This is day two of the High Calling blog tour. During this tour, I’ve been talking about a side of editing most people don’t think about—an editor’s role in helping to unify the vision for a publication or a publisher.
Most often, that kind of work takes place on the level of sentences and paragraphs. I ask whether a particular idea or clause or phrase or word effectively communicates the vision I’ve been called to defend. But sometimes it happens at the philosophical level. Sometimes I get to step back and think about overall strategy. How do we teach people the value of…
Yesterday we had some great comments, observations, reviews, and even audacious questions. Like this one from Eve Nielsen.
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(Now, Eve is a friend of mine, so her question is not really as audacious as it may seem.) She wrote,
I found the purpose for this site still quite vague: Glorifying God in Everyday Life…yes, that’s great…but what is this site all about? How does it try to accomplish this goal? Why is this site significant to me-why should bother visiting here and not elsewhere? I had to find out for myself, by searching.
One of the biggest challenges we face with <i>TheHighCalling.org</i> is that we don’t always have a specific call to action.
So many faith at work websites say, “Now, go start a Bible study at work.” Some say, “Now start a faith and work support group at your church.” Other online Christian sites end with the call to action, “Ask Jesus into your heart” or their denomination’s equivalent. Still other online Christian sites just end with the traditional bottom line call to action, “Donate now.”
And none of those calls to action are bad.
But we’re trying to help people change <i>the way they think</i> about work. It’s a tricky thing. In fact, I cringe a little bit because I’m reminded of the Vietnam War objective to win the hearts and minds of the people. That proved to be quite impossible.
Are we just trying to “win the hearts and minds” of Christians in the workplace so they will recognize their work as a service to God?
Definitely, we are not just focused on workplace evangelism. Talking about God at work can be an important thing to do.  Thinking about God while we work is important, too. But we want people to understand that God values all work. Work isn’t simply a vehicle to find leads for evangelism. Work itself has intrinsic value.
How do you write a call to action if your goal is changing the way people view the world?
That’s why I started exploring social media. We ask people to think by asking them to talk. We invite people <i>to engage in the conversation</i>—about the intrinsic value of work.
Finally, I’ve circled back around to Eve’s original questions. “Why is this site significant to me—why should I bother visiting here and not elsewhere?”
People are rarely motivated by abstract ideas. People rarely see the significance of abstract ideas. Unless they are discussing those ideas in community. And now you begin to see the significance of the member profile pages.
Take a look at my member profile. Imagine your member profile also linked out to your website. Imagine your member profile also served as a gateway to your online presence. You could join a blog network of High Calling Bloggers. You might receive a monthly newsletter designed to help you glorify God in your everyday blogging. When you wrote a good post on your blog, it might be featured in that newsletter. It might be featured on the home page of TheHighCalling.org (in the lower left). The content editor (me) might even email you and request to purchase publication rights to reprint your blog post as an article on the site.
So you see, this little blog tour is very important. I need to prove that blogs matter. I need to show even in the smallest measureable way, that user generated content can be guided—not manipulated—in ways that are honest, helpful, encouraging, and rewarding to the bloggers themselves.
And I need to show that people will
Other folks on the blog tour include:
Gordon Atkinson, L. L. Barkat, Gina Conroy, Craver VII, CREEations, Milton Brasher-Cunningham, Mary DeMuth, Karl Edwards, Emdashery, Every Square Inch, Green Inventions, Amy Goodyear, Marcus Goodyear, Al Hsu, Jennwith2ns, Charles Foster Johnson, Steve McCoy, Mike McLoughlin, Eve Nielsen, Naked Pastor, Ramblin Dan, Charity Singleton, Stacy, Camy Tang, Writer… InterruptedÂ
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I did it! I submitted! (That’s what the button says… “submit.”) So, I am waiting with bated breath for that first paycheck…
Oh, and can I say on a totally different topic that your html tags are doing something weird? I can see all your italics and emdash codes in your text.
Also, I tried going to the site and commenting on Ramblin’ Dan’s blog, but there’s no comment button. (It doesn’t matter that I’m on Safari, does it? That would be cyber-Safari, not me off in a jeep somewhere.)
The intrinsic value in work is important as well. I like that thought. In my review of the High Calling, I had been focusing on seeing our work place as a place to live out the Gospel, but doing a job and doing it well is an important part of that, isn’t it? I’ll have to include that thought today.
LL Barkat, I find Firefox works better than Safari. And lately, my Safari gets stuck and I get that dreaded spinning beachball of death. So for me, Firefox it is!
L.L., submitting is hard thing to learn. As to the code and stuff, um, nothing’s different. I’m going with what Stacy said. Blame the browser.
In order to comment on Dan’s blog–or any part of the site, you need to be logged in as a member. We’re talking about ways to make that more obvious on the site.
Stacy, I can’t take credit for the idea about the intrinsic value of work. I’m not sure where it originated, but I first learned about it from David Miller.
Yeah! I’ve put out my HighCalling welcome mat and I’m on the tour now. I’m looking forward to the swarm of visitors to my site.
I’d better inform Blogger. They need to be forewarned about the deluge of traffic to my blog. I’d hate to be the reason their servers crash.
I’m also going to be visiting the other blogs on the tour, checking them out, maybe even commenting. It’s my first blog tour so I’m really excited and taking in all the sights (or sites)
Thanks ESI. I’m sure the traffic rushing to (and from) your site will crash several server hubs across the midwest.
Clever pun. I made it a goal to comment on every blog tour post. Totally exhausting. But fun. When I participate in the CSFF blog tour, I usually just comment on 5 a day or so.
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