Stories on engaging society through your life of faith.
I am going on a three months sabbatical and I need your help.
I am looking for people who can commit to blog at least once a week for the next three months. The days available are from Monday to Thursday.
Please note, you will only be posting original content and not re-blogs from your account. If you think your posts are good, try re-purposing them.
If you are interested send an email to info (at) gracemusing (dot) com with a sample post and a link to your blog. A brief statement of faith will be a plus.
Do you think you are up to the challenge?
In the meantime, here is the guideline I will be sending those who successfully volunteer for this endeavor.
The key to successful blogging is knowing the purpose of the blog. You can only create quality content if you stay true to that mission.
What is the mission of Naked Christian?
Naked Christian is a platform aimed at clothing readers with a garment of Christ’s glory through proclamation of God’s words with clarity, grace and Biblical soundness.
Therefore, before you hit publish, you should ask yourself does the article you have written glorify God, edify the read and testify of the Cross? If in doubt, then you should not publish.
How To Write Quality Content People Share
God’s spokesperson- preacher
2 Elements of a Shareable Body
Every post you write should be at least 500 words. The longest post I have written is more than 6,000 words. Recently, I have adopted writing longform posts because they offer better help to the read. However, do not compromise quality with length. A 500-word post is perfect as long as it stays true to the mission.
Clarity is very important. It is pointless to write great content only you can read. You need to write in a way that the reader will understand what you are saying. Do not let obscure language be a hindrance to the movement of the Holy Spirit.
There are a few tips you might want to follow to improve clarity.
Avoid big words, unless it best conveys what you want to say.
Make your paragraphs short, three sentences and four sentences at most.
Avoid very long sentences.
Stick to one idea per paragraph
Clarity follows good organization.
God entrusts you with a word – the big idea. His word, your life experiences and your research brings the idea to life through the work of the Holy Spirit. Your duty as a writer is to knit together all these three into something that exhorts, edifies and encourages.
I write down the big idea in one sentence. I draw the writing plan. I look for a quote or research that supports the idea. I read the whole chapter from which the idea comes from. When convinced the idea is from God not me, I proceed to write.
One writer once said, “You might be right, but wrong on top of your voice.” Of course, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs was advising women in marriage. The idea applies to bloggers too.
Purdue Online Writing Lab quotes Scott Ober:
Tone in writing refers to the writer’s attitude toward the reader and the subject of the message. The overall tone of a written message affects the reader just as one’s tone of voice affects the listener in everyday exchanges.
Most of the posts that go viral are rants, that is angry posts about perceived mistreatment or abhorrent behaviors. They resonate with most readers, and the only reaction they demand is agreement demonstrated through sharing. You share posts which you agree with.
Rants are easy ways to gain audience, but they serve no eternal purpose. Our mission is the Cross. Not our feelings about subjects. Write only posts that are gracious in tone, strong in wisdom and rich in truth.
How to Write an Engaging Introduction
You and I agree the goal of Christian blogging is to convey God’s message to people with clarity, power and faithfulness. The best post is not the one that goes viral, but the one that allows the Holy Spirit to convict people of righteousness, sin and judgement.
Does your blog reach that standard?
Sometimes, poor writing skills can come in the way. Faithfulness to God’s calling entails working on your writing skills. And improving your introduction is the first place you should start.
In this post I am going to help you write an introduction that will help you engage the people God brings to your blog.
I want you to read again this section and notice what I did above.
Agree: in the first paragraph I agreed with some basic things you already know. The few complete sermons in the Bible used the same method. Agreeing is like reaching people where they are at.
Persuade: the second paragraph, that is the question, persuades the reader to consider the big idea of the post. After reaching where people are you need to motivate them that there is a way out. The way out is the big idea God gave you.
Problem: the third paragraph serves that. It shows the problem which the people are facing. Restating what a person is going through and highlighting another potential problem they might not have considered encourages people to continue reading.
On average, people spend at least 5 minutes on Naked Christian and the bounce rate is 47%. That is pretty impressive considering top bloggers like Tim Challies have 2 minutes and 79%, respectively. To achieve that the posts should be engaging and that’s the role of a good introduction.
How To Win Readers Through Compelling Storytelling
Who you give your ear you have also given your heart.
Stories for engaging society through your life of faith.
