President of LifeWay Christian Resources, James T. Draper Jr., launched a new weblog, Wednesday, on LifeWay’s younger leaders webpage.

His blog - an online journal organized according to descending date with the latest entry on top - states the reason for moving from a different website to Lifeway: he needed a comments box.

"When I ventured into the blogosphere a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what type of response my blog would generate," Draper said, alluding to the massive response he received while blogging on Crosswalk.com. "That’s why I wasn’t overly concerned about there not being a built-in response mechanism. I now realize I need to provide that avenue for comments."

According to a January 2005 report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, blog readership shot up 58 percent in 2004, covering some 27 percent of active Internet users. Block tracker, Technorati.com, reports that in 2005 users with blogs went from 100,000 to 9 million in just two years.

Draper began blogging to connect with younger leaders across the Southern Baptist Convention. He followed last year’s address to the SBC with dialogue sessions with younger men and women, which he said helped him understand them better.

"Blogging," he said, was the perfect way to stay connected to these younger leaders.

Follow us

His blog will serve as a platform for a June 19 younger leaders summit in Nashville, which is the last of eight dialogue sessions for young leaders that began this year. Several younger leaders will speak on various topics.
"I am excited about what is shaping up to be a great meeting," Draper said in a statement released by LifeWay. "I’m pleased with those younger leaders who have accepted invitations to speak and we’ll be releasing information about that as soon as we finalize the list. It’ll probably go up first on the blog."

Draper's new blog can be found at: www.lifeway.com/youngerleaders.