Ray Pritchard believes pastors should blog. He references another pastor, Tod Bolsinger, who thinks in ten years churches will almost require their pastors to blog!
The main reason: "There is no more effective, cost efficient, time efficient and growing way to communicate something as important as the truth of Christianity than through a whole hosts of pastors and teachers blogging."
The second reason: The influence a pastor has while blogging will make it less compelling to leave a smaller church for a larger church. He'll already have the larger audience.
Here is the quote from Tod and my thoughts on blogging pastors:
"....every pastor longs for a bigger audience and that the lure of leaving one (smaller) church for another (bigger) church will always loom before them. That may or may not be true. (The size of my church really fits me well.) But I do know that pastors put in a lot of time on their sermons, and to have those messages, easily, quickly and cheaply go far beyond the wall of their sanctuaries seems to me to be a no brainer. It is quite effective to be able to reach more people without having to leave their current call or without having to travel at all."
I would like to make a couple observations.
1. Blogging is a great way to carry on a conversation with the larger Christian community. In a strange way, this carries with it some degree of limited accountability because one discovers rather quickly if their thoughts are valid or out to lunch.
2. Blogging may be less effective as a means for disseminating the faith because of the inability to develop a face-to-face relationship and communicate truth through personality. Please read this discussion.
3. Blogging provides a forum for the local church to interact around a large range of topics. Sunday worship, mid-week services, or small groups may not provide this opportunity.
4. Blogging allows a pastor the chance to provide running commentary and scriptural application to areas he will never have time to address in the pulpit.
5. Blogging allows a pastor to be even more transparent. He can be more than just a guy in the pulpit on Sundays talking about the Bible. The blog provides a format for discussion around a variety of topics not related to church. The blog also provides a forum for feedback with a number of people almost simultaneously. It would take a lot of coffee and donut meetings to make that happen during the week.
6. Blogging allows the pastor the opportunity to point people to important reading for challenge and edification. The congregation can almost read along with the pastor. Sunday mornings can become an extension of the conversation they have been having all week long.
Can you think of more? A couple caveats:
I do not buy the "I am looking for a bigger church" mindset. The pastorate is not a career path that always gets bigger and better. The pastorate is a call to shepherd a flock for the long haul.
I am not sure I buy the "influence" piece either. I am wary of that word. If I can have a more "effective" ministry so be it. I want to take advantage of any tool that enables me to do my job in a better way.
I wonder about the face to face relationships. Because blogging does work against it. I don't think it should be done to the exclusion of those relationships, or even over those relationships. But when you have distances, it is awfully convenient. And the glory of having your own blog, is that you can address issues publicly you might not otherwise have a chance to. And there you have the value of criticism, or at least the potential for criticism.
Posted by: Joel | January 13, 2005 at 11:49 AM
The face-to-face relationships are a must and primary. The ability to span time and distance is simply breath-taking when you think about it. When all of this becomes so much more accessible to us (in some kind of portable comm device we carry around--without having to find a wireless location--or have attached to our person), we are going to need filters to dim the noise. I love the ability the respond personally to issues. There is no more, "I think this is what Trainer thinks, etc." He's right there on the blog--ask him. Of course, it is all open to interpretation, but I buy the idea that the blog world has made truth (factual truth, relationship truth, Truth) much more accessible, not less. I also like the exercise of hammering out what I think/believe in words.
Posted by: jon | January 13, 2005 at 01:25 PM
What kind of impact do you think blogging could make upon church/missionary relationships. So much for the "prayer letter of the month."
Posted by: matt | January 13, 2005 at 10:13 PM
Matt--the relationship changes dramatically. Our missionary to Tanzania, Rob Howell, maintains a blog (http://www.spreadinghisword.org/mwanzamaandiko/). He updates it fairly regularly, plus he visits ours. This keeps us in touch on an almost daily basis. There is no such thing as a monthly prayer letter since we communicate so frequently, plus everyone in church can be involved. We also talk on the phone and instant message one another. This all takes work. There must be an intent to maintain comms.
Posted by: jon | January 14, 2005 at 10:09 AM
mm. really like this style
Posted by: Towercrane Peeing | December 17, 2009 at 05:35 AM