Recently in Theoblogical Category

This post on Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs blog puts me in one of those ranting moods, where I want to bemoan the top-down habits of church denominations and thus neglect the real theological power of the people of God: the network; a network which is essential to "tuning in" into God. This is not because there is magic in some myterious Sociology, but becuase this is the way God has "gathered" his people, and the corporate form to which he constantly calls us.

Smart Mobs: How Kerry campaign ditched Dean campaign p2p tactics

How Kerry campaign ditched Dean campaign p2p tactics:

Kerry imposed a traditional, asymmetrical, industrial era Master/Slave broadcast communications organizing principal on his campaign. Kerry did not trust the voters to generally do the right thing most of the time. Thus he was basically unable to leverage cooperative gain created by the collective actions of his supporters at the edges of his campaign.

While this is also a key issue with maximizing democracy (the "participation" thing), it is very much at the heart of what I feel strongly about how peer-to-peer is an important theological piece of the ecclesial pie (not neccessarily the technology-enhanced variety of p2p, but the concept of an interdependent, collaboaration with God andf one another as we seek together to resist the culture and be a particular people.

Of course, I have much to say on the topic of the technology-enhanced version, and how this EXTENDS the reach both in geography and time of the ftf (face-to-face) kind of p2p. The "connectability" of blogs is growing by leaps and bounds via things such as comments, RS, trackbacks, tagging, and the list goes on. Demonations and church bodies of all kinds and sizes has a huge task before them in "equipping" the saints in the skills of communicating and turning to one another for encouragement, sharing of stories, helping all of us to find one another so that the callings God is "transmitting" can be received in the context of those whose gifts and talents bring them together for a particular task, at a particular time.

I have been much less vocal and less often in terms of blogging over the past couple of months. Blogging has been much less "communal" feeling for me as well. I noticed today that I haven't received any comments in almost a month. I was a little disappointed in how little feedback there was in all the postings I made back in late November and all of December on the ideas in "Becoming the Authentic Church", a booklet published by The Church of the Saviour that seeks to articulate how they are trying to live into some new structures, which still contain much of their "traditional" disciplines and accountability and notions of call, but are always seekiing and discerning new "structures" that might enable growth and provide new avenues for fellowship that tap into our need for living and struggling with a diversity of humanity; acknowledging our interdependence, and our need for reconciliation.

As I have become frustrated with a seeming lack of openness or interest to these ideas, and the difficulty of getting a hearing, and the disappointment I felt at the failure of at least my blog to encourage dialogue on these things, I have been asking myself what I might have done, or allowed to happen on my blog to make it less readable, less helpful, less energetic, less enjoyable, less inviting. The same sort of questions have been plaguing my sense of who I am in face-to-face social life, casuing me to ask if I might be emitting some sort of "dark cloud" of unapproachability; that this sort of "depression" constitutes itself as a WALL that keeps me in out of fear of some perceived sense of further rejection, or others out becuase of some sign I might be emitting , unbenownst to me, that I don't wish to emerge from behind this wall. I suspect that this whole thing has come up out of the recognition that I have that I have to find some way, some people, with whom I feel I am on an adventure and with whom there is a sense of mutual accountability for this journey, and that we come together with the expectation that there will be discernment and the evoking of gifts and the sense of call that arises.

I believe we are made for such relatedness and total abandon to God, and that God has given us the church in which to accomplish this. When it is missing, and where churches fail to be the formative structure in which we incubate such a life together, we tend to grow sick and seek first our own protection and seek escape in "luxuries" or in "distractions" that do not satisfy us, which only exacerabtes our sense of isolation and need of reconciliation. When I don't have this, such insecurities reign. It's like our immune system: when our immune systems are down, we are more susceptible to various invading viruses. The church is the immune system for God's people (or it should be). It enables us to withstand the culture; to resist the fiery darts of the evil one. Our desire is to find that place of gift and call and to throw that into the "pot" we share and around which we gather before God.

Larry has written a piece about organizational momentum/resistance to change re: technology

Change or Die

An email came a few weeks ago that criticized the slowness of mainline denominations in using new technologies, such as podcasts and other forms of new media, for communicating. The writer said our counterparts in evangelical organizations are not only quick to do so, they get a leg up when it comes to public awareness because they are first.

This was followed by a note from a former employee of our agency who said the communications agency where I work analyzes, then develops a plan, antes up financial resources and, hopefully, years later does something. He was kind enough to say it would probably be good. But, he noted, in the interim individual pioneers plunge forward and innovate. He cited, for example, the development of inexpensive, do-it-yourself podcasts by individuals, a technology which is already well-established.

There is truth in both critiques, but the truth has as much to do with organizational life than theology or willingness of individuals to confront change.

Innovation does not come to established organizations until they face a crisis that threatens their future and forces them to change. IBM, Ford, and most recently, General Motors, are but a few recent examples. But, I'd speculate that turning these big organizations around is a lot like being at the helm of an oceanliner trying to make a sharp turn. The vessel wants to continue straight ahead, driven by its own momentum.

This was the warning sounded by The Cluetrain Manifesto 6 or 7 years ago regarding "joining the conversation".

I read this book during thst time, and soon after started my own blog, and became an outspoken advocate that trumpeted similar "change or die" themes in regards to the church and its "sinking ship". I worked for an agency that passed around the "95 theses" from the Cluetrain Manifesto, but this brief bit of attention seemed to be "something cool and bold" but was not taken at all seriously in terms of the orgainization's actual operations. The idea of online conversation was not only not recognized or valued, but openly scoffed at.

