The daily blog of the Reformed Journal turns 11 today. Adolescence is just around the corner!
On October 31, 2011 the first blog was posted. Since then, according to our publishing platform, there have been 3,883 posts and you’ve commented 19,751 times. Thanks!
Eleven years ago we were facing some difficult challenges. We’d been disinvited by our online host. We were beginning to realize that continuing to print and mail hard copies of the journal was not feasible. We were contemplating changing our name “back” to Reformed Journal or just giving up! Fortunately, we did the former but not the latter.
Those of you who remember the original Reformed Journal, may recall that the first few pages were filled with brief, personal, rather random reflections called “As We See It.” They were the most popular part of the journal. Our hope in the blog was to replicate this.
Originally, we called it “The Twelve” simply because there were twelve bloggers, each one appearing every other week. The original line up included Jessica Bratt, Tom Goodhart, Jes Kast, Teresa Latini, Jason Lief, and Jamie Smith. Scott Hoezee, Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell, Debra Rienstra, and Jim Schaap have been here for the duration. Jim Bratt and Jeff Munroe began, stepped away, and returned again. Speaking of stepping away, you may have noticed that we’ve stepped away from the moniker “The Twelve” — primarily because now there are something like 17 regular bloggers, plus plentiful guests. And apparently some folks found “The Twelve” pretentious, as if we were recreating the apostles. Pretentious? Moi?
When did you first encounter the blog? Who or what or how were you introduced? How long have you been reading it? We’d like to hear from you. Seriously.
You’re as much a part of this celebration as anyone. We are pleased. We are proud. We are grateful for the community that has been created. Thanks so much for being part of it.
I first started reading the Reformed Journal blog in 2019, as near as I can tell. I’m not sure how I found it – I’m a cradle Presbyterian living in SE Michigan who had this (mis)conception of Reformed folk as a bunch of dour Dutch Calvinists with nothing interesting to say. I don’t know if someone emailed a link to me, or I stumbled across it in another way, but I’m delighted to find that I was completely wrong about Reformed folk. This blog has been in turn inspiring, challenging, comforting, saddening. I look forward to it every day. Thanks for not giving up!
When reflecting on “The Twelve”, my thoughts gravitated towards the 12 “minor” proohets rather than the 12 Apostles. Congratulations on 11, and may you have many, many more!