Monday, October 4, 2010

It's My Party - 500 Blogs! 5 Vignettes from the Christian Blog-o-sphere

It's 500 Today!

Today is a party! I have comments from 5 of the coolest/thoughtful/funny bloggers ever, including: Matt Appling, Brett Barner, Tony Cradic, Joyce Lighari, and Tracy Chiara. It's a pleasure to share the Christian Blog-o-sphere with them....but first a brief history of Fire & Grace.

Who would have ever thought that I would have made it to 500 blogs! I can assure you, I didn't. If my mother were alive, she'd be amazed. I was the child that failed English and/or Reading more than a few times.

Until November 23, 2006, I was a blog virgin; not a single keystroke until then. It was on MySpace. I admit it, I am addict now. The first step to recovery is admitting it. Now I need the help of a Higher Power to restore me to virtual sanity.

My most popular blogs are Poor or Poor, The Cost of Following Jesus and 5-Fold Ministry. Not long ago I had a record day; August 18th, when I wrote: The World Could be Flat, How Do We Know It's Not?

Like loose change falling out of a pocket with a hole in it, I have blogs everywhere. I wrote original works for Tony C Today, Abundant Life, Godly Sheep and of course, Kingdom Bloggers.

While I've been blogging Obama was elected president, the shootings at VT Blacksburg took place, the Underwear Bomber (sometimes known as the Crotch Bomber) was caught in Detroit, I reconnected with old High School friends on Facebook, lost a job, got a job, went on a car safari, 3 friends got cancer; one died, two were healed, the tragedy at Ft. Hood happened, we bid farewell to Falwell, Senator Kennedy died, Jimmy Carter made a fool of himself - oh, and Scott Brown was elected.

You might think, "how does a geek like me get into writing with no education, and no experience?" In 1998, I met a prophet by the name of Dennis Cramer. While I didn't really have much experience with prophetic folks prior to that, here are the high points of what he said to me on January 10, 1998

Son, there was a day when I would have called you a reluctant leader. But God would say I have removed all the reluctance from you and I’ve set you afire recently.


I will give you a heart for nations as well, says the Lord. And you will travel from coast to coast. I see several air tickets being purchased. I see you getting on a plane-- flying here, flying there, flying here, flying there.


You’ve said “Lord I want to stay out of the limelight.” God says “sorry, I disagree.” Get into it, get into it, get into it! I’m going to make you a leader--listen to this - God says “there’s teaching all over you.” You can teach and train, teach and train, teach and train. 


There’s even some writing in you.  Writing, writing, writing, writing. ------------- And God says I’m going to increase his authority. Says the Lord.


I don't know about you, but I was excited and skeptical. Soon after, I met a Brazilian guy and started to travel to the nations. Back in September 1998 I also started to write - just about every day. I wrote about 500 daily emails before blogs were invented. And now I have completed 500 blog entries. I have over 120 pages written for a book entitled: From Darkness to Light. I even worked as a travel writer for almost a year. I have recently started working on an apostolic "training" school which I am writing all the materials for. That's a lot of writing for guy that the teachers said would never make it!

God is amazing! And so are my guest bloggers and readers.

Today, yes today, I am celebrating my 500th blog by inviting some of my favorite bloggers to the party. Here what they have to share with me and you; my Fire & Grace readers.


Matt  - The Church of No People

David, on the occasion of your 500th blog post, I have a few thoughts for you which you can share on your blog.

Three times a week, I have a blog post go live, and I can almost always count on you to have one, or even multiple comments about what I have to say. Given that your comments are always well thought out and cogently written, you are already well above the curve as far as the internet goes. But the sheer volume of contributions you have made to my blog puts you in your own league, a league which I have not yet named, as you are the only member. I'm not even sure if one person can constitute a league, but I don't know what else to call it. My handy commenter tracking device indicates that you have made over 150 comments to my blog since April. The only person who has made more comments on my blog is me, but not by very many.

