Every church online

Saturday, March 17, 2007

 

Pastors as Bloggers

I gave a talk this week at my wife Erin's intern cluster meeting. For those not familiar in the Lutheran Church seminarians who are out on internship (think of that like student teaching for pastors) meet once a month with other interns in their region. Brian Spahr and I split an hour, so neither of us had much time to present on our topic of "Technology in Ministry." Brian did a great job talking about some cool technologies pastors and churches can use to better do the work they are called to do. I might not remember all the links, so feel free to add them in the comments.
  • BackPack - online worship planning
  • Jott - quick way to take notes on the go
  • MyChurch - easy way for churches to go "Web 2.0"
I know there was a Podcasting network that Brian recommended but I can't remember it off the top of my head. I talked a bit about Pastors as Bloggers. My assertion was that Pastors are creating loads of content and most of it is not getting online. Then I suggested a blog is a great way for that content to get out there. From there we discussed why the pastors and not quite yet pastors there were not publishing their sermons and other teaching resources online. The discussion was honest and helpful. What keep coming up was a concern about the lack of control you have once you publish something on a blog. I was making the point that the conversations that would happen around a blog post are already happening just in the parking lot of the church, everyone agreed. However, many of the current pastors felt as if the fact that these conversations would be "written" down lends more weight and can create more of a problem. My goal with the talk was not to convert everyone into bloggers, but to get them thinking about how conversations about church are going to be moving online, and if they aren't contributing to that conversation then all that is there is what people say about them. I would encourage all pastors and leaders in the church to search for their names in their search engine of choice and see what comes up. If you don't like what you see, then maybe it's time to start putting your voice out there in the conversation.

Comments:
Great words from Echo|Ditto re-enforcing my point.

If your not online your not part of the conversation.
 
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