Where I am now , it is not scoffed at. There is recoignition., But as Larry recognizes, there are powerful forces lurching us ahead in the same familiar directions, and not really knowing how or what to implement to "turn the tide". I am certainly happy to be in my present position rather than the previous one. Recognition is a crucial step.

Recently I heard how one organization is having a tough time finanically, continuing to experience dropping sales and profits. The specch that was given declaring that "we must move in to the future" sounded like something from the 1970's. There remains no recoginiton of the conversation that is so vital. The business world has been mioving to join, but the church and its orgainzations lag far behind. And here is where I am frustrated, since presumably, the church claims to value the "conversation". It lies at the heart of an ecclisology that places untold value on the "fellowship". but "fellowship" involves much more than numbers; mor ethan "events" to which we want "bodies" to attend. There is an omission of the theological importance of the "ecclesia" that SHOULS implicitly assume that it is important to REALLY know what people are concerned about. But our usual way of "affirming" this is to do studies based on assumptions from the world of marketing rather than that of theological assumptions about the nature of the church.

These are some of those things I sense that Larry is referring to when he says:

Innovation, risky or not, is required. And we must figure out what we must stop doing in order to do new, appropriate things.

There are certainly things we need to "stop doing" so that we can devote actual time, energy, and money to the serious consideration of what an actual online community looks like, and how to enable that. Moving along with "business as usual" only further entrenches us iin old patterns that will eventually render us irrelevant.

I have been searching for words and ways to say what has been eating at me for months. Reading Hauerwas and Bonhoeffer and others like JKA Smith, Daniel Bell, William Cavanaugh, and then making a visit to Church of the Saviour last November, has really brought to the fore all my frustrations and yearnings about the church. When I got back, it seems to have taken forever to get to spill some of this. People were busy. When I finallly got an opportunity, I feel like I blew it. There were no further questions. And no wonder, since I barely scratched the surface, and gave very few specifics. I thought I "held back' on the level of my frustration, since , being in the face to face prescence of a listener, unlike in blogdom, I shied away from revealing too much anger/frustration at the church, but the result was that I seemed to treat it like just one "idea" among many. I totally avoided the subject of how improbable I feel it is that the church will ever be that "Good Company" that is about forming, re-shaping, instilling of habits and modes of living and relating that pose a direct contrast and challenge to life "as is"; the status quo.

I've been seriously down over the past 4 or 5 months becuase of this. I mope around feeling like no one wants me around. When I tell myself that this is "just depression" and everyone seems to be going through it, I start thinking instead of how I might just changed, and have developed irritating or discomforting habits of relating.

I felt pretty popular in high school and college and seminary. I had numerous groups of people with whom I felt totally at ease. It seems that since we moved to Nashville, all of that is no more. Is it my getting older? I had just turned 40 the year before we moved to Nashville. As a late thirtysomething, I seemed to have no trouble at all relating and being enjoyed by younger twenty something fellow computer-geeks I worked with.

Someone told me the other day that today's 20 something (the 'X' ers) are a totally different lot than the twentysomethings of the last decade (the latter of which I seemigly had no problems "hanging" with). I sense a very different relationship to today's youth culture.

The sum of it is : I'm in a totally bewildering place. When I met with Gordon Cosby in November, he told me it sounded like from all my experiences and from things that I was saying that I have been "ruined" in a good way, (to the church as typically constituted) and that I have to "get going", which I took to mean that I need to get about the business of finding that "Beloved Commmuniity" where the reason for being is to help one another resist the addictions of the culture. This is the theme and the challenge of "Becoming the Authentic Church". (the booklet I came back with which I started posting on this blog under the Category "Authentic Church") I was thankful that Eric made comments, but I was sorely disappointed in how there was virtually no response from the rest of the blogosphere, which bothered me greatly. With all of the talk about "Radical Orthodoxy" and ecclesia and the emphais on the church as the only true polis, I thought there would be a few remarks at worst, and a serious dialogue and exploration and perhaps even some "I've also been runied and I want to get going; how can we do something about this? What is God calling us to do?

And so I have been disappointed that I have been unable to do much persuasion that these ideas put forth in Becoming the Authentic Church are a serious enough vision to warrant at the very least, further dialogue.

The matter of how many people are actually reading here anymore is also fuel to the duldrums I have been feeling. Techorati has yiellded less than a handful of links to any of my posts over the entire period since I returned from DC in November. ONE blogger noticed the postings and promised to "get back to it" for further consideration. All the other Technorati links are people who have either the Methodist Blogroll or the Progressive Christian blogring listings on their site, so they're not even the links I'm looking for when I click on my Technorati link. Trackbacks are also useless in this scenario, since so few are even linking to me.

None of this is to say that I am without hope or anything. It's just my perhaps pitiful way of letting you know where I'm coming from so often these days.

Scoblizer brings up a great point for blogs as listening. It's a great way to "tune in" to what friends are thinking about. It's a good way to "allow" others to listen to me. It's a way to put what I want "out there", out there. It's a rather important place for that rreason. A lot of what is here is ME, and how many others are influencing me and making me think. That sounds a lot like what ought to be going on in churches. It sounds a lot like what ought to be OFFERED by churches as furthering the conversations, making them more readily available, and telling the story of the community in a variety of ways and narratives.

Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger » Overwhelmed with pitches, Dave, say it isn’t so!

I’ve realized that what got me here was listening. Listening to my friends talk about their lives. Listening to software developers complaining how hard it is to deal with Microsoft (or how hard our software is to use). Listening to people living their lives and noticing THEM.

Why do I read blogs? To learn about my friends so that I have something to talk with them about. Garrett Fitzgerald, for instance, tells about loving to watch the C5s landing at an airstrip near his house. That brought back memories of seeing the same land at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley (my dad used to work at Lockheed so I had a few opportunities to visit the airbase).

Excellent post, Robert!

Reading in Naked Conversations, the authors are talking about the level of danger of negative comments, and say that "we know of fewer cases of confidential information slipping out on a blog than through conversations with editors or in social situations." (p. 143)

Perhaps, but the big difference is SEARCHABILITY. if names or companies are mentioned, or products of siginificance to the company, people find blog conversations prominent in search results. The blog postings stay there and are reachable via search. This makes them much more "overhearable" than face to face conversations. This is the DISADVANTAGE in the expression of negative or inflammatory postings about one's company. The ADVANTAGE for blog posts being found by searching is that far outweighs this enables the people looking for certain topical conversations to find them via Yahoo or Google. This Searchability is what makes blogs so useful for churches. It enables us to aggregate content of interest to us.

Yesterday, I blogged a piece on the section of Naked Conversations where "Who Should NOT Blog was being explored. That section of the book was a little too simplisitc I think. Movable Theoblogical

The authors in Naked Conversations also assert that "embellishers" should not blog, that there are too many "fact checkers". But I seem to notice quite a crowd in the Bush-camp, especially among the "God-bloggers". they are among Bush's most persistent and stubborn supporters. Most "fact-checkers" tire of posting there. Obviously, one person's "fact" checker is another one's blind, partisan, mistaken opponent. (p.138)

A good for instance appeared yesterday and today:

Daily Kos: CENTCOM Creates "Blog Team" To Scan Blogs

The Military is apparently hitting the "blog PR" circuit. "Planting" ideas on various blogs willing to share their blogspot (or blog limelight or blog opinion. But use of the blogosphere for PR is not exempt from that "blind authenticity"; I was conversing with Eric about this under THIS post. The transparency of blogs does not mitigate against being wrong. "Honestly sharing my opinion" does not necessarily make me "authentic". Getting caught up in the religious right (or left) does not make one authentic. My exploration of Gordon Cosby and Karla MCClung's "Becoming the Authentic Church" (see my sidebar on the right) takes on this notion head on. We have a deeply ingrained addiction to the culture, and we resist assimilation by joining counter revolutions that speak to us in some way. But our problem of addiction is not solved by "picking sides" and joining the rhetoric. If we do not cast our lot with the People of God we are destined to be "cast about by every wind of doctine" (Paul somewhere).

The military is fighting a serious challenge to their recruiting efforts, and so they want to create a "person on the street" interview where "their side of the story" can be hammered home. So, far from being exempt from "embellishment", blogs are often the very place where people are free to and often encouraged to embellish. People can construct their own personal "spin zone", where "we report and you decide". Just look at the ferocity and tireless efforts on "God-blogs" to be "Bush apologists". It's really becoming obvious how "required" this ddfense is for "true believers" in the Religious Right. (And yes, I have become all too aware of how this momentum is also gathering in the backlash of the left) That's why I believe the message of "Becoming the Authentic Church" is so important to the church right now.

In Naked Conversations, they list who should NOT blog. Basically, it's whoever needs control, or needs to maintain strict PR (they gave the example of Suddam Hussein. I would add Karl Rove and the Bush administration to the list. Of course, any president or presidential candidate nowadays is slave to "appearances" and "staying on message")

Blogs have so far worked extremely well for companies and people with do-the-right-thing cultures. We think they will fail in cultures that have public-be-damned attitudes.

OK, pretty obvious, but there are still those who "blog" seemingly to say that they are, and yet their blog is very much a PR thing, and many have no comments or interaction. We could say that these are simply pretenders, trying to cash in on the status and the "coolness" of it. Al Mohler is a perfect example. He "blogs" but he is not seemingly the type to want to dialogue.

The authors in Naked Conversations also assert that "embellishers" should not blog, that there are too many "fact checkers". But I seem to notice quite a crowd in the Bush-camp, especially among the "God-bloggers". they are among Bush's most persistent and stubborn supporters. Most "fact-checkers" tire of posting there. Obviously, one person's "fact" checker is another one's blind, partisan, mistaken opponent. (p.138)

What really gets under my skin is those within the church who worry about "what might be said" on a blog. If we insist that the "marketers" or official spokespersons of the churches and her organizations are the only ones we want publishing their prounouncements, then the best anbd deepest reasons for blogging are forfeited, and they might as well work on image crafting, and quit giving lip service to the idea that they are interested in people getting to know one another. I like the United Methodist Communications mission statement: "We help the church tell its story". That's one of the best pleas for instituting blogs and enabling blogs across the denomination that I can think of.

"Where people are encouraged to speak their mind, and those in power trust the people they oversee, blogging flourishes".
---Naked Conversations, p.131
Hear that churches and denominations? Are our doors always open? 'Nuff said.

