Happy anniversary!
It has been one year since we began the NewLife blog, which means that it’s a great time for reflection on how God has used the blog as well as an evaluation of the benefits of blogging for a church.
When I began as the full-time pastor last October, I decided to send out a weekly e-newsletter that would include my thoughts on a particular issue, details on upcoming events in the church, and prayer needs. A few weeks into sending out The Pulse of NewLife, my good friend Ben Dubow, who is the pastor of St. Paul’s Collegiate Church in Storrs, CT (if you aren’t keeping up with what God is doing through this church, you need to visit www.stpaulswired.org), encouraged me to change from a newsletter format to a blog in order to give an opportunity for feedback and discussion on what I was writing, as well as to open our church up to a wider audience via the Internet.
For the first six months, there were few comments (thank you to “a seeker” for being the first regular commentor) or readers from outside our church. Then, on April 10th, I wrote an essay on LifeChurch.tv’s church plant in Second Life, a virtual world where people can interact through avatars (an online persona they have created). For those of us still getting used to projecting songs by Power Point instead of using songbooks, this sort of experimental, forward-thinking evangelistic outreach was pretty mind-blowing. That blog post was linked to by two people whom I had never met – the first was Zack Exley, a Washington D.C. based Christian who had worked with politicians like John Kerry and Howard Dean as well as progressive organizations on their online campaigns. Zack and his wife Elizabeth had been considering moving to Glastonbury, and he had begun listening to our sermons and reading our blog as a result. Zack and Elizabeth recently left D.C. to embark on what should be an amazing tour of America in order to report on leaders of all kinds who are making a difference in their community (www.heartlandinnovators.org) and to educate their many secular friends on the progressive evangelical Christian movement (www.revolutioninjesusland.com). And hopefully some day they will make it up to Glastonbury.
The second person to link to the “Second Life” post was Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor for LifeChurch.tv and co-author of The Blogging Church, who is responsible for helping the Oklahoma-based multi-site church extend its reach using technology and the Internet. As one of the main people responsible for the Second Life church plant, it was great to have him comment on the blog and offer more of an explanation for why they chose to plant a church in a virtual world. Terry’s most recent online experiment is www.youversion.com, an online Bible that will allow anyone to offer comments and insights or links pertaining to verses of Scripture, enabling a fascinating level of community and collaboration in Bible study.
Having two people with a wider audience link from their sites to our blog opened it up to a whole new readership and many more commentors. In June, a post on the liberal/conservative divide in Christianity was picked up by Susan Campbell, religion columnist for The Hartford Courant, who wrote a column on what I had written, giving more exposure to our church to Connecticut readers. Then, at the end of June, I wrote my thoughts on homosexuality and the church, which predictably drew all sorts of commentors and links from many different angles.
The blog experiment has definitely been a good move (thanks, Ben!) and has really set our church apart from many others in offering such an online forum to discuss theological and cultural ideas. For those who are still wondering what the benefits of a church having a blog are or aren’t convinced that it is worth it, let me share three motivations that I see behind a church blog:
1) Discipleship and conversation – In many ways, blogging is online discipleship. I have always used the blog as a forum in which to theologically reflect on something in culture, from the format of the evening news to the motivation behind the millions of people on MySpace. Hopefully, my reflections are encouraging readers to think and act more like Jesus. In the same way, I am able to read the blogs of many pastors, professors, and theologians who are way more skilled at their job or knowledgeable about the Bible then I am and gain lots of wisdom without ever leaving my chair. At the same time, because there is an opportunity for readers to comment, it opens up an opportunity for dialogue, questioning, and, occasionally, correction. Check out the “Homosexuality and the Church” post for the best example of the sort of online dialogue that is possible.
2) Hospitality – Most of us can agree that visiting a new church is not always an easy thing for people, especially checking out a church the doesn’t meet in a traditional church building called “NewLife Christian Fellowship” in a town where the typical church name is “St. Peter’s” or “First Congregational.” A church website allows an inquirer to learn what a church is like and what they value before they even step in the door. The blog is one of the best ways to offer hospitality to a seeker, because it offers a window into the sort of things a church talks about as well as how they discuss those things. For example, one can get a sense of whether the church encourages dialogue and the expression of different opinions or whether they say things with a “and that’s the way it is, period” attitude. At its best a blog, as well as the rest of a church website, allows a visitor to walk around the church in anonymity, checking it out without fear of feeling like he or she doesn’t belong.
3) Marketing and Outreach – Let’s be honest – more people are looking for a church on the Internet than in the Yellow Pages these days. In fact, just about every new visitor to our church in the past six months found us on the Internet. With millions of sites on the web, and many churches bigger, older, and more prominent than ours, how is it that people find our church? The answer is largely due to the blog. There is a whole secret science to which churches appear first on Google when you type in, for example, “church in Hartford county,” but two of the most important factors are how often your website is updated and how many other websites have a link to your site. Having a blog means that our site is updated often with new material, and every time another blogger links to something I’ve written, it helps the popularity of our website. For example, if you google “Evangelical church CT,” NewLife is the third church on the list, behind a church in Monroe and one in Wilton. So, in the end, for hundreds of dollars less than advertising in the Yellow Pages, we are able to reach more people with more information about our church and what we believe.
So, as we enter Year Two of The NewLife blog, where do we go from here? One hope of mine is to include more voices on the blog than just my own. If we truly want to be hospitable and offer a window into our church, the best thing we could do is to offer more perspectives – like having someone share about their experience in a home fellowship, or what it’s like serving with Isaiah 58. We could have a recent attendee sharing what it’s been like to find NewLife, or an elder sharing his view of how things are going at the church. We could include pictures from recent events or a preview of an upcoming opportunity. Can you see how this would help give an accurate picture of our church for someone before they even step foot in the door?
I also plan on including more links on the blog to other blogs and websites (like the ones mentioned in this post) that I think are worth checking out. After all, I am only one voice in the conversation, and I’ve been influenced in many ways by the other voices out there. And of course, I will continue to post a new reflection every week on something that I think is worth your attention.
I praise God for giving me something fresh to write about every week, and I genuinely thank you for reading and offering your comments and feedback. May we continue to use every available means to bring the transformative love of Jesus to our world.
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