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We Know More Than Our Pastors

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A paper by Tim Bednar on how Bloggers are the vanguard of participatory church.
47
We Know More Than Our Pastors Why Bloggers Are the Vanguard of the Participatory Church Written By Tim Bednar Originally published Tuesday, April 06, 2004 Updated Thursday, April 22, 2004
Transcript
Page 1: We Know More Than Our Pastors

We Know More Than Our Pastors Why Bloggers Are the Vanguard of the Participatory Church

Written By Tim Bednar

Originally published Tuesday April 06 2004

Updated Thursday April 22 2004

tbednar
Note
Please contact me if you find typos or grammatical errors1313timbednare-churchcom

Table of Contents 10 Introduction 3 20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud 5 30 My Cyberspace Pilgrimage 6 40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging 9

41 We Blog To Participate 10 42 We Blog in the Present 11 43 We Blog In The First Person 11 44 We Blog As A Discipline 13 45 We Use Blogging To Preach 14 46 We Blog To Earn Permission 14 47 We Blog To Care 15 48 We Blog Build The Kingdom 16

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed 20 51 Cathedral And Bazaar 20 52 Memex Machines 21 53 Vanguard Of The Church 22 54 Priesthood of All Bloggers 22

60 Problems with Blogging 27 61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity 27 62 Seeking a Virtual Journey 28 63 Spreading Discord 29 64 Cronyism and Groupthink 30 65 Hype 32 66 Question of Orthodoxy 33

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church 39 80 Participatory Church 42 90 Epilogue 45 100 Index Of Names 47

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License To view a copy of this license visit httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby-nd-nc10 or send a letter to Creative Commons 559 Nathan Abbott Way Stanford California 94305 USA

10 Introduction This paper explores how Christians are using blogging for spiritual formation and how they are redefining the scope of Martin Lutherrsquos ldquothe priesthood of the believerrdquo Throughout the paper I will defend my claim that ldquowe know more than our pastorsrdquo and by the end of the paper I will show why bloggers are the vanguard of what I am calling the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

I started blogging July 9 2002 and I believe that this increasingly popular online activity signifies an impending sea change for pastors and the church This paper is the result of a survey I conducted from October to November 2003 and over six months of research1

My conclusion is simple bloggers know more than our pastors2 I believe that our network of blogs exceed the reach of any single pastor To be clear no one thinks they are personally smarter or more ldquocalledrdquo than any pastor However as a network we know more than our pastors In this we are not alone Thousands of bloggers circumvent established hierarchies and relate unmediated with one another We are part of a participatory phenomenon that is impacting mass media technology education entertainment politics journalism and business

Emboldened by this participatory movement and empowered by easy-to-use technology we are starting to expect different things from our churches pastors and denominations We look forward to something more profound from our churches than vision casting finding our spiritual gifts mall-like facilities coffee bars and candles We expect to participate we expect to co-create the church

As bloggers we take an active role in our personal spiritual formation We take seriously Paulrsquos admonition to participate ldquoWhen you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the churchrdquo3 As we blog we push the boundaries of what Martin Luther meant when he wrote about the ldquopriesthood of all believersrdquo4

Blogging is creating a robust and growing network of participators We are not just a new kind of Christian or an ldquoemerging churchrdquo fad We are a new kind of preacher theologian pundit apologist and church-goer We exist outside (and inside) church hierarchies The phenomenon of blogging is transforming our expectations of church Soon this mememdasha product of our online spiritual formationmdashwill emerge from our cyberchurch and transform the existing church

I believe that bloggers represent a vanguard that is co-creating a new kind of ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo In this paper I will attempt to describe blogging explain the specifics of blogging explore the participatory social movement and describe the emerging ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

1 Tim Bednar ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions for Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle

October 30 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=12 The Cluetrain Manifesto states that ldquomarkets are getting smartermdashand getting smarter faster than

most companiesrdquo httpwwwcluetraincom Dan Gillmorrsquos first journalistic pivot point is ldquoMy readers know more than I dordquo My claim that we know more than our pastors extends these observations to the church

3 1Corinthians 1426 NIV httpbiblegospelcomnetcgi-binbiblepassage=1Corinthians+143A26ampversion=NIV

4 It may be argued that Luther never intended to support my claim He may have never meant for us to say ldquoI am my own Priestrdquo which is essentially what I claim Timothy George ldquoThe Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrityrdquo Founders Article first appeared in the Criswell Theological Journal (Sp 1989) and is reprinted by permission httpwwwfoundersorgFJ03article1_frhtml

