Today I thought I'd tell you a little about an integrated approach I've set up to make use of the online social networking websites, and also to share with you some different ways you can access the content of this blog. Basically I have tried to ensure that a few of these sites will work together for me, that each of them, therefore, will offer you another way to follow the blog, and, where possible, point you to other material I think you should be reading before mine.

Before I get into all of that, let me first name and shame one of my real-world friends. Ian Jukes, who hosts this site for me, committed a cardinal sin using one of these social tools. I caught him calling me “The Warlock.” Now I can tolerate all kinds of misspellings of my name—I have been called Adrian Wamoch, Warnick, Warnack, Warnoc, Warnok, and all kinds of other things. But Warlock, I have always hated, for obvious reasons! So call me anything, just not Warlock, all right? For some reason the nickname that has always stuck to me has been “Warnie,” which I think was something to do with “Arnie.” The thing is, with this blog it’s not so much that “I'll be back!” as “I will never go away!”

On the subject of Warnies, I have made a significant change to the Warnie award system. I have decided that, as of today, I will award mini Warnies to specific articles that I like. Thus, the practical effect is that the Warnie Winners box in my left sidebar will now also include posts from other blogs and sometimes newspaper articles that I have come across and liked. If you spot one of your posts in the Warnie box, you are entitled to say, “One of my blog posts was given a Warnie today.” From time-to-time, I will still issue a Warnie to an entire blog, and from then on, all posts published on that blog will appear in the Warnie Winners box. Those blogs are also entitled to wear the “Warnie Winners” badge. That box is a great place for you to keep up-to-date on what's going on across the Christian blogosphere. You will find all the posts from such places as Tim Challies, the Pyromaniacs, and Terry Virgo, among many others. It is worth saying that you can subscribe to the Warnie feed in a newsreader, and from now on the Warnies will also appear on Twitter.

The observant among you will have already noticed that I have now joined the ranks of the Twitterers. Thanks to something called Twitterfeed, you can also read my blog headlines over there. Twitter has an option to allow you to export all your “tweats,” so you can find them at Twitter, here on the blog, in my Facebook profile page, and at my rarely used myspace page.

In addition, I use a program called MoodBlast to send some of my brief thoughts to both my Facebook status line and Twitter at the same time. There is also an option within Facebook that allows me to automatically import my external blog posts as Facebook notes.

Last, but not least, there are a whole range of ways people can read the blog using my RSS feed. All you need is an online or offline newsreader and you're on your way. There is no doubt that my own favorite way to read other people's blogs is by adding them to Google Reader. Google Reader allows you to subscribe to many blogs and scan their headlines each day looking for something interesting. If you want, you can befriend someone and share your favorite links with them. A few people have started doing that with me, and it sure helps me to find things to share (and as a result, put in my sidebar). You have to add someone as a friend to your GoogleTalk list in order to do this. Just search for me by my e-mail address — adrian.warnock@gmail.com. If you share blog posts with me like this, then they are just one mouse click away from receiving a post-specific Warnie!

When it comes to social networking sites, you very quickly have to make a decision. Are you going to befriend only those you know well offline? Or are you going to befriend a broad range of people, including many you have “met” only through cyberspace? It probably won't be a great surprise to you to find that I've taken the second approach.

If you are a regular reader here and want to connect with me on any of the above services, feel free to do so. It's always nice to know who's out there reading the blog, and to interact with some of you as time permits. At the moment I can still manage to answer the vast majority of my e-mails and online “friendship” requests. There are a few, of course, that do slip through the cracks, but if you send your e-mail again, the chances are good that I'll see it the second time around! This is truly a privileged position for me to be in—being able to connect to so many people, and yet not find myself swamped as those who are famous often are. I have enjoyed and benefited so much from my online friendships, some of which have eventually resulted in meeting face-to-face. So go on, don't be shy! Add me as your friend—just don't call me Warlock!

Few readers of Christian blogs will have failed to come across Tim Challies, the uberblogger who will shortly become a Crossway-published book author. In fact, I'm almost willing to bet that no one will first hear of Tim's blog through this post. If I'm wrong, do leave a comment to that effect and/or drop me an email! Anyway, Tim has a bit of a tradition over at his place. Unlike lesser mortals such as yours truly, Tim blogs EVERY day. I really do mean EVERY day. Christmas, Easter, summer holidays—in fact, Tim has now blogged for 1396 days without a single day off!

So, like around twenty others, when I saw a group on Facebook dedicated to a campaign to give Tim a short rest, I simply had to join. Then I saw that Tim's pastor and wife had joined, and for a while, to be honest, I was getting a bit concerned. If one's pastor and wife are telling you it's time for a rest, you ought to listen. So, I even offered to send Andrew Fountain round to steal Tim's PC for a day or two! I know from personal experience how addictive the Internet can be, even when we are doing good things.

Anyway, Aileen Challies, wife of Tim, is also a Facebook friend of mine, and I was therefore really pleased to be able to discover that she had joined the group out of a sense of fun, rather than any real concern about her husband's addiction to blogging. This is what she said (she's given me permission to share it):

"You need to understand Tim's personality. For a long time he was not a disciplined person . . . and his attention span has always been well, flighty? That is one reason blogging has been so good for him. It allows him to stay in web design because blogging, and everything else associated with it, gives him a variety of things happening, which stops him from being bored. It has also been a vital part of his spiritual growth over the last four years. Blogging truly has turned my husband into a much stronger man and husband. He thirsts now after God's will and Word in a way that he never has in the twelve years I have known him. I'm not sure most people could carry what Tim does with the reading, writing and research, and work, and, of course, family, but it is necessary with his personality! He does read fast, writes in the mornings, from about 8:30 to 10:00 (one benefit of being self-employed) and still has plenty of family time. While I can understand where the concern is coming from (outside looking in) you all really need to spend a day in the life of our family to see that it is not anywhere near what you are imagining!"

UPDATE
My blog editor has started another group on Facebook to campaign for Tim to keep going and not miss a single day! It's called "I need my daily dose of Challies!" How could she????

So, although Josh Harris has kissed Facebook goodbye, he has this to say to the rest of us, especially singles:

Enjoy Facebook. And if you're a godly single man, receive it as a gift from God to assist you in nonchalantly building a friendship with a godly Christian woman. I'm serious, men! If you're mature enough to pursue marriage, Facebook should be "Courtbook" for you. Don't just sit there, get on the ball and go "poke" a godly girl.

At the current rate of growth I guess everyone on the planet will eventually have a facebook account! I have had one for a while, and a number of you my lovely readers have been kind enough to make me your friends. I know that during my "light month of blogging" in August I shouldn't get too sucked into the world of facebook. But it has been fun. And resistance is futile - we will all be assimilated.

So, for the one or two of my readers who are not already in facebook get yourself an account pop over to my facebook profile page and ask me to be your friend. Then, download the "Compare People" application and do something quick to stop Bret and Alex Harris carrying away ALL the awards between them. So far, among my friends Alex is most powerful, most famous, prettiest, sexiest, most likely to succeed whilst Bret is hardest worker, most cuddly, most attractive, most kiss-able,most dateable! This cannot be right and should not be allowed to continue!

UPDATE -  Well done furious "compare people" users.  Alex at least has already been bumped from the awards section.  Poor guy though, as his brother is still there!