Continuing on in Naked Conversations: The organizations with the power of numbers and dollars had best soon learn that the more they are ENABLERS of ways to get people enthused and engaged, the more they win a bit more of the ear of those people. It's very much that way with the church as well. The more churches, as individual communities, and denominations (as groups of these orgs) with their ability to marshal the aggregation of the resources such as education and curriculum and communications can realize that it is iin their own best interest to "host" and "enable" a variety of conversations on a wide range of topics, blogging will move closer to recognition as the "must have" tool.
I was just thinking of how we should be asking, as church, why NOT? Why not just open up the "spaces" where this can happen. Where is the leadership of denominational and ecumennical church groups on this issue? When I was just starting out in the faith, the big thing was small group and lay renewal, and finding ways to get people interacting. That's still a concern. But we are so much more fragmented and "private" now, it seems. There's much more emphasis on "Home entertainment", and electronic convenience. Here's the most captive audience; an audience that is VOLUNTARILY escaping to entertainment vistas. Tim Bednar of e-church is talking about how online spirituality is a big draw, and it is being populated and spearheaded not by church dropouts, but by the people heavily involved in traditional churches.

However, this is a false dichotomy. Our capacity for relationships is not zero-sum game. If I engage or belong to a cyberchurch, research (dating back to 2001) seems to show that I do not disengage from the local church when pursue spirituality online. In fact the opposite seems to be true, those most active in seeking spiritual information online are the more committed to local churches. (from Internet is changing the congregation)

What I'm stressing here is this: What's holding us back? As we do with much of our sense of call: STEP OUT THERE. What are we afraid of? That someone might be critical of us? That someone might complain? If they do, is this not an opportunity for not only us to respond, but for THE PEOPLE themselves to respond from their own experience. And is not the voice of the "person in the pew" more often accepted with less skepticism than when "defense" comes from "the seller"; those with supposedly so much to lose from being authentic?

And is this not our goal as a people of God? To be authentic. To admit that we NEED the voice of those so obvi ously willing to give us the critique we need? And is this not a way to harvest that coveted "focus group" accuracy of needs assesment?
This is a serious thing, folks. If we believe that the Church is about something serious (and yes, I do), and that God calls us, all of us, to be a part of the body of Christ and that we all have a role and a calling at any particular time, then this business of opening up all the doors of communcation is vital.

I'm half way through Naked Conversatons, and there's been quite a few notes I've jotted down from the first half. I'll get into the specifics of those when we get back home later today (we're at the in-laws right now, getting ready to leave in just a bit). But the theme is all there, in the pages of Naked Conversations, just like in the Cluetrain Manifesto 6 years ago (but now, it is glaringly obvious, and companies are starting to get it, and so its time for the church to follow suit, and that includes the denominations (they're constituents/members got it quite a while ago; they're needing to play catch up (again---just as with most all previous "new media")

For me, the power of story and the power of unfettered opinion is what gives blogs their immense value for connecting the people of God with one another. The church example in Naked Conversations don't seem to be getting it. As much as they pushed the idea of blogging, it very much seemed to be getting done by the "PR" folk, who are using it in much the same fashion as the "top-down" old-school PR folks Scoble and Israel talk about. I say this because much of the "blog-buzz" sounded like commercials for the various programs happening at the church. There's nothing wrong with doing SOME of this, but for me, the strength of blogs is in giving a flavor for who the PEOPLE are; their interests, passions, concerns , and their perceived role in the church.

In the fall of 2002, I bought Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs book. (There is an ongoing, active book blog that keeps updating all these themes here at smartmobs.com) . It took the theme of Virtual Community into the world of portable technology. I see this as a key element for Web 2.0/ Church 2.0.

My simple premise is this: If the church is really the center of our life; if it is the locus of all of our passion and the source of our life in Christ, then it is around this body that our communication interests and passi ons should revolve. The implication there is that the church be a source of enabling us to connect in as many ways and in as many places as possible; to keep us in conversatioln, to keep us learning and asking; to keep us in touch with those whom we have cast our lot. So there are scores of ways to enable us to "connect" during "downtime"; listening to podcasts on the way to work, getting phone messages or vibrates when blog posts are updated or RSS feeds update; a notification of a timely nature for the ministry we are involved with.

I'm still awaiting that device that combines ubiguity, effectiveness, dependability (not the least of which is the battery issue), and all-in-one functionality. Phone, browser, pager, MP3/Podcast player, RSS reader, etc.

I found this podcast on thier site (BloggingChurch.com), and I looked up some of the references they made (like the pastor they consider as a top notch pastor/CEO blogger, and listened to some of the premises of the book , some of which tackle topics of obvious church issues (Staff blogging, Why Blog?, Stories) but also has a section on "Marketing Your Church" which the podcast guys kind of scoff at the idea of people being critical of it, but I must say that I highly anticipate having quite a few problems , just getting a feeling that these churches are adverse to the idea of Christians being more concerned with Peace than with being "faithful Americans" (the pastor bloger made a few references such as :

EVEN protestors of the war--you may not agree with what America is doing...you may be outspoken...you may hate our government; however, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ then I will say how dare you speak or utter a word of protest if you have never lifted up the leadership of our country in prayer. And the next time you see a soldier--instead of getting angry at him or her...why not thank them for defending your right as an American to speak what is on your mind.

In fact, this is a major reason why I think it is even more important for churches seeking to live the way of Christ need to have blogers who are telling stories of what it is meaning these days to follow the Prince of Peace, and that their refusal to swallow nationalism run amuck is sorely needed as an indication to the blogosphere that there are Christians who take Jesus seriously, and what that might look like lived as a people.

