BlogNashville

Scroll down for an update on my faith-based blogging session.

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There are so many nerds in this room…

I’m in a session about money. Henry Copeland of Blogads is talking about money and blogs, and the discussion is raging. Henry touched on the uniqueness of blogging, the kind that will attract advertisers. Part of the uniqueness is the community and conversation that takes place on blogs as opposed to the one way flow of information at online news sites.

Newsday is covering BlogNashville:

Right now, more than 8 million people write blogs, said Bob Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Blogs, short for Web logs, are running commentaries on whatever their authors are interested in. Content often focuses on politics or media criticism and usually includes feedback from readers.

Participants such as Shelley Henderson said they want to expand their research capabilities to strengthen their commentaries. Henderson, of Los Angeles, dedicates her blog to keeping the Internet unregulated.

Blake Wylie of Nashville was among the participants who took exception to criticisms from politicians and mainstream media pundits that their work is often inaccurate…Wylie said bloggers often provide links to let readers go directly to their sources of information….Hobbs noted that blogs entries are corrected more thoroughly and prominently than in other forms of media.

“We write and then our readers edit us,” Hobbs said.

While bloggers dissect, analyze, and criticize journalists, blog readers do the same thing to bloggers.

The sessions so far are very well-done. I’m now in the miliblogging session with Robin Burk leading. I gave my big speech last Saturday, so I don’t plan on doing a lot of talking in my session. I’ll give a brief overview of what I do and what I think is important about faith-based blogging, then I’ll throw questions out for the audience.

Want to watch the events live?

I posted this photo of Chris Muir (right) so you could see what he looks like.

Update (3:00 p.m.): It is finished! I’ll update later and let you know how the faith-based blogging session went. Overall, it was positive!

Read the latest at BlogNashville.

Update II (5/8 @ 7:30 a.m.): I was nervous about the session for nothing. It began right after lunch, and I arrived with a few minutes to spare. I didn’t know what to expect or how many people would attend. I was pleased to see the room filling up. After a brief introduction, I asked maybe one or two questions about faith-based blogging in general to get the ball rolling, and the audience took it from there.

As an evangelical Christian, I’m all too aware of the associated negative stereotypes. But my prayers were answered. Everyone was civil and very interested in this topic. Involved in the discussion were non-evangelicals, a Jew, and someone who may be a theist. I didn’t poll the audience about their faith because I didn’t want to put anyone on the spot. I may have asked individuals, though.

We talked about how bloggers blog about their faith. Some Christians frequently write about their personal relationship with Christ; others prefer not to. In this same context, we talked about the language we use that others may consider exclusive. I call this “spiritual language.” For instance, some readers will feel excluded when I make a reference to “believers” when writing about fellow Christians. I said that Christianity itself is exclusive, but so are other religions or philosophical belief systems. People tend to forget that when criticizing Christianity.

This is what I mean by “exclusive.” Christ said that no one can come to the Father (go to heaven) without believing in him. He says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and this is what Christians believe. One of the many beautiful aspects of the faith is that God calls all, in a sense. We believe what the Bible teaches, that God foreknew who he was going to save. The call to repentance is made to all people, but only those who would be saved will be saved. That is why Christians are called to share the Gospel with all men because we don’t know who his elect people are, and neither does anyone else.

In terms of faith and blogging, someone talked about the need to disassociate faith, in this case, Christianity, from a particular political party. We have to be sure our faith sets the tone for our politics and not the other way around. Unfortunately, this subject wasn’t fleshed out. It is probably the most relevant issue facing faith bloggers who write about politics, such as yours truly.

Someone mentioned the need to be civil to one another, which should go without saying but often needs to be said. Tomorrow I’ll blog more about the session and BlogNashville in general. I scheduled a flight around noon so I could sleep in, so I’m still at the hotel doing what I do: blogging.

After a bumpy flight on a commuter plane, I’m here. Although my clock reads 1:41 p.m., it’s 12:41 in Nashville (Why is La Shawn in Nashville?). The room is very nice and the wireless Internet access is working.

I’ve already met two bloggers. Rebecca MacKinnon and I shared a shuttle to the hotel from the airport, and Tom from Scared Monkeys greeted us in the lobby. By the way, Rebecca, a former CNN employee, was an integral part of the Eason Jordan scandal.

I’m trying to decide whether I want to head over to Belmont University now and meet everyone or wait until tonight when the blogging and journalism discussion starts. Decisions, decisions. I want to ask Glenn Reynolds why he hasn’t linked to LBC in awhile. Just kidding. Sort of.

Side note: A few readers have complained that images on the blog have been replaced by my host’s disabled hotlinking notification (big black boxes). I see the images just fine. All I can tell you is to clear your cache and refresh your browser. That might help.

I’ll see you in a bit…

Update (4:52 p.m. CST): Do you guys know about Pajamas Media? Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon and Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) are putting together a news service by bloggers. As newspaper circulation is going down, this new media venture seems like an innovative way to make a run for their dwindling audience.

The bloggers are on Kudlow & Company right now. The plan is to draw advertisers to blogs, which will help lower-traffic bloggers build an audience. I sent Roger an e-mail a few days ago to join, and he wrote back and said I was already signed up. Cool. I’m still learning about this, so I don’t have a lot of informaton to give you. Michelle Malkin blogged about it this week.

I think bloggers can still sign up.

Update II (12:02 a.m.): Bloggers, bloggers everywhere! Check out The Political Teen’s (who is here, by the way) video of the Kudlow & Company segment.

I posed for pictures with Glenn (left). He’s like a rock star! Everybody was flocking around him, and no matter how much I tried to resist (I’m no groupie), I was drawn inside the circle. I’m weak.

I took a photo with Chris Muir, too. He put me in one of his strips several months ago.

It’s surreal meeting bloggers face to face. You must try it sometime. One of the disadvantages of having a photo of yourself on a blog is that people know who you are, but you have no idea who they are. From across the room strangers were smiling and waving and calling my name. “Hello? Do I know you?”

I am becoming conference queen.