By Barb Kromphardt
Published in Bureau County Republican.  Used by permission.

Rich Foss likes to be comfortable while working on his computer. About two years ago, he started using the Internet to create a blog to share his thoughts and life with an unseen public. BCR photo/Lisa Tunney

TISKILWA — "A man who loves to see groups thrive. I've lived in a Mennonite commune since the '70's, and I'm the lucky man who's been married to Sarah for 30-plus years."

With those words, Rich Foss welcomes visitors to his blog.

A blog, short for Web log, is a journal or newsletter posted on the Internet and intended for the public to read. Blogging has been around for about 10 years but has moved into the mainstream since 2001.

Foss, the minister at Plow Creek Church in Tiskilwa, has blogged for about two years.

"I'm a writer," Foss said. "When blogs first came along, and I started hearing about them, I realized it was a medium that really fits for me."

One thing Foss likes about blogging is it's very personal.

"If I'm writing a sermon, I have to think about the audience," he said. "If I'm writing for publication, I have to think about the audience, and so I'm shaping what I'm writing to that particular audience. With a blog, I'm not writing for a specific audience, so it allows me to write a very wide variety of topics that are of interest to me."

Foss said blogging also allows him to deal with my his personal reflections on different ideas or situations.

Rich Foss, pastor of the Plow Creek Church near Tiskilwa, uses a blog to share his life and his faith with others. "This is too good a life that I'm living to simply share here, so the blog gives me a chance to share some of my spiritual reflections with a much wider audience," Foss said. BCR photo/Lisa Tunney

"I've been a leader for many years, and there are challenges with being a leader; and sometimes I do reflections on what I'm learning as a leader," he said. "This morning, I wrote on moving beyond guilty victim, which is a reflection on power."

Foss also likes blogging because it's instant publishing.

"I do a lot of writing, and until the blog, a lot of things that I wrote just went into the file drawer," he said. "With blog, you write, then you press the button, and the whole world has a chance to read it, if they want."

Foss appreciates the opportunity to write about his life at Plow Creek.

"I live an extremely rich life here in this church," he said. "This is too good a life that I'm living to simply share here, so the blog gives me a chance to share some of my spiritual reflections with a much wider audience."

Recently, Foss wrote about the church's Christmas Eve service.

"The blog was an opportunity for me to reflect on the wonder of that," he said. "It was Christmas morning, and I wanted to give a gift to the world."

Foss said blogging is a good way to express his faith to others.

"It really allows me to write about things that are very important to me as a pastor and as a Christian that I probably wouldn't write for other forms of publication," he said. "I keenly recognize that if you read my blog, you'll know what I value."

Those things include Foss' different relationships.

"You'll find things about my wife in there; you'll find things about my children in there; you'll find things about Plow Creek in there," he said. "Because I'm not writing for an audience, my faith and my values just come through."

While Foss would recommend blogging as a good tool for others to express their faith, he said bloggers need one of two things.

"You have to have either a holy foolishness or a thick skin," he said. "You make yourself vulnerable with a blog."