Your Opinions and Guest Posts, Pretty Please

Writers are often exhorted to mentally picture their audience as they are writing, not just the audience as a whole but a specific person that represents their readers. As I jot off blog posts and especially as I am editing my forthcoming book, I attempt this writing trick. It's fairly easy to do when I'm writing to church planting wives because I'm basically writing to myself, but the blog poses more of a challenge.

Which is why I'm asking for your help today. I want to write content that is beneficial to you, that might bless you, help you, and encourage you, but I often have a difficult time imagining your wonderful faces.

I'm also asking for your help because, as I'm thinking ahead and planning for the fall around here, I'm considering new ideas. One of my desires is to build more of a community for ministry wives, international church planters, church planting wives, and lay ministry leaders. I certainly hold no illusions that I have the experience and wisdom to benefit all the readers of the blog, and I desire to see each of you ministering more to one another. If you desire to participate in this type of community, here's what you can do:

Influence the Content
In order to know the needs of the community and know the blog's audience, I need to know more about you. To help me know you, please spend the 90 seconds it takes to complete this survey:

Grace Covers Me blog survey

Write the Content
As of this posting, I am now inviting guest post submissions. Do you have a unique angle on ministry, church planting, or life? Email me your 400-600 word blog posts for consideration. Include an author byline with your social media links so readers can find you online. Topics that I'm especially interested in featuring are: interviews with seasoned or well-known ministry wives, insight from staff wives whose husbands are not the lead pastors, women in ministry, ministry and parenting, international church planting, engaging culture, lay ministry, and specific common struggles related to ministry. Please keep the tone of my blog in mind and make the post applicable across cultures, denominations, and roles.

Interact with the Content
Have you commented on the blog before? If so, I hope you will continue. If not, I hope that you will start commenting, and not just on how I'm starting the conversation but what other readers are contributing to the conversation.

Share the Content
Let's invite others into our community by sharing the blog with friends who might find it helpful. Invite them to connect through my Twitter feed, Facebook page, or by subscribing through email or a Reader. (And did you know that subscribers get a free ebook?)

Thank you! I look forward to seeing how God uses YOU around here.

P.S. Did you take the survey? Click on this link to take the Grace Covers Me blog survey now.