Interview: Jon Swanson

Jon Swan­son is the exec­u­tive pas­tor at Gra­bill Mis­sion­ary Church in Gra­bill, Indi­ana. He is also a fre­quent blog­ger at Levite Chron­i­cles and 300 words a day. We have enjoyed each oth­ers’ pres­ence on the web for about three years. We met through our friend Chris Bro­gan. We both “look at nor­mal things in odd ways”. If you start read­ing Jon’s blog, you’ll get hooked too!

How did you get started in blogging?

I have writ­ten short pieces for reflec­tion for a long time. They were used as radio PSAs 20 years ago, as spon­sored radio com­men­taries 15 years ago, as bul­letin cover ser­vice set­tings 10 years ago, and prob­a­bly for other things I can’t remem­ber. About 7 years ago I started writ­ing for my own sake a jour­nal called “the Levite Chron­i­cles”, a col­lec­tion of poems and short med­i­ta­tions that helped me keep track of becom­ing a levite, one who served in the tem­ple in sup­port of the priests. (That’s it’s own post). In 2005, for rea­sons that I can’t remem­ber, I started a blog at blogger.com with the Levite Chron­i­cles “brand” as a way to move my think­ing online. Some­time after that I moved to WordPress.

How do you jug­gle the real-world of your church job with the vir­tual world of your on-line ministry?

Which is the real world? There are real peo­ple with real pain and real dreams that I first met on-line. Many of these peo­ple I have sub­se­quently talked with and then seen face-to-face. Other peo­ple I have met face-to-face, in my office, and then have spent sig­nif­i­cant time with online.

If the ques­tion is, how do I jug­gle time spent with the real peo­ple that give money to pay my salary and real peo­ple who don’t, that is a dif­fer­ent chal­lenge, one that I wres­tle with daily. Can I write a post while in my office or only at 11:00 at night? On the other hand, do I answer the email from some­one local at 11:00 at night or only in my office?

Because my pri­mary “work” respon­si­bil­ity is spir­i­tual for­ma­tion, help­ing peo­ple become more like Jesus, I use that as a sig­nif­i­cant divid­ing line. If I am writ­ing about pro­duc­tiv­ity, I do that at home. If I am writ­ing about for­ma­tion, I occa­sion­ally do that at my office. If I am answer­ing ques­tions from near or far, I do that either place, because it is about people.

I do find, how­ever, that my time for social media loca­tions such as twit­ter, varies based on how much inter­ac­tion I am hav­ing with local people.

What’s your favorite post you have created?

The one I am writ­ing next week. And I never get to next week.

What’s the post that caused the most reactions?

I wrote a post called “what I mean when I say pray.” I wrote it sit­ting in our kitchen, look­ing at the scene described. It has had a sig­nif­i­cant value for peo­ple who want me to pray for them but can’t quite say that. So they ask for some choco­late milk.

What are some quick tips you would give to a pas­tor con­sid­er­ing adding blog­ging to his or her mix of ministries?

1. Pick an audi­ence that you want to share your heart with and write. But see them clearly when you write.
2. Make a prac­tice of talk­ing with­out sound­ing like church.
3. Give some­thing up. Like TV.
4. Look at it like con­ver­sa­tion with peo­ple.
5. If you aren’t com­fort­able being trans­par­ent, don’t add blog­ging. It works best if you are hon­est.
6. Be care­ful of “in” jokes. They sound really bad to any­one who isn’t in.
7. Know that peo­ple will find you. And they will mea­sure your church based on what they see in what you write.

Are there any in your church that have fol­lowed you on-line as a result of your pres­ence on the internet?

There are a cou­ple answers to that question.

1. We changed churches a year ago. Peo­ple from my old church have kept up with us by fol­low­ing my writ­ing. There are peo­ple from our cur­rent church that read my blog to find out about me dur­ing the inter­view process and after I was hired. I write know­ing that I have a very mixed group of friends.

2. At least a cou­ple peo­ple have started writ­ing online because of my writ­ing. I set up a blog for a local pas­tor friend. My wife is now on facebook.

What encour­ages you most?

When some­one says, “I never thought about God that way.”

What’s the ulti­mate meal you would share with your lovely wife?

Bar­be­cue brisket from the Cou­p­land Inn in Cou­p­land, Texas. We lived in Austin for three years. Our hon­ey­moon was dri­ving to Austin from Wheaton, Illi­nois. Bar­be­cue is great there. The Cou­p­land Inn was the best.

Thanks, Jon! It’s great to learn more about you. May God use us for the high­est good!