel the love . . . really!

I am not knocking the group blogging efforts here. Au contraire. In 2002 I gathered 40 faith bloggers from a dozen countries and started what might have been the worlds first faith-based global communal blog called A Kingdom Space [now deceased]. And I enjoy reading collaborative blogs as well as the radical individual thoughts of rhizome cowboys.

So even if I am a dying breed of blogger, I still think there is a place for standalone bloggers like me.

Fr'intance:
- As a standalone blogger, I offer the accountability of a single view point that a reader may or may not agree with but at least everyone knows where that viewpoint is coming from.
- Many people want a filter, not a funnel. A standalone blogger can give the skinny [sorry] on a situation or topic and serve their audience by REDUCING the amount of material to read, rather than turning on the fire hydrant in their face and streaming them with an information overload.

Technorati Tags: blog