This week I’m meeting up with a group of friends to begin an informal discussion on how we at St. Helen’s can use web technologies better as a church.
I decided to write up my current ideas on this and see what you thought.
If we define church as something like ‘a community of people being shaped by God through his word’ (that includes a missional element there), then it seems to me that the best way of using web 2.0 type things to help achieve that aim would be to build a community around a set of church blogs. I think this would be better than going for a purer community like Facebook or Ning or messing around with lifestreaming/sharing.
I see blogging as advantageous because:
- There is a platform for the Word to be taught. As opposed to Facebook profiles etc where we might often be speaking the truth in love, in a blogging network we can do that as well as have a community that is built on the Word.
- Authority is more present. There is a clear line between the author and the commentator, a line that I think is very biblical (though I am clearly in favour of the lay-person blogging!)
- They are better for engaging people from outside the community as all the content is open and obvious and more interesting to read than the Rector’s profile would be.
- Participating in the blog community is has a lower barrier to entry than joining a social network.
- Blogs are an established part of the internet, whereas Twitter and social bookmarking and to a lesser extent Facebook are not.
- Setting up a few blogs is an easy first step, technically and socially. Community type features to allow people to network could then be added on top when there is demand (e.g. using Disqus).
I should stress that the discussion we’re having is very early stage and informal, nothing official yet. But if you’d like to be involved, drop me a line in the comments.
What do you think? Are blogs the best building block?
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