Building Community: Blogging
by Paul Prins at 7:00 pm
ChurchMarketingSucks.com
Blogs are a great way to communicate with the world. With millions upon millions of blogs in the world focusing on ever subject under the sun why make another one? Because this one is personal for those you are ministering with and to.
Blogging is another very easy form of informal communication. While some companies do choose to use a blog for their formal communication it is traditional informal. Its a way to share thoughts from your life, or to write about your specialization for others to read. For you, this is perfect as you have members who want to know more about both! Now to decide what to focus your blog on, personal life, or theology…
Get your free blog here at insightsforchurch.com if you don’t yet have one.
Personal Blogs
These are the easiest to understand in theory. They are blogs that you write about your personal life and what goes on day to day. For years I have kept one such blog (www.paulprins.net) and have used it for different purposes at different times. When doing ministry work overseas it served as a way to communicate with friends and family back home (in addition to monthly prayer letters).
Personal blogs will tend to share personal stories from day to day life. Maybe God showed you something through an interaction with one of your kids, or God has blessed you in a special way and you just want to share that with people. The goal of a personal blog is to share stories from your life and ministry that let people connect with you as a person.
With all that said, don’t believe you need to post every detail of your life. Pick and choose. One caution is to make sure you keep balanced in your postings (don’t always be the hero, and don’t always be the victim).
Theological Blogs
The essence of this difference is that personal blogs don’t write about ideas, where theological blogs are idea based. In general there are two ways these blogs work themselves out for the church. You can share a second level of insights from you Sunday services, or just posting theological thoughts.
Sermon Outlines: The easiest of these two is just to post your sermon outline to your blog every Sunday. By doing this is allows members from your church to review the sermon, see your notes, and read the application parts. I would suggest a brief version of your outline to help your readers focus on the application part. Here you can have an extended description of the application, share about how you’ve been challenged by the application, and invite your members to post how they are living out the application.
Deeper Theology: These posts can be written about any sort of theological idea/concept. This can be a great way to share about the theological base of your church/denomination. If you’re a student at seminary writing about new ideas you’re learning and struggling through can be very helpful for others to read over.
Insights for Church - Get a free blog
Final Thoughts
The most important part of blogging to to do it on some sort of consistent basis. Most likely this will mean weekly (though it could be daily). Remember that people will read and subscribe to your blog, so the more frequently you update it the larger your readership will likely become. Just make sure not to over commit to your blog, because it is an addition and supplement to your ministry (which is why I love the sermon outline approach, it is another use of work you already did).
Remember you can get your free blog here at insightsforchurch.com.
November 13th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
[...] Blogging [...]
November 14th, 2008 at 7:38 am
[...] by unknown « Church Times – ‘All voices’ at NEAC Mt View Mennonite Women: "Leading with [...]