I was excited to see a "Church blogger" (Fellowship Church of Dallas TX) introduced in Naked Conversations (p.70), but as I looked at the Web site and the various blogs, I was initially struck with how marketing oriented it is, and very low on the items which I consider to be the valuable currency for church blogs: stories, conversation about ministry, etc. And when I say "ministry" I am talking about more than the idea of ministry as "keeping the programming going". As I looked around, it was very UN-obvious what the theology of this church is. It sounded much like "Mega Church" -like "Sucessful Churches" stuff, and all the "buzz" was about "what's happening in the events and programs on "Successful Church", but nothing on personal or communal theology, nothing on being anything like "Resident Aliens". IN fact, the whole blurb about this church's "Blogging" didn't sound any different at all from the other "CEO" bloggers, other than mentioning that they see blogs as a "tool for evangelism". It's hard to see how with no personal stories from people in that church that give any kind of a flavor for what people in that church care about. Every "blog" I saw there seemed more like a glorified ad-fest for the Church's programs (like "Brochure-ware", shoveled into a blog format, and using the first person pronouns as befits blogs) . I suppose that might achieve what they're aiming for: to create buzz about the church. It falls way short for me, although that may well say more about my idea of church than it does about my idea of blogging. I guess this church fit the bill for a book about Business and Blogging, having its "CEO" type culture surrounding the pastor.

Interesting section in the Chapter on blogging being done by CEOs in Naked Conversations. Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who blogs for 86,000 employees behind the company firewall. I have sugested to this to a church before when there were protests about the open nature of online community, for there were cases where certain things are better kept "within the family". OK, I said, there's security for online community, and its much more effective than the lack of privacy that exists in "sharing during worship", since there is no way to "filter out" people we don't know or people we aren't sure we can trust. There can be multiple layers of online security for blogs and forums.

(A fairly new piece of Blog/Forum software I've been trying out, Community Server from Telligent, has a robust array of Membership Roles and security levels, to lock down nearly every feature in the Blog/Forum/PhotoGallery tool. CS began as DotText, a dot-Net based weblog written as an open source project under Microsoft's new open source projects (dotNetNuke is another). The developer for dotText moved on to Telligent as the lead for the CommunityServer project. CS also includes by default a Blog Home page that aggregates posts from all blogs that are opted in to be published on the blog aggregated page)

The idea of a Private internet is foreign to a lot of people. But the rise of "ExtraNets" and "INtraNets" in the business world will begin to erode this notion, as more get experience with the "Internet Efficiencies" being deployed by their companies to aid their productivity and immersion in the issues of making their companies better. Although there are different and/or additional values in the church that are at stake, there is such a thing as "Internet Efficiencies" to be realized by the church. Not in order to create some "CyberChurch", but to bring to bear the conversational and aggregation power of Internet resources on the mission of the church.

In an earlier post here I note the discussion of "Internet Efficiencies" in Naked Conversation (p.41), where the authors make the point that Google, EBay and Amazon were all able to leverage these "Internet Efficiencies" that planted "word of mouth" all over the Internet.

The word of mouth factor has certainly born itself out, but it is the combination of "word of mouth" with many points of access that gives this kind of news unique impact...IOW, instead of moving across individual conversations from one physical location to another, it moves in and out of individual conversations that have garnered this information and opinion from Web conversations (many or most of these from Blogs), and so the spread of the word is given an exponential boost.

I would add that just as important as the power of this new combination of "word of mouth" and "multiple instances" of placement and access of this word is the personal power--- the outlet this provides for the expression of interests , passions, and concerns. The explosion of "categories of interest" in every field imaginable has opened up theological discussion; not just in the halls of academia (although ithas expanded this as well), but also in the churches (although the churches need to AWAKEN to the "efficiencies" offered by the Internet, especially those of the blog and other Web 2.0 features-----yes, I would argue, that blogs are a feature of Web 2.0 ----others may have said the same, but I haven't run across any of those conversations yet)

The churches need to awaken to this becuase they have allowed themselves to become event driven, and in the process, negelected the task of being a community where people are KNOWN. Blogs have shown how simple reflections on daily events and news, and on media, and books, and politics, and theology, make it possible for us to see into the lives of our fellow members, who may well sit next to us in church, but we have never had the occasion to know that they are thinking similar things, reacting in a similar way, concerned about the same things, including the way in which the church has succumbed to the culture of individualism and thus de-emphasized the need we have to be a place where the normal modes of relationship are challenged, and an alternate consciousness exists.

Internet Efficiencies p.41----see later post

Blogging is word of mouth on steroids p.43

"Blogging is faster and more effective than walking from village to vilalge and knocking on doors" p.44
Welll, not exactly (perhaps for products...not for the fuller engagment whcih leads to community, and more specifically, the type of community we are about).......the aim I have is to draw people to where conversation takes place and desires physical prescence in order to more fully know the human behind the stories; and perhaps to try to discern how we might "give a go" to the vision of church that happens when a particular two or three or more are gathered.

"Transparency is not high-risk unless you have something to hide"
Vic Gondrota, General Manager for Platform Evangelism, Microsoft in Naked Conversations, p. 17

Another quote from Microsoft's Tech Evangelist, Lenn Pryor:
"There's no doubt we moved the needle, he said, adding with apparent pride, "and we did it without so much as a press release"
p.16

The above attest to the power of the conversation. If we open it up,and show the customer/audience who we are, this speaks volumes; more so than PR talk. And this goes for church talk too. Nothing reveals more about a church than the interests and concerns of its members and participants in its missions/ministries. This is why I have advocated for church blogs. It's the best mediated STORY delivery medium yet.

