The following is the most recent comment on my post on Monday titled “Thomas Kuhn, bloggers and the emerging church: Is the paradigm shift in technology and media a cue for the church?”

Wyatt Smith from the Armed Forces Foundation makes the following statement:

“Rhett, you had a lot of good things to say and you know I’m definitely with you on most of the stuff. However, I had one question on this quote from your blog:

‘If the church wants to continue to be relevant, and to enter into dialogue with the culture at large, which it is wanting to reform, then it must have bloggers within it.’

Do you strongly believe that a church has to have bloggers within it to be relevant to culture? Take for example a church of 500 that is strategically located in Washington, DC, perhaps in the inner city. What if they’re low tech or how about no tech. No webpage no anything. But, they impact people for Christ in their community through reaching out to its youth and elderly. They serve dinners to the homeless. They invite folks into their homes. They do everything that the Great Commission teaches us, yet they aren’t blogging daily. Sure their scope or impact area may not reach beyond its small community. But I would argue they’re still relevant.”

That is a great question. One that we could discuss on many different levels. I would say this. No, I do not believe that a church is irrelevant because it does not have bloggers within it. I obviously view things from my own persepctive at times, and I happen to be at a church which has numerous resources, where having a web site is mandatory, and where lots of resources can be used to communicate. It’s an important tool in my culture. But it may not be an important tool in some cultures.

But what I mean by that statement is this. I think it is important for the church to take advantage of all possible means, especially in technology and communication, so that they can most effectively and efficiently communicate the word of God. So a church can be relevant regardless. Some churches might have a different purpose, and technology might not be a part of that. Their culture may not be a part of a technological blogging culture. Contemplatives, monastics, etc. And I think that is a good thing. In fact, I would like to get away from technology at times as well. But if you are reading a blog, it is probably a part of your culture, and it may be an effective means to communicate.

I do believe that Christians, churches, etc., have always taken the most effective means of communicating when possible, and employed them on their behalf. You didn’t need to print a book in the 16th Century to be relevant to culture, but the invention of the printing press, coinciding with Luther’s translations of the text into German, sure did make the Scriptures readily relevant to the culture at large.

Bottom line…I can communicate one by one on phone or email, or I can communicate to hundreds of my students, and others, all at the same time. And throughout the week. I have found this to be a refining process for my students, and for myself, as we are in constant dialogue. This was not possible before I started blogging. But I must not also replace the face to face encounter in ministry with a blog instead. But rather, a blog is a tool that I add to my ministry.

Each church has to decide what is important to them, and if the use of a blog might benefit them, and the community they serve. A church might not be able to post a website because of a lack of resources, which is more the reason for someone inside that church to begin a blog (free at many places) to communicate with those who have a computer. So now, that church is not only relevant to the people doing the ministry in other areas, where technology is not as important, but it’s relevant to the people in the church who are on computers.

Nothing has been more helpful to my own ministry and thinking, then instantly being connected to a web of people all around the world via the blog. It has given me new insight into my own ministry, and I no longer feel I’m alone on the journey.

I have a whole world of bloggers out there in which I am waiting to explore. So, you will not be irrelevant as a church without a blogger, but having one I believe, puts you light years in a direction ahead of the curve in which I believe ministry is heading with the shrinking of the world due to technology.

Well, if you are still wondering what a blog is…check out the story that Hugh Hewitt links on his blog today.

“Jeff Jarvis posted a stunner yesterday: “Dave Sifry told me he’s now tracking 40,000 new blogs a day (up from 15k only about a year ago).” The sneer machine will counter that these are mostly unread, even though most new blogs arrive with a tremendous burst of energy and enthusiasm, with the author(s) busy telling his circle of the launch. Each push for attention from a new blog brings more people into contact with the blogosphere for the first time, which changes the collective information flow dramatically. I’ll will be flogging Blog on Dennis Miller’s program today, and will use this new stat.”

40,000 a day. I am heading out to the Emergent Convention this week in San Diego, which is part of Emergent Village. I don’t have details, but there is a forum this week at the conference for bloggers. I will be interested to see how it is. But if you are curious to see how fast the blogosphers is moving, visit Smart Christian and check out their timeline in putting on a Christian conference for bloggers. It’s literally happened overnight. At this point I’m designated to lead a workshop on blogging for college pastors, but I will let you know more as we approach.