I wrote my first book when I was in Form Four. It was a ChiShona novel about the struggles people faced after the liberation war. I wrote the book to prove a point. My ChiShona teacher had said I wasn’t as good as I used to be in school. Writing a novel in ChiShona was a way to prove to him I was not just good, but better.
The book became more of a myth. Advanced Level students at my school fought to take turns to read the book. It had all the marks of an instant bestseller, great plot, relatable characters and deep, rich and quotable ChiShona. I had made my point.
Maria Konnikova writes in New Yorker
Stories bring us together. We can talk about them and bond over them. They are shared knowledge, shared legend, and shared history; often, they shape our shared future. Stories are so natural that we don’t notice how much they permeate our lives. And stories are on our side: they are meant to delight us, not deceive us—an ever-present form of entertainment.
This is the power of a story.
When Stephen was about to be stoned he evoked the power of a story. They listened. Probably that is the story that planted a seed in Paul’s life. Later, Paul also used stories in his sermons.
You don’t have to include a story in all your posts, but it will be great if you do. After all, the richness of your life, your personal struggles, the society you grew up in, their beliefs, fears and traditions are a rich source of engaging stories.
Storytelling is not a tool for entertainment for us like Maria Konnikova, but it is a rich resource for luring the reader into our world of faith, hope and love grounded in Christ.
How To Write A Conclusion That Increases Engagement
It’s important you give careful thought to your conclusion. Great content improves the blog’s reach through articles that resonate with the reader. Importantly, great content is an open invitation to the reader to check other posts or look forward to new posts. Therefore, do not take the conclusion lightly.
What are the marks of a good conclusion.
Restates the big idea in new words.
Recognizes readers also hear from God and invites them to contribute their thoughts and beliefs.
States what the writer hoped to achieve through the post and opens himself or herself to scrutiny.
Carries the spirit that only God convicts and transforms.
The best conclusion is an open ended question.
How To Write Headlines That Invites Readers
To avoid clickbaiting the reader, always write the headline last.
The headline should be engaging. View your headline as the front yard of a resort house. The beautiful it is the more people want to spend a night there.
A resort house can have flowers, a well-manicured lawn, fancy windows etc. to attract new customers. That’s the same with a blog. How can you write a headline that can drive traffic?
Let me walk you through on how to write the best headline.
Let’s say you have written a blog on how righteousness brings peace. What headline will you give to that post?
The Power of Righteousness in Unleashing Peace
This sounds great right? Not necessarily. Unless the person is a faithful follower of the blog this headline is not inviting. Only the promise of peace might encourage him or her to read. According to CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer this headline lacks uncommon words and emotional words.
What are uncommon, power and emotional words? I recommend using Headline analyzer when writing your headlines.
So, how can we make the headline better?
Make it a list post: 7 Reasons God’s Righteousness Bring Peace You Need To Know
Make it a how to post: How to enjoy peace through God’s righteousness this year
Make it a question post: Is God’s righteousness important if you want more peace in life?
How To Center Your Posts on The Bible
A call to hearing God’s voice
Obviously, when you wrote your article they’re several scriptures you got your message. Do you have to quote all the scriptures in full?
There is a lot of controversy regarding this. Some Christians consider a post that doesn’t quote the Bible as heretical, others check if the post upholds Bible inerrancy and employs sound Biblical interpretation. I belong to the later group.
Quoting several scriptures doesn’t make your post Bible-centered. Even the devil can quote scriptures, but his message doesn’t glorify God. A good post is not the one that is littered with full quotes of the Bible, but the one that carries the Spirit that inspired the writers of the scriptures. What does that mean?
They are three ways to quote the scripture when blogging;
Full quote: Only use a full quote when there’s no other way to write what you want to express. For every 500 words you write one full quote of at most 3 verses might be enough. Good stewardship entails taking God’s word and making it applicable to the listener without compromising it with unnecessary distractions or put-offs
Paraphrased quote: I highly recommend this. This type of quote clearly shows what you learned from what you read. It brings the word of God to life by bridging the cultural gap. When you make such a quote, include the source in brackets at the end of the sentence like this (1 Timothy 3:16).