Then I come to find out that you have actually managed to write 500 of your own blog posts. Wow. In just under two years, I have only written 300, and some of those were pretty lame. A ridiculous number like 500 episodes of David makes you The Simpsons of blogging. Hopefully, your glory years didn't pass ten years ago. Nah, I can tell that can't be true.

But with so much writing, and I assume David doesn't just comment on my blog, I have to wonder, just what does David do? Can he really be a man who spends his days blogging and commenting nonstop? It seems unlikely, and yet the thought of a man contributing so much makes that a very real possibility. But could a mere man even perform such a feat, even if he spent all day, every day blogging and commenting? After careful consideration, I have decided that, no, a mere man could not. This leads me to conclude that David must be some kind of advanced biological, artificial intelligence, created by the government to monitor the content of our blogs and contribute to them in meaningful ways to disguise himself.

This realization startled and confused me at first. But I decided that it was not worth getting worked up over. "David" is probably not the only one out there. And if I had my choice of supercomputers to monitor me and contribute to blog-land, I would pick David.

David, you are in your very own league as a blogger, commenter and contributer, and human or computer, you make my blog better.


Brett Barner - GodlySheep
2 and 1/2 Reasons I Hate Writing A Guest Post For Someone Elses’ Blog

Every Monday on my Internet home, GodlySheep, I do what I call a Monday Morning High Five. Basically, it’s an attempt at humor and often is in reference to Christian sub-culture. For the sake of brevity and to pay homage to David’s 5 1/2 series, I cut the typical list of 5 1/2, in half, to 2 3/4 things. I know David is a fan of the MMH5, so when he asked me to write a guest post along with a few other great writers, I eventually figured out what do (more on that later).

The only problem is, I’m horrible at guest posting. David has probably just realized that now. I guess it's not so much that I hate guest posting, as that I hate how bad I am at guest posting. I’m always honored and humbled when I am requested to guest post for someone’s site; it also makes my day when someone wants to guest post for my site too. But if you have ever guest posted on someone elses’ blog, maybe some of these reasons will resonate with you.

1. I never know what to write about - I’ll always ask, “What would you like me to write about?” only to get hit by a creatives’ nightmare response “Whatever you want to do!” So I sit and think, I research possible topics, lose sleep over it, Google “What should I write about?”, become frustrated at Matt Appling because he thought of an funny idea before I did, just trying to nail down a topic of interest to write about. [Amen, brother!]

2. I feel the pressure to write the greatest guest post ever written - I mean, I am going up next to Matt Appling, Tony Cradic, Joyce Lighari, and Tracy Chiara. I can’t just turn out the mindless dribble I usually do on my site. There’s something about my competitive nature that makes me want to crush every guest post that the host site has ever had and set a new bar for guest posting quality in general. Unfortunately, my competitive nature doesn’t automatically translate into excellence of writing.

2 3/4. I’m a procrastinator - I like to wait until the last possible minute I need to do something, and then wait until the day after that to begin.

Tony C - Tony C Today


When I found out David Johndrow was about to post his 500th blog post, I was completely amazed and had to roast him! I mean, I’ve known David for going on two years now, and I thought he was doing 500 a month! Maybe it just seems that way…

Seriously, David is a very gifted writer. I hear his lovely wife, Mary Anne, rarely has to help him with the ‘Love, David’ each year when he signs her anniversary card. It’s just that he occasionally forgets his heritage isn’t Latin American and his name is actually David and not Jesus.  That’s Spanish for Jesus David…I’m just saying.

Wow, 500 posts! Just think how much real work you could have accomplished with all that wasted time on Spell Check. I’m getting carpal tunnel just thinking about it! Rarely does David post something less than 1,000 words either. I don’t think he can tell Mary Anne ‘good night’ before bed each night in less than 500 words! I have, from a good source, that he was telling her ‘good night’ one evening, she fell asleep, got up a few hours later to go to the bathroom, went back to sleep, got up again an hour later for a glass of water…and David was still telling her ‘good night’ via the Book of Deuteronomy.

