“But you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8
This blog was started way back in 2008, when I was just starting my pastorate at Emanuel Church. It was intended as an outreach tool for a church with very low attendance (10 or so on average at the time) and, at the time, virtually no visitors.
While things have improved at the church - our attendance is closer to 20 on average, with much higher attendance for holidays and special services, and we routinely see visitors in worship - the blog never really took off. This is likely because, aside from a link from our (seldom-visited) website and occasional mentions in our newsletter and on Facebook, I've done next to nothing to promote the blog. I wouldn't know how to begin to do so. Most of my posts receive between 12 and 15 visits, with some of the older ones getting 20 or more visits. Most of these, I'm sure, are from automated webcrawlers and bots from various search engines. The blog has exactly one follower: Ralph, our former organist.
In recent weeks, though, I've noticed a bit more activity. A couple sermons from February received over 150 visits, and two May sermons received closer to 40 visits. What's going on? Blogger (the platform on which this blog is hosted, now part of Google) has a link to a statistics page. I looked at the geographical spread of the blog's visits over the month of May, and here's what I learned:
It goes without saying that the blog's international audience is quite a surprise. Readers from Russia? From France? (Mon Dieu!)
I would love to learn more about what this means. I'm sure that much of my readership consists of automated bots and webcrawlers. Even so.....it means something that a low-visibility sermon blog from a tiny church can reach such a distance. We never know who is watching or listening, and what impact our softly-spoken words and small actions can have on those around us....and even those really far away from us.
While things have improved at the church - our attendance is closer to 20 on average, with much higher attendance for holidays and special services, and we routinely see visitors in worship - the blog never really took off. This is likely because, aside from a link from our (seldom-visited) website and occasional mentions in our newsletter and on Facebook, I've done next to nothing to promote the blog. I wouldn't know how to begin to do so. Most of my posts receive between 12 and 15 visits, with some of the older ones getting 20 or more visits. Most of these, I'm sure, are from automated webcrawlers and bots from various search engines. The blog has exactly one follower: Ralph, our former organist.
In recent weeks, though, I've noticed a bit more activity. A couple sermons from February received over 150 visits, and two May sermons received closer to 40 visits. What's going on? Blogger (the platform on which this blog is hosted, now part of Google) has a link to a statistics page. I looked at the geographical spread of the blog's visits over the month of May, and here's what I learned:
| Pageviews |
|---|
Russia
|
337
|
France
|
172
|
United States
|
79
|
Germany
|
7
|
Portugal
|
4
|
Canada
|
2
|
Romania
|
2
|
Bermuda
|
1
|
Switzerland
|
1
|
Spain
|
1
|
It goes without saying that the blog's international audience is quite a surprise. Readers from Russia? From France? (Mon Dieu!)
I would love to learn more about what this means. I'm sure that much of my readership consists of automated bots and webcrawlers. Even so.....it means something that a low-visibility sermon blog from a tiny church can reach such a distance. We never know who is watching or listening, and what impact our softly-spoken words and small actions can have on those around us....and even those really far away from us.
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