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Dare To Say It: Writing Tip Of The Week

By Bonnie Gray • August 31, 2011 • 12 Comments

Are you looking to renew your passion to put pen to paper — or journal your walk of faith?  I’d love to encourage you in your journey with words and I’m offering faith as inspiration.

Summer is still hot, but it’s fire will soon turn to embers, as our days enter into fall.

It’s a cozy season that naturally invites us to write and reflect. The reasons are many, but the love of writing has gone online.

Blogging has become one of the most powerful ways to explore our faith and connect with others.

If you have a blog — or have been contemplating to create one –I’d like to invite you to join me blogging on Faith Jam Thursdays.

New Change!

To encourage bloggers, I created a Blogging For Faith Newsletter to provide writing tips, along with reminders for the topic of the week.

I’m not giving out tips to garner more traffic or social media how-to’s. There are plenty of online resources to help with that.

I am offering faith tips on: finding your voice, nurturing creativity, inspiring new ideas, and motivation to keep writing.

My desire behind each tip to encourage your heart,
so that your words flow fresh and inspired from within.

Thanks to you, the jam has been growing.

I’m now opening up the community and publishing the writing tips regularly as blog posts rather than through the newsletter. That way, the tips are easily accessible, archived for everyone, anytime.

I hope this will invite more to join in. Plus, you guys are amazing encouragers! Our community can interact with each other through the comments.

Writing Tip Of The Week

Dare to say it. Yes, when you wonder if you’re the only one.  That is how you will find your voice and invite others to hear you too.

Many times in our non-writing life, we grow up with social scaffolding. Many of us don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. But, if we did attempt to do so, we often remember the times we’ve been misunderstood or rejected. When we write, we must remember we are not only offering our words – we are offering ourselves.  We are offering  hospitality – a place where others can find you at home with yourself.   So, finding your voice involves an important component of transparency.  When you feel no one else feels the way you do, share that one thing. I can guarantee you, you will connect with your reader.

For your reader is a friend waiting to be discovered.  He or she wants to know they are not alone.

And your words can set them free. Not because you have the answers, but because you know their questions.

~~~~~

What are your thoughts?

Pull up a chair. Click here to comment. Don’t be shy, you’re totally welcome to chat it up with each other.  It’s an open cafe here!

~~~~~

Looking for a Faith Prompt?

There is a seat for you here.  Faith Jam Thursdays is my weekly invitation to “jam” about a topic of faith.  Jam — it’s what jazz musicians do.  They each bring their improvisation on a melodic theme and together create something original.

Jamming is free-form, spontaneous art — in community.

So what do you say?

I serve up a topic of faith.

You write the post exploring the topic and link up on Thursdays.

There’s no obligation to join in the jam every week. Just write as you feel prompted!

Click here to see tomorrow’s Faith Jam topic and join in!

~~~~~

Want Free Updates of Faith Barista delivered to you hot & fresh? Subscribe now via email (click here) or RSS (click here).

Photo courtesy of “>esong2 via Photobucket.

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12 Comments

  • Reply Jennifer August 31, 2011 at 6:34 am

    I struggle using my own voice because of the vulnerability of sharing who I am with the blogging world. But I’m realizing how vulnerability fosters connection- “And your words can set them free. Not because you have the answers, but because you know their questions.” Very encouraging and challenging, Bonnie!

    • Reply Bonnie Gray August 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm

      You have a wonderful writing voice, Jennifer and I hope to see more of you coming out. It blesses me and others as vulnerability is connecting.

  • Reply Lisa Tarpley August 31, 2011 at 6:58 am

    Thanks for the tip! I’ve been “toying” with the idea of doing a blog for months now.It’s one of those ideas that keep popping back up like that Whack the Mole game.
    I can relate to the part of you blog that speaks about not wanting to draw attention to ourselves and when we did in the past, our words were taken out of context or misunderstood. I used to write regularly in a personal journal, but stopped several years back. Thanks for the encouragement! I’ll believe I will give it another try.

    • Reply Bonnie Gray August 31, 2011 at 2:10 pm

      Lisa, wonderful to hear you may be dipping in your toes in again. It helps to blog in community, with those who also write by faith.

  • Reply Christine August 31, 2011 at 7:58 am

    I subscribed to your new newsletter. I have a website and it was started in 2004 when I was in college for web design. The title of the site came to me out of no where and originally it was supposed to be a web design business site but God had other plans. I am now going through a course on Lynda. com for WordPress. What I have on my site is not like what everyone else has. Often I thought of taking it down and changing it completely to be more like other encouraging sites but then something happens to re-affirm that the site must remain up with the current content, which I have to revise. I don’t know what the blog site is going to be about yet or what I am supposed to call it. I will find out when I am done with Lynda.com. I totally understand about finding one’s voice. I often wondered about what I write and sometimes try to second guess myself or God. But the site remains. This is what I am called to do. So anyway, I look forward to the new newsletter.

    • Reply Bonnie Gray August 31, 2011 at 2:11 pm

      Keep writing, Christine, as you discover more of God and yourself through the practice and flowing of words.

  • Reply Irene August 31, 2011 at 8:58 am

    Bonnie: I have been so encouraged by your site. To be truly honest about our innermost thoughts, faults, failures, etc. makes us vulnerable. We fear rejection, looking or sounding foolish. But I have found through your site and a few others that my heart has been pierced, the Holy Spirit has knocked on my soul, and I have been forced to think and face some “hidden” agenda. I agree with the comments of the other women that I too have thought about a blog or something to share my thoughts, but did not feel “good enough”, “smart enough” or “worthy” to contribute. But you, Bonnie, and others have made me see that God created us for something specific and unique destiny. Our gifts are special and God given. If a thought comes to us more than once through the years, and is confirmed by other means, then I believe it is God knocking on your soul.

    • Reply Bonnie Gray August 31, 2011 at 2:12 pm

      Yes, Irene! We have freedom in Christ –to pick up our pens or for a season, put it down as well. Either way, God’s presence is still alive in us.

  • Reply Julie August 31, 2011 at 10:05 am

    I love to write and in the past year God has done in my heart what my therapist said would generally take so much longer.
    The idea of starting my own blog has been in my mind and constantly knocking on my door. I’m not much of a cliff jumper. My childhood taught me well to keep silent and remain anonymous.
    But God keeps saying, “Open your mouth. I’ll do the rest.” And I hear Him, but I have not obeyed. I am afraid……of what, I am not entirely sure.
    The enemy speaks also…..”You do not belong. You have nothing to offer. Keep your mouth shut.”
    But I know that I DO belong…….that the beauty He brought forth in my life from a pile of ashes IS worth offering…….and that God said to trust Him.
    And you, Bonnie, keep ushering in God’s invitation to take His hand and step into the abundant life He promised me as I sat by my son’s hospital bed watching his chest rise and fall.
    Why do I hold back?

    • Reply Bonnie Gray August 31, 2011 at 2:13 pm

      Julie – thanks for sharing the power of words, through which God used to express His promises to us!

  • Reply Beverley Smith August 31, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    When life took everything from me, even until death, and i had nothing left, my only choice was to walk by faith. The skies are now a little less dark and my heart is a little less heavy but still the end of the dark tunnel seems so far away that i struggle some days just to hold my ground but i know, in the end, the dawn will come even if i have to wait my whole life through.

  • Reply Rebecca February 21, 2013 at 8:32 am

    Wow. My thumb “accidentally” brushed this link and loaded it onto my iPad as I was reading the current topic. I have been struggling with sharing my story even though I have been told by my closest friends and family that my story needs to be told. That many need to hear the honesty of my journey. I am taking this as God speaking to my heart.

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