The Great Commission and the Internet.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      2 comments      link this post     


::This is the "theory" I have about blogs and Christians, that I mentioned in this post.::

The Internet should be a marvelous tool to spread the message of Christ. And it is. There are so many web sites and ministries and charitable organizations that have used it to do amazing things. I'm not even going to attempt to highlight that aspect of it. Just the ease at which it has made charitable giving and organizational updates alone...

This isn't a post about that.

It's about blogs, Christians, and what gets magnified when the two meet.

Blogging's strength is in giving a voice to anyone who has an internet connection. It shares and spreads and breaks news. It opens up discussions and thoughts that previously were reserved for universities or published authors or coffee shops. It breaks down geographic barriers and allows people to no longer limit their connections based on interests within geographic boundaries.

Oh, but the weaknesses. The weakness that is "free speech", which is why I have the comments rules section that I have.

In a post that really had nothing to do with the topic at hand here, a comment was left that stated "...I find most of the anti-discernment bloggers-discernment bloggers also the ecm, to be excessively religious and prideful, to the point of elitism."

I left a comment, because something struck me in a kind of "new idea taking root in my mind" way that often happens:

If this had been phrased "anti-discernment bloggers, discernment bloggers, and ecm bloggers" I could have easily pointed out the clear problem: they’re bloggers.

It takes a certain kind of pride and elitism to blog, since you assume anyone wants to read what you’ve written.

But back to the original…if these three are such, then which kind of Christian blog/blogger isn’t in danger of being "excessively religious and prideful"?

I have a theory that part of the problem is the blog itself, that when a writer decides something like "my blog is going to be about Rick Warren leading the world astray!" or "my blog is about truth in discernment!" it becomes incredibly limited and makes the blogger create mountains out of molehills just to keep the blog fresh. (Example: Apprising Ministries)

If the focus, however, isn’t one of such limiting format (maybe like "my blog is about living the Christian life" which opens it to a lot of stuff), the blogger does not have to always look for trouble and turn themselves into a complainer or nit-picker or some such thing.

I have started to think that the narrower the focus of the blog/blog ministry, the more detrimental it is to the Gospel of Christ.

Do you know how many blogs out there have "ministry" in the title, let alone how many blogs are by writers considering their blog a "ministry" but not putting it in the title? A random and completely lazy Technorati search for "blogs about ministry" turns up a mere 4,000+, but I know that's not even close.

Let's imagine you're a person deciding to start a blog and consider it your official ministry, your duty to God to blog. If you're serious, you're going to start digging, and then you'll find yourself digging when there's no more dirt left to dig. After all, you need to keep people coming, need to keep people sending money to support your ministry. Again, the best example I can use here is Apprising Ministries' infamous appeals for funding, thought I'm not trying to beat a dead horse.

If the world of Christianity isn't as bad as you've made it out to be, why would anyone send money? You have to tell them that it is. People pay for bad and alarming news because it's a kind of tension that we enjoy and can milk for negativity. It's a spur in the side, it keeps us going. People don't tenaciously support ministries of Good News and Glad Tidings of Great Joy like they do ministries about Apostasy! and Come Lord Jesus and Save Us, The Remnant.

The first thing I decided that I would have to do is consider myself. I am a Christian, and I blog. I made a kind of question check-list to see if I'm going off the deep-end into yappy kick-dog land over on my main Lone Prairie Blog:

1. Do I have a list of targets that I keep taking pot shots at continually?
2. Do I have a list of topics that I can't let go?
3. Have I made grandiose statements about how certain I am of something due to God telling me it was so?
4. Do I sound like a rabid foil to Christopher Hitchens?
5. Am I using my past posts as proof of being right in new posts?

Let's see how I fared.

1. I would say no. I've gotten better. For a while there were a lot of posts about a certain defunct-now-reborn web site which ended up with me making a category out of it as a euphemism for "ministries" that I find revolting. In the past, there were a few weeks where I was clearly upset with that particular site, but I think I've managed to balance that out now.


2. I write a lot about how we treat each other, and about relationships, communication, caring and so on with other people. Stuff like that. But I don't think it seems disproportionate. I have a lot under the "my life" category, which sort of serves as my "miscellaneous" category; I don't think that would count as obsessing over a specific topic.


3. Never. In fact, if I am honest, I allow too much self-deprecation and self-loathing to surface.


4. No. I don't think I come off as a die-hard anything, absolutely-sure of everything kind of person.


5. I do reference past posts a lot, but not as "proofs" since I rarely try to prove anything on the blog. I don't consider it to be like Geometry, but I do use past posts to avoid explaining something I've already said to new readers or those who may have forgotten.

I don't consider any of my blogs to be official "ministries", though I've gotten enough emails from people responding to things I've written to know that God can use what I've written. I wonder, then, if the problem isn't like that of the concept of "ministry" in the first place, one I've often commented to others about.

Ministry, as a Christian, is your life. Aren't we all called to the ministry? To separate it out as something that must not be polluted with a regular job and life and interaction with people makes it into the blog version of Mountains and Molehills. The focus shouldn't be the ministry, but Christ. It's easy to lose sight of that in a daily press for new content and funds to raise.

There is no Lone Prairie Ministry. That doesn't mean there is no Lone Prairie ministry.

Blogs live or die on fresh, updated content. They are the opposite of static communication. Small-focus "ministry" blogs combine with this fact and magnify the worst aspects of forced new-ness while turning the strength of blogging (a voice for everyone, read by everyone) into a huge harming blow for the Gospel of Christ.

What do you think? Did I accurately assess my own blog? The situation? Thoughts?

Labels: blogging, christianity, critique, discussion

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger  8/27/2007 01:30:00 PM   (2) comments   Links to this post    

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