I’m in the process of reading Tim Bednar’s second draft (version, 0.11, at this link: (here is the link). It is rich with insight, and thought provoking, and really energizing to my own “Spiritual Blog senses”.

I am going to take some time over the next day and a half, around Web dev stuff and a trip to St. Louis to see if I can get some project work, to look into several insights explored and offered by Tim. I had contributed a bit to his research by virtue of answering a few questions he had posted, and Tim also made mention of my telephone call I made to him one day when I decided I wanted to hear his voice and “meet” in an additional way by connecting voice to voice.

Tim recounts how he was taken aback. I remember getting that feeling that had I had taken him by surprise, because our phone conversation didn’t have the same “connectivity” to it as had several of our then current blog posts and comments had.

A piece from Tim’s paper that I link above prompted me put my reading on pause for a moment and sound my AMEN and my affirmation of this insight:

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules, processes or content, rather it is a bazaar where spiritual blogger wonders around attempting to create some order for themselves. A magazine article, Quicktime movie, or Flash animation are artifacts of spiritual formation, but a blog is a written log recording very process of spiritual formation. I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes. It forces the blogger to set their own course, discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs.

I love the ID of the spiritual blog as a “bazaar”, (not that it can’t also be or seem “bizarre”) but as an aggregation and a “showing or wares” in the sense that it allows us to “lay out our LAUNDRY — dirty or otherwise” and “tell our story” , much like when Tim writes:

we use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories, rather than reasoned apologetic. Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine “preaching” by infusing it with incarnational values and personalty

I have a framed photo that sits on my desk that was catching sunlight as I wrote just now…..and I caught a glimpse of my reflection, and noticed that I was nodding my head in agreement as I pasted the above quote…..I often use the phrase “tell our stories” when I talk about the opportunities that I see inherent in the way blogs are/can be used.

Also, the issue of “The Christian Blog”, which I have often, in the past, applied to the use of the word “Christian” as an adjective for something other than a person. MIke Yaconelli once wrote that he was bothered or uncomfortable with the idea of “Christian music” or “Christian books”. His take was that there are, rather, “Christians who write and play music; Christians who write books” . This applies to blogging especially. I blog about tech stuff, about movies, about work, about Church, and often, hints of any one or all the above seep into play. This is what makes it often difficult to “categorize” things as I create “Blog Categories” like “Baptist”, “Theoblogical”, “Church”, “Movable Type”, “Movies” , “Sports” and “Video”. I often comment on movies or politics through my theological lens or sensibilities, and sometimes things are purely sports entusiasm or team loyalty. The poijnt is, it’s me, and it’s the kind of stuff that becomes the fodder for conversation whenver I’m with the friends with whom I most often “discuss things”. Tim’s reflections below echo this:

A subcategory of blogosphere is the spiritual blog and specifically the Christian blog. For this article, I interviewed XX established Christian bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a spiritual or Christian blogger. Steve Collins explaines that his blog is “not spiritual, except that everything human is.” Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea, “I try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities, even if not exactly religious.”

There wil be more, if not today, when I return from St. Louis late Wednesday (which means Thursday, unless I get a block of time at a Web connection somewhere in St. Louis) to continue with this. I wanted to go ahaead and post these initial and “re-kindled” and “always with me: thoughts so that Tim will know that I’ve taken notice and determined to watch e-church.com more closely. I had apparently become disconnected from the rss feed that I THINK I had at one time…..anyway, it’s back now, so I can stay abreast and not miss for long peroiods of time things like this……