Rss is my morning paper. It’s the first thing I check every day. My news sources include some “News Sources” (meaning profesisonal news services), but there are other professionals whose speciality may not be news, but their specialties, and their additonal capabilities to blog and use RSS to link to their own subset of sources makes them a valuable source of news for me as well. There are people who blog about the Church and Technology, and people who blog about the political issues, and still others who do both (like I try to do).
RSS has great possibilities for Churches. It is a direct link to the journey of others, to the extent that they allow that journey expression in their blogging. But this would be a key part of the invitation to blog via Church in the first place. The emphasis is on the importance of the Church offering up a kind of “journal” from its members. Lay leaders and staff leaders of particular ministries should also “blog their ministries” (much in the same way that many bloggers “blog the conference” of many and various conferences on blogging, and as many did with either or both of the Democratic and Republican Party Conventions.
With RSS, it’s like staying in touch with the daily grind and personal reflections of our favorite mentors, experts, comrades, friends. Pastors should definitely blog. Their people would benefit from a sharing of the reflections, reactions, joys, and worries of their pastor.
To further illustrate the value of blogging, I often use the scenario of how often , when some conversation gets flowing such thjat people stand around after Church going on and on about somethign that has energized them, there comes a time when it breaks up becuase someone has to leave, but more often, it seems that even though we may not have to get somewhere else, we are sensitive to “keeping someone” from leaving out of courtesy to us, and so we “discipline” ourselves out of courtesy to them.
Blogs would allow this discourse to continue to flow, and often be a springboard for further discussion of new things brought up in someones’ blog when the group gets together again. Actually, the instance of the latter happening is what occurs more often. The Blog reveals a flow of thought that is the instigator of face to face conversation later, or drawing in of new members who lurk and mingle in the online conversation, and show up in person to meet these people who engage with each other on such issues.
RSS (back to the subject) is a notification mechanism for such conversations. I don’t have to go check a message board, or surf to a web site. My RSS Reader automatically scans and highlights new posts from all the sites to which I am subscribed. I particularly like the Blog software that allows me to create a feed for each subject category as as well as the overall blog (all the posts, no matter what category), since that enables people to subscribe to certain kinds of posts, a nd not be “subjected” to whatever other rants I post which may not be relevant or interesting to them. On the other hand, it would perhaps get people who are interested in one topic and have subscribed, to investigate what I have to say onother issues (if they like what they read on their chosen topic). (Movable Type does not have this feature, to my knowledge, but WordPress does)
“The Blog reveals a flow of thought that is the instigator of face to face conversation later, or drawing in of new members who lurk and mingle in the online conversation, and show up in person to meet these people who engage with each other on such issues.”
That is the key, and the hope. I can easily see people using blogging and message boards within a church instead of face-to-face dialogue. I can also see people going nuts and getting out of hand (trolling, flame wars) which might lead to a situation where people just never speak in person about important subjects. Being online pretty heavily for the last eight years, I’ve witnessed the jerk that comes out of people when they are given the pseudo veil of anonymity that the internet provides.
So, of course, the hope would have to be that the blogging and the internet discussions would be a springboard for real-life dialogue. It would have to be a constant reminder and vital to the form. Especially when many of those who we are trying to reach –that being the “least of us,” often being the poor and homeless–don’t usually have access to blogs.
What RSS aggregator do you use, btw?
Okay Okay… I’ll get on that RSS feed already. 😉
I’ve been contemplating feedburner for awhile, since it does both atom and rss. Eric syndicated my blog to a livejournal account so that my LJ friends can see it as well. That pushed me a bit, but your post may be what finally gets me to do it.
On another note, I’ve also been contemplating creating a livejournal community for our Church community. LJ also does rss feeds. Since quite a few of them already use LJ, it may be a really good thing. The only drawback I can see is what Eric mentions above. In fact, I’ve found out quite a few things about out group by reading their journals/blogs that they would never just flat out say face to face. Perhaps, in a way, that makes them more real and flawed like the rest of us; only public.
Eric and Brad,
I’m really charged that you guys are here…..and Brad, you’re right about how similar the thinking between Eric and myself. I ‘m really pleased that you both piped up in this particular subject, which I’ve been a bit distracted from with all this political worry and energy going on. I was a basket case back in 2000 between Election Day and Dec. whatever when the Supreme Court ended it (and if they didn’t , the Florida legislature would have done it, which wouldhave kicked off even more fireworks.)
But the Church blogging; I gotta get something going. My job is looking at the possibilities (stioll to remain anonymous as far as my publich blog goes, but if I think of it, I’d be glad to tell either one of you in private emails — it’s a real hopeful situation for me after 7 years of frustration in previous jobs and apathy (and even downright disdain for the idea of online community).
