A Blog Article
Published by Matt Glover August 8th, 2006 in My WritingOk. I have to write an article for the Baptist Witness (the magazine published by my denomination) about how this blog, and I guess the internet in general, has become part of my ministry.
I must admit that it has become far bigger than I ever thought it would be. That’s a good thing.
It has also put me in touch with a number of people in a pastoral capacity that I would not have been able to help otherwise.
And it has stimulated some good thoughts and discussion on various topics that have had a positive influence on me personally.
What do you reckon are the benefits of incorporating an online component to ministry?
in a time-poor society (because we are all sitting at home on the internet?
) it means that meaningful discussion can take place across time/space limitations.
Another reason is that the internet has some bad places- it’s good to have a good one.
got to run…
(good idea for an article…)
Well, me being me, I think there are lots of benefits to an online component of ministry, I agree with Alison that it means that discussion can take place across space/time limitations. But not only that, the increased audience, is well, HUGE, and global.
On the internet, there is that capacity to reach a much larger group of people, and also a chance for anonymity, sometimes you want to say something, but don’t know how people will react, so you can use the anonymity the internet provides to say that. The amount of resources that can be provided is also huge, from podcasts, sermon transcripts, “how-tos”, and other ministry resources… the vision for the youth site is
“for the website to be a central place that has all things Youth related in the church, starting with YG, and hopefully expanding to BB/GB/whatever else…. And to also have our own bit, forums, blogs, where people outside of the “Mitcham Baps Community” can come and discuss things”
So, I think there are quite a few benefits, and oppurtunities.
Newton put it best. Every action has and equal and opposite reaction.
For every part of anonymity, you have an equal part loss of accountability.
For every part of ‘Global Community’, you give up fellowship.
For every part larger audience, you give up specificity.
For every part ‘time/space’ limitations, you compromise attitudes of commitment.
Someone could download an MP3 of praise music, listen to that, read a sermon online, say a prayer, and call that church. It takes away the element of service and worship that attending church is. Sometimes, actually dragging yourselves out in the mornign on a Sunday, or through the cold of a Saturday evening to a church is an effort.
Engaging in an MSN conversation with another believer and sending ({)is not the same as engagin with a person face to face, to look into their eyes and hear out their problems and offer a heartfelt hug, rather a cold shallowness. Anonymity is brilliant, but it also allows us to be unnacountable for our actions. Anyway, when did we reach a point where we couldnt deal honestly with our Christian brotehrs and sisters anyway? Must we now hide behind a false facade in real life and only live out our real lives online?
I’m all for this form of ministry, but we have to acknowledge it’s inherent problems as well as its benefits. When this ministry sits in addition to a regular Christian faith, thats fine. However, when it replaces it, it carries with it problems.
You have a point there Mitch… I know that talking “online” in no way replaces a real conversation with someone, where you can sit, see them, feel the emotion in their voice and see it in their eyes, and simply be there…
I don’t think that online ministry in any way replaces church. What we’ve got going at the moment is podcasts of sermons. So say your off on Holiday, and you miss the latest sermon from the current series at church, well, you can still listen to it. It’s in no way a replacement for true fellowship, but it does have its benefits. There’s always positives and negatives, but I definetly agree when you say it has to go along with regular faith, and not replace it. I think the aim is to extend the fellowship throughout the week, beyond Sunday… I mean, I have never met you, yet still we can have this discussion on matters of faith courtesy of Matt’s blog.
I kind of have a passion for web based ministry, so sorry if I seemed a little defensive. But if you want to know what I think web ministry could/should be like… visit http://www.mitchambaptist.org.au/youth/
That site is more youth based, an extension of the youth ministry at Mitcham, but the aim is to offer a central place for YG kiddies to discuss matters of faith during the week, when they may not necessarily see each other aside from Sundays. That’s what I think it should be like, but, I’m open to your thoughts too.
Interesting thoughts, Mitch. I agree- we don’t want the matrix like effect…
Like pretty much all technology, you have to be reasonable and responsible about it.
No, listening to the sermon, praise songs and saying a prayer wouldn’t be church, but it could be a pretty cool quiet time.
I like technology, it enables us to do lots of cool things- but it is not the be all and end all. We could still do church even if the sermons weren’t podcasted.
Partnership of technology and the traditional is what we need. It helps us to “become all things to all people so that we might save some” (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%209:19-22;&version=31;)
What about the printing press? A marvellous technology in it’s day- it allowed the Bible to be made available to ordinary people, but it also facilitated the production of mass hate propaganda and dirty magazines- but we still use the printing press to print Bibles to this day.
All this begs the question, “What is church?”.
If you remove face-to-face fellowship, do you no longer have church? Or is that just a component that, when removed, makes our experience of church less rich?
If we say church is community, then what is community? Is the online community a real substitute for the traditional community?
Good stuff everybody - you should have my article written for me in no time!
I think you know the answer to those questions already Matthew…
Matty, i’ve joined the blog-o-sphere. I don’t think it will come to much though.