Retelling of the story: Sometimes you might want to retell a Biblical passage. Instead of quoting 500 words of the Bible passage, you might want to retell the story. Try to use a maximum of 2 paragraphs. If your post is entirely about the passage, then in your retelling, intertwine it with your story, nuggets to pick from the story and the big idea God give you. The goal is not to show our storytelling skills, but clearly convey the message God has for his people.
Which Bible version to use? There’s nothing called the best Bible translation, it’s all relative. Of course, some translations are the worst, others totally heretical.
That’s why I use ESV. It’s easy to read, faithful to original text in most part and easy to understand. Others prefer KJV. I only use it for my personal study and not blogging because the language is not accessible to all people.
The purpose of a translation is for it to be understood, so try to use ESV. If you use any other translation please indicate. Avoid using paraphrases in full quotes, they lack the depth you desire and they are not a Bible translation.
How To Publish Your Post on WordPress
Now that you have written your post, the next thing is making it available on WordPress. How do you do that?
Sign in into your WordPress account.
Go to My Sites. Click switch sites and go to Naked Christian
Next to Blog Post on your left click add
Right before the first letter of the post you pasted put a cursor and press enter. This will put a space above your post. Then Click the add media icon
From the media library that opens select three pictures that best tell the story of your post. If you inform me in time about your post I will create an image for including on your post. Press continue and you will see a Preview. Select tiled mosaic and click insert.
If your text is more than 800 words you might need to include a quote. Please inform me in time to make the quote graphic. At the place you want to put the quote you just leave a space and repeat the process above. In this case you’re won’t need three pictures. Just select the quote you want and insert it.
Select the categories of the post. This is very important. Leave the category as Christian Living, do not add any new categories, please.
Tags help to arrange posts in a category according to the keywords. A good keyword or key phrase should be from words present in the title and the body. For example in the post on righteousness I gave, tags could be peace, righteousness, culture, Jesus Christ, Bible, Religion, society etc, upto 8 tags.
Select a featured image. On your left click More Options and select Featured Image. This is very important. Please, do not forget to choose a featured image. This should only come from the images you used in your post.
Write an excerpt. Under More Options go to Excerpt. From your post copy two or three paragraphs that best represent the message of your post. This is what is going to appear on RSS feeds and WordPress Reader. Make the excerpt very good. If you have time you might want to right a very good summary, but you don’t have to.
Schedule your Post. Now that you have written your post, selected your images and did some search engine optimization, it’s time to schedule your post. Scroll up until you can see the tabs Preview and Publish. On Publish there’s a calendar icon. Click that icon and select the day you want to publish the post.
Posts should be scheduled to publish at 8:00 am Pacific Time. You should just put 08:00.
During the first month, please let me know when you post anything.
3 Ways Increase Traffic To Your Blog
Blogging doesn’t end when you hit publish. They are several things you need to do to make sure you learn from this experience. I want to show you some of those things you might want to do to enhance your blogging experience.
Promote your post by word of mouth. Tell your friends about your article, let them know you will appreciate it if they read it, comment or share on Facebook, Twitter or Whatsapp.
Share your posts on Facebook. Facebook is a powerful tool for spreading the message you heard from God. You might want to take advantage of the snowball effect. When you post reach 20 shares on Facebook many more people are likely to share it.
Read comments and respond with grace and wisdom. Try to respond to everyone even those who insult you or disagree with you. There’s one blogger I am following because of how he responded to someone who was totally disrespectful for him. One person wants insulted me and I just showed him grace. A few days later he came back to say he was sorry, and of course he started following Nake Christian.
3 Tips on Increasing Your Blogging Productivity
Have a writing schedule. Do not write when you feel like writing. Set aside time, three times a week or everyday you devote to writing a set number of words. Start of with 500 words a day or something.
Collect and learn from others. I have an app called Pocket which I use to collect articles and see how other people write. It’s always fun to see how others collate their thoughts.
Schedule in advance. Do not wait for the day you are supposed to post to write your posts. Write in advance. It will give you time to correct the post. It also gives me an opportunity to go over your post and make some changes or suggestions. Two days in advance will give me room to make a quote graphic for you.
Good luck on your blogging!
Is Your Dream Blogging For A High Traffic Site? This Is Your Chance I am going on a three months sabbatical and I need your help. I am looking for people who can commit to blog at least once a week for the next three months.