I certainly am aware of the “flame wars” that can happen. In fact, if I carry on with setting up a Churcdh blog for my present Church, and my blog is listed among member’s blogs (and even the first example of a “Christian’s blog”, that may well set off some flame wars from others in my Church. The pastor has read my blog and agrees with me for the most part on many issues. She preached a sermon that drew heavily on the “God is Not a Democrat or a Republican” which I feel planted some good seeds. But this Church, which is nearby our neighborhood, and has the potential for big growth, and may help draw in my 15-year old where he can have some friends in Church who also go to school with him.
But I sense that there is a lot of “Christian Right” style piety there; and the blind allegiance to the Republican party and this administration. My firm stances against war, against the “sellouts” of this administration in almost every domestic area, and the disdain I have for their sucking in millions of well-meaning but uninformed Christians, will not be easy, no doubt. But I think that among all the rest of what I am passionate about, and my “all for the sake of ministry” approach, along with some tried and true concepts from Church of the Saviour regarding the mission of the Church as an “enabler of gifts” and a “collaboration to create structures for the utilization of those gifts in ministry to the world” (or some strategic local piece of that world)……I am gearing up to throw it all into the mix.
Dale
Our website’s message boards failed to properly reinitiate during it’s last upgrade. All the text is still on the server, but nothing I do to the forum’s index files seem to access it. In fact, it doesn’t even see the categories, only the colors.
This finally brought me to the point of giving serious thought to my grwoing frustrations of most online community forums, and their apparent lack of popularity in anything short of high debate areas or rock stars. I kept seeing blogs become more and more popular amongst “our type of people/thinkers” and newer generations, whether it be livejournal, xanga, or one of the more personal blog tools. After several weeks, I still haven’t been able to get our forums up and running, and my curiosity of opening a “church blog” has grown more and more.
I do often wonder what people will think when reading our group’s personal blogs, especially with how open and seemingly unashamed some of our group are online. Then I start thinking about how pretty much everyone has quirks and “imperfections” that they deal with day to day. Those that will flame, condemn, and slander our “members” for their personal journeys are almost assuradely not being honest about their own state of being. It’s a picture of a broken human’s journey to a perfect God, and our struggle to present that God appropriately in spite of our shortcomings.
We had to decide that “in real life” a couple of years ago. Those who are quick to condemn others who are striving to grow in spite of themselves, we don’t really need in our lives anyway. We are and we need a resource, not a “quick-fix” or a dictator.
And so as not to make this post too much longer, I won’t quote it, but remember what Elizabeth O’Connor had to say about different and sometimes clashing personalities working together in one mission? The benefits of such (described in her book- Journey Inward, Journey Outward) can be incredible. I believe they went into it knowing that their would be stern disagreements with each other, but also willing to let them be while still pursuing the mission/vision together.
pastor draven,
Great stuff. It seems to address also what I was thinking aloud about in my comment earlier in this thread, where I am wondering how the journey through presenting some peace and truth concerns about the Bush administration, and how that informs my sense of a world that needs new priorities, and a Church that witnesses to these higher priorities. It seems almost impossible in this present climate which seems to have reached the level of a culture/class war between conservatives (who weren’t always this blinded) and the rest of us.
I belive that blogs, despite their inviting of flame debates, can also , via their nature of providing a multi-issued look, can present some of the complexity of personality, and hopefully, some sense of common journey. The sheer volume of “inter-linkage” between blogs of various stripes and emphases can be educational in a human sense, and perhaps open some “blinded by the Right” to the possibilities for recognizing deception, becuase some of those talking about their concerns are also into “other things” which create a common ground, and thus an openness to their perspective on other things.
Who knows?
Dale
Eric,
I use RSSReader (a free download)….just don’t leave your speakers turned up overnight or you will be awakened by the doorbell sound notifying you of new posts that came in……)
Good thoughts, guys.
I was thinking, as far as commenting on blogs/message_boards go, that maybe we could put some text in that reminds them of the mission of Christianity or the goal of friendly debates amongst brothers and sisters in Christ.
For instance, if we have a message board, we can require that they have to login to an account they create, and as they create that account, they have to agree to some terms of discussion. It would have to be some eye-catching message and not the normal, boring, “end-user agreement” kind of junk that everybody scrolls past. Of coruse, we wouldn’t hold that over people’s heads if they got out of hand, but we’d gently remind them of something that they agreed to– holding them accountable to something.
Likewise, one can put a little message/reminder above each comments box, if the software allows.
Thanks for your comments, both of you.
I finally set up my blog on feedburner. There’s a “syndicate this site” link on the siderbar now. It feeds with a smartfeed, meaning it publishes both rss and atom depending on what your reader asks for. Thanks for finally pushing me to do that, Dale… and for both of your thoughts about a Church blog as I seek to start one as well.
great blog!