[support] Creating a blog using Drupal 7

Hi, I'm rather new to Drupal and would like to create a blog and not have my article list be the home page. I would like to designate another page called "blog", or any name I select, to be the listing page. I am reading that the best way to do so is to create a "blog" content type. I am reading the blog module is not the best approach and this module will be removed in version 8. I'm thinking I need two things: 1) blog content type 2) blog listing page - do I need to create this or is this automatically created as part of the creation of the content type. If there is a better solution, please advise. Any guidance is much appreciated. Thanks!! Keith