Looking for Readers in Repressive Countries

I just checked my stats page, and discovered that since I published the article, What’s Wrong with Christian Filmmaking, my blog has been read by people in nearly every country in the world, with close to 100,000 visits.

That’s insane.

I’ve not had visitors from Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Myanmar (Burma), Greenland, Madagascar, Mauritania, Yemen, Angola, Gabon, Syria, a few countries in the middle of the African continent, and a scattering of South Pacific Islands.  But pretty much every other country is represented.  That’s maybe 180 countries.

People from 180 countries have visited this blog in the past couple of weeks.

That’s even more insane.

What would really be insane is if by reading that article people in all of those places were encouraged to either (a) step out and take creative risks in their art for the cause of Christ or (b) be mobilizers, encouragers, and financial supporters to those people in group (a).

Can you imagine the impact such a creative revolution could have?

The really wild part of this is that I didn’t write anything particularly original, and I’ve had many people tell me that they had written similar things over the years.  It was just an idea that went out at the right time and hit many, many nerves.  But, I also believe strongly that nothing happens outside of God’s sovereign will, and that He “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20) – even with a blog post written on an otherwise unknown and inconsequential blog by an otherwise unknown and inconsequential writer.

Think about it for a second… what will He do?   What is He already doing?

At first I thought that perhaps God permitted this to happen so that I could sell hundreds of copies of my novel and jumpstart my writing career, but that hasn’t happened.   Now I’ve started wondering what other reason He may have had for doing what He’s done.  And even though the number of visitors to my blog has dropped off considerably since that first posting, I am curious to know four things from those who are still hanging around and who would be willing to share:

1)  Are you an (a) person or a (b) person from above?  Please tell me about it.

2)  What have you been challenged to do that you weren’t doing before you read the blog?  It could be artistic or supportive, and I’m asking you to self-promote a bit here, so fire away, and feel free to link to sites outside this blog.

3)  Maybe nothing has changed yet, but what are you now planning to do differently in the near future as a result of reading the blog?  What changes have you put into motion?

4)  What steps have you taken to make sure that you don’t just walk away from the challenges that were set before you, and just return to business as usual?

I would love to have some good feedback with this.  So if you have the time, please comment!  And if nothing has changed for you at all, feel free to write about that as well.

Nate

Author of Thimblerig’s Ark