I'm off to church in just a bit, and I'm takin' notes on what I hope will be the start of a "A Web For the Church", the 21st centrury Sequel to a discusion I started about13 years ago on Ecunet, which was an ecumenical online community similar to that of The Well, and that discussion (called a "Meeting" on Ecunet's system) was called "A Compuserve for the Church" (since the Web was hardly in use by the public at that point ...late 92 early 93, Compuserve was the "Virtual World" of the day. Well, it's obviously a new world out there now (or, "in here"), and so many things have happened in the 13 years since. Web 2.0/Church 2.0 is what this kind of discussion has been dubbed out on the blogosphere. I should have a few notes to illuminate when I get back later today after an afternoon trek with the family after church.

I still intend to look into and "theoblogize" around this Web/Church 2.0 thing.....just had a busy day today, and gotta start out early in the morning, too.

Gavin pointed to an interesting post, re-invigorating of my "theoblogizing" ways----how the "Open Source", "Cluetrain-like" thinking and Christian communities serious about living life in depth with an eye to intense formation----all that kind of stuff. This is a post to remind me to look in depth to this in the morning as I start my day. Thanks for the pointer Gav! I need to dig back into my older Theoblogical , Online Community, Virtual Community, and Cluetrain category archives, and maybe even further back into the first thoughts I had on Church and Online resources back in the early days of the public web (1993-98) when I was hasing this stuff out in the Ecunet community.

TallSkinnyKiwi: Church 2.0

Church 2.0 . . . a missional ecclesiastic response to a culture influenced by the values of Web 2.0

Emerging Church 2.0 might be those emerging churches that are shaped by new media values rather than old media. They write blog posts rather than articles, PDFs rather than books, start churches without buildings, and lack a vertically hierarchical leadership structure. Hierarchy is modular and dynamic, rather than vertical and static. I am not talking about cyberchurches that migrate to the web. I am talking about alternative faith communities that emerge online and then seek physical meetings, new aggregations of believers that connect with each other and the world through the complex networks that make up their World 2.0

I started this blog back in mid 2002 with an idea--- and that's where Theoblogical was born. It is the idea that there is a role for blogging (and by association, Web technologies in general) in the method and shape taken by knowledge and interpersonal communication in the theological world, and online community is emerging from the geeky subculture Where Wizards Stay Up Late (the book written in 1996 chronciling the roots and invention of what is now known as the Internet --- or if you're George W. Bush, "the uhhh ....Internets").....online community, in other words, is coming out into the open as various "social networks" spring up, powered by a multitude of various network technologies. The 2004 election cycle and the Dean campaign brought even more of this to light (and Joe Trippi's book , The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was a good narrative of this "revolution".

I "made my mark" , so to speak, as Theoblogical, becuase I was focused on the role of Online Communication in the ministry of the church. It seems that this is my NICHE. I'm not an exemplary programmmer, but one who has always been comfortable with gadgetry (I was playing with the earliest audio cassettes, the first on the seminary dorm hallway to have a VCR ---circa 1979----- which I luged back and forth with me to Cincinnati from Louisville, KY on my weekend stints as Youth Minister at Ninth Street Baptist Church. Ten years later, after doing some full time Youth Ministry, and some Audio-Video Sales and INstallation, I returned to Seminary at United Theological Seminary in Dayton OH to enter the MARC program (Masters of Arts in Religious Communication) in 1990. My advisor was Ken Bedell, and he was a Computer Communications specialist, and my intial intro to him was his presentation to the United Seminary chapel on one of my pre-enrollment visits, where he had a dial up connection to Ecunet, and projected the video up onto a screen above the choir loft, and entered in prayer requests from the chapel participants regarding the earthquakethat had just taken place the night before in the Bay Area (this was October 1989) .

I later particpated in a Doctor of Ministry program group that did the majority of its work online (about 3 or 4 Face to face, yearly meetings between 1994 and 1997). When I moved to Nashville from Cincinnati in 1997 to take a job at the United Methodist Publishing House (where I worked until 2002), I laid aside my thesis which was studying Online Community and its implications for the church. I have often desired to take up those studies again in a very disciplined way. I have always kept an ear to the ground and on the bookshelves and various Internet articles for what people are saying about the use of Computer Communications for the church. I began a church website where I was, in the pre-blog days (at least pre-my-awareness of Blogs), where I included disucssion forums and used some database driven functianlity to allow for keeping the site up to date with an online Web-based back end. The forums became the point of some controversy when I asked a few questions about a very questionable , "command-decision" by the pastor to suspend post-sermon discussion as a part of the worship service that had been a long-standing tradition for several years--- and this was done on the Sunday following September 11, 2001. There were numerous conversations in little clumps of people all over the building for a long time after the service. I had been trying , prior to that event, without success, to set up follow-up meeting with the pastor, who was still new (only about 5 months), to continue my laying out for her the sense of call that I felt to enable some "technological extensions" to the church community to allow members to know more about the people in the church, to tell the story of the church to the "Internet audience", and to provide ways for people from the outside to find people concerned about various points of need in the world and to find that these are being discussed and acted upon by Christians in this particular church community.

