I'm beginning to forget what life was like before the internet and mobile phones. How did we ever run life without them?
The reality is that communication technology now pervades our modern way of life and the internet is having a massive impact on the way we relate and communicate.
The Blogging Church is all about using one of the communication tools that are now available on the web " blogs.
Blogs are just online journals. They are often personal and opinionated. The great thing about them is that easy and cheap to set-up, in fact anyone can have a blog.
It also means they are nothing special in themselves. In the past the internet was fairly static with websites looking like online brochures. But blogs are added a new dimension to internet communication. They are easily updated so can change quickly, sharing news and ideas as soon as they are generated.
They are really about sharing a person's thoughts with whoever wants to listen. For churches this is great. We have a story that we want to share. The story is the impact of the gospel of Jesus Christ on a group of people. We want to share that story with the people within our church and those who are curious enough to watch from the sidelines.
One of the very powerful things about blogs is this ability to make connections with those normally outside our reach and on their terms.
The Blogging Church will be an extremely helpful resource in pointing you in the right direction if you want to learn the mechanics and motivation for writing a church blog. In fact some churches have used blogs to create their entire online presence.
The book has some helpful interviews with pastors who blog (Mark Driscoll for one) and gives some great tips on avoiding common pitfalls and problems. It leads you through how to set up a blog, what to write about and what not to (very important!).
There are practical tips on how to get the most out of your blog and how best to share it with others.
Probably one of the most helpful things are their ideas on how to blog for the church if you are not the pastor of the church.
The book is an easy read though you might want to skim over some of the more technical chapters. That said, the chapter on how to "build a really bad blog' is a must.
t would be easy to come away from reading the book feeling that you have to have a blog to be a real church. That is not the case. They are just another tool in sharing and communicating within church and provide a way of connecting with others.
Are blogs here to stay? No. The one thing we know is that the means of communication is changing very rapidly. Faxes and even email are on the way out. Facebook is now the place to get your news about your friends.
What we need to do is take advantage of technology to help build people as they follow Jesus and help others hear the message of the gospel. We need to go to where people are and often that is at a computer screen. So for the moment blogging is in!
The Rev Chris Braga is rector of St Andrew’s, Summer Hill, and uses blogging for ministry.