Some of you may still be asking yourself, “What is a blog?” Well, I think it’s about time you find out because it’s an important tool for the church. And it’s an ever increasing tool for our ministry.

Check out best selling author and nationally syndicated talk show host, Hugh Hewitt link and describe my blog on his blog yesterday.

–he accidentally calls me Brett…but that’s cool…beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m just thankful he even mentions me–

“Am I overstating what is happening via the blogosphere? I really don’t think so. Visit SmartChristian and see the spontaneous organization of GodBlogCon I. When that sort of event self-organizes, then a dramatic shift has occurred in the dissemination of information.

I would also direct you to Brett Smith’s new blog at The Quest, which is the college ministry at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. This is an example of how the new technology is being applied up and down the information change. I guarantee you that Pastor Smith –full disclosure, I know his brother and have met his parents, but not Brett– has the trust of his college group participants. Now, instead of communicating with them once or twice a week, he is communicating with them as often as they want. That alters his influence on their lives in a dramatic fashion. Before long many thousands of pastors and parachurch workers with a desire to extend and deepend their congregations’ or volunteers’ understanding of doctrine, teaching or mission will be using the blogs to do so.”

So here are the steps to follow:

1) Peruse the internet reading as many blogs as you can to get a feel for them. Hugh Hewitt is a good place to start. Read the bloggers he lists, and you will get a good feel.

2) Read Hugh’s book BLOG.

3) Go to Blogger and start your free blog now.

I just spent the last week on vacation in Costa Rica. And though I was not tempted to find the nearest internet cafe and check the news and blog, I did miss perusing through the blogosphere. For some unbeknownst reason that I can’t comprehend, I have grown a fondness to checking in on all the other bloggers on a regular, if not daily basis.

I finished Hugh Hewitt’s book BLOG over the vacation, and maybe I felt a sudden urgency to return to the land of the blogs out of fear that I may have missed something. Or that another million blogs had been added. Or that my new idea for a blog had come to fruition at the hands of some other person.

After reading the book BLOG, this is my call to everyone in our college ministry, or whoever reads this website, to purchase the book which is now 316 on Amazon after being released a week ago.

If you don’t know what a blog is, you need to find out. And after reading BLOG, I am more convinced than ever that one should learn as much about blogs as possible, and determine how they can utilize one in their own life.

For a better understanding of blogging, and the role it is already taking in ministry and theology, and will continue to take, check out Hugh Hewitt’s comments on the morning of January 22nd at 8:40am where he talks about the role of theological and pastoral bloggers. Or check out Tod Bolsinger’s comments on the role and importance of blogging pastors on January 13.

This is a subject that I will hit on time and time again, as I am convinced of the importance of blogs in theological, pastoral and church circles. I am hoping that I can change the culture around my own church, and college ministry, and begin to change the habits of my own students, teaching them to not only visit important blog sites regularly, but to get them to blog themselves.

“Life must be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward” Soren Kierkegaard

I think now is the crucial time for the church to understand the history of where it has come from, but to live forward, moving into the future. And I believe that blogs will play an important role in that. For anyone who doubts the role and importance of the transformation of information in culture, and in the church, you must study up on the role that the printing press had on Martin Luther and the Reformation. Hugh Hewitt’s book BLOG is a good place to start to understand this.

I will be on vacation this next week….so my blog may have little or no activity…but there’s plenty for you to go back and read….

Check out the other bloggers on my page, and catch up with what’s going on with the theological-pastoral bloggers, and in the “emergent”/postmodern conversation.

Friends, I have it bad. I didn’t know exactly how bad it was until my fiance’s family jokingly, but lovingly referred to me as “the blogger” during Christamas break. Why? Well, it wasn’t unusual to find me several times a day scouring through the blogosphere pulling reading all the news items of the day.

if you don’t know what a blog is, then you are like many people. But you better find out soon, because it’s sweeping the world. If you aren’t sure, an easy crash course is to visit Hugh Hewitt who many consider to be the godfather of blogging. If you still aren’t sure, then pick up his new book BLOG which hasn’t been released yet and is already climbing the Amazon charts.

And just in case I wasn’t obsessed enough, I entered a contest in the blogosphere, related to the book. You can view this contest at Radio Blogger

You could have seen my first ever, and lame attempt to put together some photo shop picture for the contest, but I did it in a psd file and not a jpeg….still learning….

later,
rhett