Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

7 May

Finding My Purpose

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , .

Relating well is what matters most to me

Even as I struggle to find my voice here on my blog, I am not giving up. I’m willing to allow imperfections as I learn to express myself better with my writing. My realization that I’m not doing as well as I’d like motivates me to refine my purpose.

What My Purpose Isn’t

For starters, I realized that I can’t be what I’m not. I’ve been trying to stay current on what’s happening in the world and in the blogosphere and using those things as inspiration.

What I’ve noticed is that when I try to write about what’s trending, that’s when my voice is weakest. Why? Because even if I pour my heart into a thoughtful reflection on something current, the topic itself didn’t come from my heart.

The Purpose on My Heart

I started out with a pretty general purpose, to blog about living out my faith in daily life. I didn’t realize in the beginning how broad that topic could be. It was easy enough to justify writing about whatever was current as long as I could relate it to what it means to live out the Christian faith.

I discovered that what is most on my heart about how I live out my faith is how I live in relationship with other people. The books I read, the things I teach my son, the things that keep me awake at night are all about relating well (or the failure to do so). These are the things that I need to write about here.

Practical Matters

What has helped me over time is practical, down-to-earth ideas about how to honor others in relationships. Much of what I can share is from a lifetime of reading and learning about this stuff. I can offer ideas about relating well from my own experience of integrating these ideas over time.

I never want to come across as having it all together though. Some of what I can share is hard-won from having royally messed up in a relationship. Other times, I can share ideas that I am still working to integrate, but that I believe are better ways than what I’ve been doing.

The Purpose Behind the Voice

As I’ve thought this through some more and refined my purpose, I admit to being just a little nervous. It’s kind-of scary to narrow my focus. Maybe it’s still too amorphous! But the clarity that I feel gives me hope for finding my voice.

The following links have helped me refine my purpose or affirmed my need to do so:
“10 Steps to Finding Your Writing Voice” by Jeff Goins
“Branding: Put one sign in your yard” by Mary DeMuth
“In which I’ve got a song to sing” by Sarah Bessey
 
 

12 Mar

Living & Sharing

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , .

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now. I like to write a range of things: a personal journal that no one sees, short stories to share with my son, and serious sermons that I am going to deliver out loud in front of a crowd of people.The trouble with my writing so far is that it is all so sporadic. I feel like I have more to say and I need a more consistent platform to say it. I think blogging can be that for me.

For a while now I have been following the blog of a friend of mine, Sarah Bessey.  I love reading about her spirit-filled life and seeing what she has to say about life, faith and church. The really big thing about Sarah is I love her guts to keep sharing her heart. What she does there inspires me to share my heart as well.

I want Living Faith to be a place where I write about what it means to me to live out my faith day-to-day. I don’t just go to church on Sunday and then forget about God the rest of my week. Rather, my relationship with God spurs me to be a kinder mom, be a better listener with friends, and faithfully manage the resources of my household.

I am not a Super Christian, able to leap roadblocks to my faith in a single bound. I struggle to figure out what is the right thing, and I sometimes even struggle to do what it is that I think is right. This blog isn’t going to be a how-to manual of Christian living. it is simply a log of my journey to do it the best I can and my encouragement to others to do the same. When there are things I think I’m doing well, I will probably write more confidently about them but I never want anyone to think for a moment that I think I have it all figured out.

If I had to identify a target audience, first off, I will be happy if anyone besides my mother reads it. What would be really great though is if everyone reads it! Honestly though, I am probably mostly writing to fellow Christians. Still I hope my writing is down-to-earth enough to be approachable for non-Christians. I am Lutheran and studied theology at a Lutheran university, but I have had a lot of different influences on my faith (more on that another day), I am not sure how “Lutheran” my writing here will be because when it comes to day-to-day living in Christ I don’t think denominational distinctions separate us all that much.

I look forward to sharing more as time goes on and I hope you will be inspired in how you live out your faith as well.

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