Nuff Said: Demise of blog commenting, Small Groups make a BIG difference, Questions for sleepy Christians, & 11 books we lie about reading

“Nuff said” is a collection of saved entries from across the interwebs. Here are some interesting, provocative and fun things for your reading and viewing:

The demise of blog commenting and a book you might want to read

Michael Hyatt is a popular author and communications expert. He recently pulled commenting from his blog. His reasons are worth noting, especially if you use the Disqus commenting system for your own blog. It’s not as if his blog is dying (note graph).

Two main reasons (and a book you might want to read):

1. Commenting and interaction have moved to social media like Twitter and Facebook.
   

   Based on what I’m seeing and hearing, these conversations have simply moved into my social media channels and especially those of my commenters, among their Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and others.

2. Hyatt couldn’t keep up with the commenting on his blog and it created “clutter” for him.

It was the latter reason – and his reference to a book called Essentialism that prompted me to add it to my Amazon wish list for reading this year.

Other Links:

• Why CopyBlogger pulled comments from their blog

Small Groups make a huge difference

This brief three-minute video features Ed Stetzer, and he comments about 1/2 way through:

Proximity doesn’t mean community.

In other words, just because you attend church or are “around” Christians doesn’t mean that you’re experiencing biblical community. He also shares some survey results about how attending a small group at least four times dramatically impacts a person’s involvement in the local church.

Questions for sleepy or nominal Christians

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, offers this helpful post based on questions asked during the Welsh Revival during the Great Awakening. He doesn’t mean sleepy literally. Rather, he is pointing to Christians who are “Christian” in name only or who are lethargically inactive in their love relationship with Jesus. Here are some of the questions:

• How real has God been to your heart this week? How clear and vivid is your assurance and certainty of God’s forgiveness and fatherly love? To what degree is that real to you right now?
• Are you having any particular seasons of delight in God? Do you really sense his presence in your life, sense him giving you his love?
• Have you been finding Scripture to be alive and active? Instead of just being a book, do you feel like Scripture is coming after you?
• Are you finding certain biblical promises extremely precious and encouraging? Which ones?
• Are you finding God’s challenging you or calling you to something through the Word? In what ways?
• Are you finding God’s grace more glorious and moving now than you have in the past? Are you conscious of a growing sense of the evil of your heart, and in response, a growing dependence on and grasp of the preciousness of the mercy of God?

Another insightful post is Keller’s Revival: Ways and Means.

11 books we lie about reading

From the Federalist blog, here’s the list:

1. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
2. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
3. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
4. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
5. 1984, George Orwell
6. Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville
7. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
8. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
9. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
10. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli
11. Ulysses, James Joyce