If you are a Wordpress blogger, you no doubt know that WordPress has a feature on the homepage called “Freshly Pressed.” On the top of this page it says the blog posts featured there are: ” The best of 382,141 bloggers, 468,361 new posts, 310,678 comments, & 187,062,601 words posted today on WordPress.com.” (Note: These numbers change each day, but this is representative of the Freshly Pressed intro.)
I’ve been blogging on WordPress for over a year now, and have posted 421 posts to date (this one is 422). I’ve received some great comments and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of sharing the love of Christ and being an inspiration on my blog. I’ve also followed the suggestions for being Freshly Pressed, except that I don’t always include a photo or other visual. I’ve had over 19,000 page views, so someone likes my blog. And yet, I’ve never been Freshly Pressed.
I also read quite a few excellent Christian blogs that follow all of the suggestions for being Freshly Pressed, but I’ve never seen a single one of them features on Freshly Pressed either. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Christian blog be Freshly Pressed, though I admit I have not checked the Freshly Pressed page every single day.
I have, however, read some really stupid blog posts that have been Freshly Pressed. I’ve read ones that have numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes. I’ve read ones that are not inspiring or uplifting, and though they might entertain someone they didn’t entertain me. I’ve read ones that didn’t have very catchy headlines at all (one even had the headline “342”), and I clicked on them only out of curiosity to see why something with such a boring headline would be Freshly Pressed.
This Easter weekend, as I looked over the Freshly Pressed blog posts on Friday and Saturday, I wondered to myself, “Why do I care?” It seems quite clear that whoever chooses the 10 blog posts per day that are featured is not looking for or interested in Christian blogs. I did find a few that mentioned Easter, but none of them had anything to do with the true meaning of Easter. One titled “Just in Time for Easter” was about hatching chickens. Another was about how to make handmade bunnies and Easter eggs, with the headline “Easter Eggs, Bunny and Bunting!” A third titled “My Easter Decorating Woes . . .” was about various egg and bunny craft project failures. There was also a post titled “Celebrate Earth Day“, which happened to fall on Good Friday this year. Finally, on Monday there was a post-Easter post titled “Peeps: Can They Be Trusted?” in which the words “Easter” and “hell” were three words apart, but there was nothing in the post about how to avoid hell through the power of Jesus’ Easter resurrection.
I guess for some people chicks, eggs, bunnies, Peeps, and the recently created Earth Day are more important than the death and resurrection of the Creator of the Universe. But for me, the Divine Love of Jesus revealed on the cross and the awesome power of God declared by the empty tomb are more important than anything. It’s just too bad the editors of Freshly Pressed don’t believe that a single post about the grace and love of Jesus deserved to be Freshly Pressed on this Easter weekend 2011.
But I guess I still haven’t answered the question, “Why do I care?” It is not so much that I personally haven’t been Freshly Pressed that bothers me. It is that all those who subscribe to the Freshly Pressed feed or who visit the Freshly Pressed page each day are not being told about any of the awesome Christian blogs that are posted on WordPress. It seems I find a new one at least once a week by following the link in a comment on one of the blogs I already read. These Christian blogs are filled with inspiration and encouragement to live a life worthy of our Creator. These Christian bloggers look at life from a Christian perspective and find in it hope and faith worth holding on to.
So I have decided to add another theme to my blog. Starting next Tuesday, I am going to write about posts from other Christian blogs that have inspired me and given me hope during the previous week. I know I don’t get the same exposure as the Freshly Pressed page, and being mentioned here won’t drive nearly the traffic to another blogger’s post as being Freshly Pressed would, but I believe it is high time the work God is doing on WordPress be showcased somewhere.