“It reminds me that I’m to be praying without ceasing, like Paul said.”
That’s what posting daily prayers to a blog will do, says Michael Ruffin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fitzgerald, Ga., in a new Skype interview with EthicsDaily.com.
Ruffin discusses his prayer blog (Prayer 365), the spiritual practice of prayer, and successfully maintaining content platforms on the Web.
Skype Interview: Michael Ruffin from EthicsDaily on Vimeo.
Ruffin began blogging in general in January 2007, and in January 2010 he began sharing his daily prayers, specifically, as part of a spiritual discipline. (That year’s prayers have since been published in book form.)
Ruffin said he stops several times a day to pray, though he usually writes and posts his prayer just after his early morning prayer time. Typically the prayer is sparked by his devotional reading, world events or the Christian calendar.
“To have set times every day, when you stop and pray, it is a way to remind yourself that prayer is something we do all the time,” says Ruffin. “It’s something that other people are doing all the time. We are praying along with other people.”
He said the spiritual discipline of taking regular times out for prayer also reminds him “to be living in an attitude of prayer.”
Praying is one matter, though, while daily blog posts are another.
Ruffin said the biggest blogging challenge is “just getting it done.” He advises anyone starting a blog to spend the first year posting something every day. It builds readership, he says.
Another key to success: connecting the blog to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Whenever Ruffin updates his Prayer 365 blog, links to the new post automatically appear on his Facebook and Twitter platforms.
“The majority of my readers come through Facebook,” says Ruffin. “That’s, I think, an important thing for bloggers to do, is to make as much use of the social media as they can in promoting their blog.”
Watch the interview with Ruffin at vimeo.com/ethicsdaily/skype-michaelruffin
Learn more about Ruffin and his writings at MichaelRuffin.com
Watch other EthicsDaily.com Skype interviews at vimeo.com/ethicsdaily
