Why I Blog

All the world is my parish. 

That’s what Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, said. Ironically, I think he said it to clarify his commitment to itinerant ministry, to his particular sort of traveling, voyaging, never-rooted-for-too-long preaching of salvation in every place he could reach.

I might be tempted to say I blog for that reason– to spread personal and social holiness through all the land and all the regions where my pixilated pastoring can reach. But that would not be honest of me.

For a long time I thought maybe I blogged because I’m an extrovert, and I wanted more places to talk and think and emote “out loud,” more people with whom to share and converse and dialogue and process. I’ll admit that blogging is good for that. I treasure the conversations I have had through my blog(s) and facebook and other online communities.

I admit at least in part that I blog because I hope that it matters, that my thoughts matter, that something I write might be read or shared and might change something or someone, no matter how minutely. I hope this isn’t too selfish a thought. Or too navel-gazing (unlike this post).

I know that I *do* think out loud, and that processing through writing helps me clarify my thoughts and ideas. I know that I’m a better preacher, conversationalist, speaker, and a better listener, thinker, silent presence, when I have taken time in writing.

And I get better with practice. I can feel that I’m rusty, that this post is hard.

But mostly, what I’m noticing about myself, now in my third appointment as a pastor, is that I blog and maintain an online presence (as best I can), and see the world as my parish, as a reaction to, rather than a justification of, the itinerant ministry that John Wesley and the Methodist clergy riding in his horseshoe tracks embrace. That is to say: I don’t blog to reach out, but rather to have a place to touch back. No matter how far I move, or where I go, or how different a local church or conference might be, I am still Becca, or Pastor Becca, or  @pastorbecca. I have some continuity in this space, some carry-over readers and listeners, some people who read and remember my posts from ten years ago (and some new congregants who scroll back and read up on me when I arrive, I hear!). That means I have some authenticity, and some accountability here. I have to be the same, evolving, work-in-progress ME I have always been, or y’all would call shenanigans. And I also have a touchstone, a rootedness in my root-less ministry journey. I have people I don’t have to leave and lose, a home church not confined by membership or appointment. A community and– what’s the word– that I can find myself in again and again. Not only as the preacher or pastor, but sometimes, maybe often, as a member and participant.

Ah, yes. A parish. A parish I can find in all the world.