Since then, various "Church Web" outfits have grown up as the Web gets bigger, and becomes more a part of the "business world" and project management. As organizations and business discover the advantages of having an online community, the church has "caught on", and yet rarely move beyond "shovelware" from various brochures.

More on this to come.

The Christian Blogosphere: what some in it are currently saying about Iraq | blogs4God

Of course neither my view or the views held in the above link represent the Christian blogosphere in it's entirety - just a vocal portion of it.

Of course. Of course, also, these "vocal voices" are not at all representative of those who are vocal (me for instance, or an entire contingent of thousands who agree with Jim Wallis that the Religiour Right does not speak for all Christians. But that whole issue is effectively sidestepped and ignored in so many of the "sub-blogospheres" purporting to represent "God-centered Blogs". I posted on this yesterday, and got comnments back and an email saying "You're welcome to post anything you want here, as long as its civil". I commented back and said something to the effect of "I thought Blogs4God was an aggregator and "summary" type of blog portal, and for over a year, you were linking to articles of mine with regularity. Since the election season and my voicing of sharp criticisms and concerns about the Bush administration, it's like I've dropped off the radar. I said I didn't really plan on c oming over to Blogs4God and post comments there. I expect, as always, to post what I belive to be pressing questions and rant on these questions for a time. I expect that since we all have blogs, that anyone can post rebuttals. I want to avoid comment section wars of words, which is what I expect will happen inevitably if I post my viiews there, but blogs can certainly be distributed conversation, and so I prefer to wait and see if this whole issue is considered woirthy of mention as Blogs4God summarizes the "interesting posts of the day". And of course, I'm not going to censor any comments that may be entered on my blog either. If anyone wants a debate about peace and Iraq and such, then we'll have one.

A while back, I posted something like "Blogs 4 God has ditched me", and not soon after, I got an email from someone there saying, "NO we didn't". My observation back then was that since the election season, and ever since, there has been ZERO linkage to me other than the lone listing I have there. Before the Election season and all its issues, on which I coimmented regularly and often as to my opinion of the Bush administration, there were pointers to my blog on a fairly regular basis. Since then, and even after the denial of that charge, still NOTHING. It's not that I even want them pointing to me if it means what I think it means: that they would do so in the context of disagreement. Perhaps that is why they DON'T point to me any more. IN that case, that's fine. I really don't want to attract any "trolls" from the ranks of those who consider it tantamount to blasphemy to criticize the Bush administration.

But it also seems to me to be another instance of "ghetto-ization" of many such "Christian" blogdoms, and it seemed so at the GodBlogCon as it seemed quite heavy if not exclusively Pro-Bush Pundity bloggers. I know that such is so with LeShawn Barber and Hugh Hewitt.

I saw the general makeup of Blogs4God when I signed up, but wanting to be ecumenical, I joined. And prior to the election season and all my theologizing about the Bush administration, Blogs4God regularly linked to my posts. I understand that they may well have a few more "godBlogs" in their aggregation tasks now, but to fall to ZERO menti on?

It's even more disturbing that this "political" marginalization has happend considering that I have made a complete U-turn in terms of theological-to-political rant ratio. Much of my blog has been centered on church and the need to Authentic church. Prior to my trip to DC, I wias reading heavily in Radical Orthodoxy writings, via Stanley Hauerwas and James KA Smith, William Cavanaugh, etc. It would SEEM that such things might be of interest to "God bloggers". I'm not quite sure now what the criteria is for selecting links.

Just as the Southern Baptist convention, ala the likes of Al Mohler, have basically narrowed the scope of theological inquiry to their choice topics and issues, and "cut off" discussion (Mohler has no comments on his blog), and NEVER talks about the Bush administration's war policies ----I mean, completely ignores it-----it seems that opposition to war and to Bush is also anathema to Blogs4God. And that is extremely sad. They (the "keepers" of Blogs4God, don't have to agree, but if they are going to purport to represent the totality of "Blogs that explore the things of God" , then a huge contingency is missing from their "coverage".

From what I read of the GodBlogCon, the "featyured" attenders and "linked" reviewers and "name-dropped" people are all pretty rabidly right wing (except for DJ, with whom I am familiar from past blog comments and blogger meetups----plus DJs being a rep of American Bible Society brings a certain "ecumeniucity" to the "right-heavy" leanings of GodBlogCon.

The "First Impressions" list at http://www.godblogcon.com/blog/ are batting 1.000 for total absorption in the right-leaning blogosphere, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there even exists things like Progressive Chritian bloggers, or anything "other" than , well......Why was that?

This all bothers me.

I've been meaning to ask about this for some time, but what happened to the site http://www.therightchristians.org? They changed their site name to thevillagegate, but were still reachable via that "therightchristians.org" domain, but now that domain is kaput (some squatter company has it)as well as thevillagegate.org, which is "parked" right now at "Go Daddy". Where did they go, and when did they "sign off"?

David Weinberger comments on Rebecca MacKinnon's experience with a Newsweek article that bungled basic facts about her.

Joho the Blog: Rebecca on doing business with China - and Newsweek's sloppiness

Rebecca also blogs about Newsweek's sloppy characterization of her. As she notes, it's not a big deal, except that the MSM [Mainstream Media] keep telling us that they're better than bloggers because they have fact checkers, they're professionals, they get their facts right, etc.