David is so prolific at writing blog posts, Blogger had to add a new bank of servers just to archive his work. Word has it when you search his blog for an archived post, it causes rolling power outages around San Francisco due to the power drain. Google bought Blogger from Pyra Labs in 2003 unaware more than 70% of the traffic was generated from one of several hundred blog sites David has created in his web design career. Google executive now refer to David as David Faulkner (Mary Faulkner is credited with writing over 900 books).

It’s a known fact Steven King calls David when he gets ‘writers block’ to help get over the hump. David did a guest editorial for his local newspaper, and the editor had to trim it to fit the space, so he made an acronym using the first letter of each word in the piece…it was still a full page!

Now, I’m not saying David is wordy….compared to Webster. It’s just his subject matters are so deep theologically and intellectually that they require vast explanation….and a good pair of wading boots. If God had anointed David to write the great biblical truths of Paul in the New Testament…it would have been 27 volumes with all of the gospels and epistles in Volume I not written by him and the remaining 26 volumes to his credit. If he had been anointed to pen Psalms, the King James Version would still be in translation.

Congratulations my good friend. I jest in envy of your very talented blessing. I hope you are just getting started at 500 and look forward to many years of biblical insights. Besides, Google can afford the additional servers they’ll need…I’m kidding!

Love you brother!

Tony C


Joyce Lighari - Sounds of Hope
Congratulations on 500 blogs!


Who knew? Who knew that for some strange reason, out of all the people who we went to Norway with, you would be the only one I stay in contact with? Then who knew that you’d get me blogging. I guess God did. 500 blogs huh? That’s a lot of hot air and opinions – but since that hot air is the flame of the Holy Spirit sending out words of grace and you light a fire under all of us to move forward, it’s a real good thing. Congratulations on 500 fire-starting blogs.



Tracy Chiara - Abundant Life
Congratulations on 500 blogs!

Although we've never met in person or even spoken together, there are some things about you to which I can attest:

- You know a vast amount of information about a large number of subjects.

- You have a thought or opinion on everything.

- You're passionate about Christ, His message, His Kingdom, His calling and gifting on your life.

- You're crazy about your daughters, and smart enough to realize how blessed you are in your wife.

- You're deeply committed to the people God has brought into your life; where you live, that you've known in the past, that you've come to know via the internet.

May you be blessed as you continue your blogging journey.

8 comments:

Brett Barner said...

Congrats on 500!! Awesome milestone! Thanks for letting me be a part of it. :)

Tony C said...

I feel bad I was the only one being mean...not really.

Congratulations on a most impressive milestone. At current pace, I should reach 500 around March 2018 (I really should post more often).

Anonymous said...

Nicely done

- a gnawn on moose

Rick Yushenko said...

That is a good accomplishment.

Perhaps you could address the recent granting of the Nobel "Peace" prize to the inventor of the "Test Tube" baby. This process creates thousands of pre-born babies that end up getting thrown away or die in freezers.

I suppose that since last year's prize winner was Barrack Obama, this award follows in the same refrain.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_VATICAN_NOBEL?SITE=AZYUM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-10-04-15-24-48

photogr said...

Well David, you have accomplished a lot in the short time I have known you.

Inspirational? Yes for me.You help me keep an even keel when I get off on a tangent and start thinking too far out of the box.

I have always though that you were in the wrong profession. Now I know that you are.

Just let the Lord lead you in is glory.

Anonymous said...

Hey David, congrats! Thanks for including me. I always value what you have to say.

David-FireAndGrace said...

Thanks, everyone! It was so much fun!

Orlando Web design said...

Congrats David. It's huge milestone you have achieved. Very less can do it serious & effectively. I feel great to have a part of it.

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