18.9.10

Welcome to Our House

shoes at the Inn

How do we establish our blogs as a particular kind of place?

This is one question we've been thinking about in a big way over at HighCallingBlogs.

In the background, we spend time thinking abstractly:

- we want to be a place of grace
- we want to be a thoughtful community
- we want to be real
- we want to be a place that feels safe yet nurtures growth and change

Are you asleep yet?

For us at HCB, these are important pieces of our vision, but like Heath & Heath note, abstractions don't go very far towards inspiring people to understanding or participation. What we need is concreteness. A vision of the place you can see, maybe even smell and feel in your head.

I think this is why we at HCB have instinctively migrated to "house talk." Stop in to any given conversation and you'll see us inviting people to a table, replete with apple pie, fried chicken, or a Lenten Satchel. We talk about pulling up a chair, pouring a drink, looking at photo albums. Sometimes we even talk about mowing the lawn.

There is no rule about this. Nobody has said we have to use "house language." But we want to make HCB a place you could call your home on the Internet. So I suspect we'll keep talking about sweet tea right along with theology. And the heaven (or hell, as the case may be) of the humble Texan chili pepper.

If you haven't come to our house yet (or even if you have), we'd love to have you for a visit. The door's open. Music is on. And there's a batch of biscuits in the oven.

Shoes at the Inn photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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Over at HighCallingBlogs we're reading and discussing Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Want to join us? :)

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12 Comments:

Anonymous Sandra Heska King said...

Now I'm hungry.

2:17 PM  
Blogger L.L. Barkat said...

Lol! :)

We want you to be hungry (and then feel filled) in more than one way.

2:22 PM  
Anonymous Bradley J Moore said...

Virtual house ... Cool. How about a virtual office, where I can smell the coffee brewing and hear the whir if the copy machine?

5:11 PM  
Blogger L.L. Barkat said...

You can have a study upstairs. We'll put a coffee maker in there. What kind of art would you like on the walls? :)

5:43 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

I'm still stuck on the pies...

8:12 PM  
Anonymous Bradley J Moore said...

Oh, I don't know. Kadinsky, Tarkay, Hessam would be nice.

9:26 PM  
Blogger Kelly Sauer said...

Oh, I very much like this post. I think I'll just hang out for a while now.

Beautiful image, btw. It reminds me of my favorite places...

9:30 PM  
Blogger L.L. Barkat said...

Gee, Brad, I'm going to have to hire Maureen just to deal with you. :)

(Maureen..... where are you... :)

9:57 PM  
Anonymous David Rupert said...

How cool. I didnt know that i could stay and eat! It's a full menu -- but much of it looks Southern ...

10:16 PM  
Anonymous Monica Sharman said...

Yeah, I love when that happens. People come together with independent thoughts that dovetail. I guess it's an indication that you all are great together!

(David: No worries. I can throw in some around-the-world recipes. :)

10:14 AM  
Anonymous Lyla Lindquist said...

Does this house have a bed?

After all that eating, I'm not about to go mow the lawn. I need a nap.

9:12 PM  
Anonymous Dena Dyer said...

It really is a homey place, and that's hard to do online!

LL, will you have any of your books (GITY, specifically) at Laity? I'd love to buy one from you.

11:56 AM  

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