Yeah, that's what they like to claim. Still have to actually work at it, though. One of my "favorite" things about Fox is how they, more than any other "mainstream" network, seem to rely on "pasing comments" and scores of unsubstantiated innuendos and "facts" . They basically run without footnotes, and provide many "fact checking bloggers" with a lot of blog fodder.

This was an interesting read, in that it reveals what most of us have already heard given to us as "warning", but it seems to me that the passage below unmasks what SHOULD be a "then so what?" for these who judge blogers to be "too wierd".

Chronicle Careers: 07/08/2005

But it's also not hard to find examples of the worst kinds of uses.

A blog easily becomes a therapeutic outlet, a place to vent petty gripes and frustrations stemming from congested traffic, rude sales clerks, or unpleasant national news. It becomes an open diary or confessional booth, where inward thoughts are publicly aired.

Oh, they left out "What I ate for breakfast"

Worst of all, for professional academics, it's a publishing medium with no vetting process, no review board, and no editor. The author is the sole judge of what constitutes publishable material, and the medium allows for instantaneous distribution. After wrapping up a juicy rant at 3 a.m., it only takes a few clicks to put it into global circulation.

We've all done it -- expressed that way-out-there opinion in a lecture we're giving, in cocktail party conversation, or in an e-mail message to a friend. There is a slight risk that the opinion might find its way to the wrong person's attention and embarrass us. Words said and e-mail messages sent cannot be retracted, but usually have a limited range. When placed on prominent display in a blog, however, all bets are off.

So, if "we've all done it" , then why the judgement? For me, that's the appeal and the power of blogs to a large extent. It's a way to get to know people, and know them beyond the usual "PR", sanitized, tidy, and often as a result, PHONY extension of their persona. With blogs we can sense the absence of corporate posturing and "one size fits all" marketing BS. I think that is crucial for theological blogging.

This is PARTICULARLY why I believe blogging to be a candidate for being a crucial resource to churches, to let members explore in more depth and detail afforded by face to face events and meetings, the passions , concerns, joys, and humor of one another. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of people who see each other every Sunday (and perhaps even on Wednesday nights, if you're a Baptist or a Church of Christ person) to have the "I didn't know you were interested in X or that you thought Y". It is a springboard for many offline, face to face "real life" encounters and growth of relationships, because the blog has "given permission" and opened awareness that there is much of mutual interest to talk about.

And when I say "Real life", that's another questionable assumption. When relational breakthroughs like the above described "I didn't know you thought X" happen, an avenue of very real revelation of personal truth has happened, and no thanks to the "real life" of traditional social interaction that somehow and often "blocks" this from happening by sheer intimidation, and by the tendency of churches to "fill the time" to the brim with little time left for actually getting to know people, unless you want to "catch someone at the door", and then have to deal with the fact that you maight be "detaining" them from getting on to their next scheduled event. With the blog's personal background, maybe people are not so apt to "rush out" of the post event buzzing of conversation and look up someone who has raised an issue in their blog that deserves a conversation, or has had a particularly entertaining or profound point about some issue that is worth a face-to-face kudo.

Another shared value, amongst bloggers anyway, is a clue about what blogging is, and our united recognition of the way that SOME and probably MOST big media companies are predisposed to trash the whole deal...or to minimize and mock the blogosphere.

The National Debate: AP Mocks Bloggers in Wholly Inaccurate Account of BlogNashville

AP Mocks Bloggers in Wholly Inaccurate Account of BlogNashville

I spent 45 minutes with Tanner, giving him the basic outline of the event and answering his questions most of which reflected no familiarity with blogs. During the course of the interview Linda Seebach of the Rocky Mountain News and Bill Hobbs of Belmont University wandered over to the table where Tanner and I were seated and added their own thoughts to my answers to Tanner's questions.

So, imagine my surprise when I read Tanner's account of BlogNashville which, I am told, ran in 180 papers around the world including The Washington Post, The LA Times, the Boston Globe and papers in Asia and Europe.

The previous post speaks of Frank's suggestion of "Passion" as basic values. Passion does seem to me to be a requirement, It seems to be ever-present in the experience of call -- the invitation to join in on what the Christian community would call "participating in God's story".

Movable Theoblogical: Passion and Creativity

So I name myself theoblogical, and it seems that this expresses a mix of blog-passion and God-self-community-world passion. I wore my "Citizen of the World" shirt on Saturday at Blog Nashville, and got compliments on it. This , for me, is very much a passionate theological statement. It's why I made sure I wore the shirt on Sept 11, 2002.

Ed Cone's comments about the confrontation between Dave Winer and someone who found himself called upon about his laughing at something Dave said.

EdCone.com

if I'd been in the room, maybe I could have asked Stan, wow, you find Dave's comment that the economy is bad to be so wrong that you are laughing at it -- could this be a moment to step back from your strong views and Dave's strong views to look for things on this very specific subject on which we can all agree? What are some numbers that back up your claim that the economy is doing great, Stan? Can Dave agree on those numbers? On what those numbers mean? But that's not the way it went, and that's a shame.

I was there , too. Over on the guy's (Stan is his name) blog, I commented to him on what I saw, and how much of what he put in his post seemed to back up that Dave correctly sensed his unspoken contempt. Today he posts his defense of his "The economy is in fantastic shape", and "leaves it" with a quote from a former "Reagan economist". That's supposed to be a "nuff said" defense?

Some of Stan's economic argument, which he basically "leaves" with Larry Kudlow, the Bush administration's favorite "expert witness":