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 4

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud I will explore blogging in a moment but first I need to confess that the term ldquoblogrdquo sounds ridiculous

ldquoBlog Blog Blogrdquo

I blogged for about two months before I struggled to explain it to a friend I can still see his befuddled expression as I uttered the word ldquoblogrdquo

ldquoI started blogging about a month agordquo

ldquoDid you say bloggingrdquo He suppressed a snicker and smirk

I too thought it sounded absurd Suddenly all my enthusiasm evaporated and I began to doubt the whole enterprise I was able to write the word with confidence but had never used it in conversation

ldquoYes I said bloggingrdquo

It sounded foreign Blogging had become the most exciting part of my spiritual life yet it sounded ridiculous

He hesitated ldquoOkay whatrsquos a blogrdquo

ldquoBlogging is kind of like journalingrdquo I offered ldquoIn the last year they have become very popularrdquo

I admit that ldquoblogrdquo sounds more like a term Douglas Adams would use in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy or a word found on the pages of my daughterrsquos Dr Seuss books It certainly does not have the cachet of a term coined by William Gibson

The word blog does not sound cool it is ugly and abrupt This is regrettable since blogging is a uniquely literate way to interact in community

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 5

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 6

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 8

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 2: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Table of Contents 10 Introduction 3 20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud 5 30 My Cyberspace Pilgrimage 6 40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging 9

41 We Blog To Participate 10 42 We Blog in the Present 11 43 We Blog In The First Person 11 44 We Blog As A Discipline 13 45 We Use Blogging To Preach 14 46 We Blog To Earn Permission 14 47 We Blog To Care 15 48 We Blog Build The Kingdom 16

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed 20 51 Cathedral And Bazaar 20 52 Memex Machines 21 53 Vanguard Of The Church 22 54 Priesthood of All Bloggers 22

60 Problems with Blogging 27 61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity 27 62 Seeking a Virtual Journey 28 63 Spreading Discord 29 64 Cronyism and Groupthink 30 65 Hype 32 66 Question of Orthodoxy 33

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church 39 80 Participatory Church 42 90 Epilogue 45 100 Index Of Names 47

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License To view a copy of this license visit httpcreativecommonsorglicensesby-nd-nc10 or send a letter to Creative Commons 559 Nathan Abbott Way Stanford California 94305 USA

10 Introduction This paper explores how Christians are using blogging for spiritual formation and how they are redefining the scope of Martin Lutherrsquos ldquothe priesthood of the believerrdquo Throughout the paper I will defend my claim that ldquowe know more than our pastorsrdquo and by the end of the paper I will show why bloggers are the vanguard of what I am calling the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

I started blogging July 9 2002 and I believe that this increasingly popular online activity signifies an impending sea change for pastors and the church This paper is the result of a survey I conducted from October to November 2003 and over six months of research1

My conclusion is simple bloggers know more than our pastors2 I believe that our network of blogs exceed the reach of any single pastor To be clear no one thinks they are personally smarter or more ldquocalledrdquo than any pastor However as a network we know more than our pastors In this we are not alone Thousands of bloggers circumvent established hierarchies and relate unmediated with one another We are part of a participatory phenomenon that is impacting mass media technology education entertainment politics journalism and business

Emboldened by this participatory movement and empowered by easy-to-use technology we are starting to expect different things from our churches pastors and denominations We look forward to something more profound from our churches than vision casting finding our spiritual gifts mall-like facilities coffee bars and candles We expect to participate we expect to co-create the church

As bloggers we take an active role in our personal spiritual formation We take seriously Paulrsquos admonition to participate ldquoWhen you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the churchrdquo3 As we blog we push the boundaries of what Martin Luther meant when he wrote about the ldquopriesthood of all believersrdquo4

Blogging is creating a robust and growing network of participators We are not just a new kind of Christian or an ldquoemerging churchrdquo fad We are a new kind of preacher theologian pundit apologist and church-goer We exist outside (and inside) church hierarchies The phenomenon of blogging is transforming our expectations of church Soon this mememdasha product of our online spiritual formationmdashwill emerge from our cyberchurch and transform the existing church

I believe that bloggers represent a vanguard that is co-creating a new kind of ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo In this paper I will attempt to describe blogging explain the specifics of blogging explore the participatory social movement and describe the emerging ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

1 Tim Bednar ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions for Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle

October 30 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=12 The Cluetrain Manifesto states that ldquomarkets are getting smartermdashand getting smarter faster than

most companiesrdquo httpwwwcluetraincom Dan Gillmorrsquos first journalistic pivot point is ldquoMy readers know more than I dordquo My claim that we know more than our pastors extends these observations to the church

3 1Corinthians 1426 NIV httpbiblegospelcomnetcgi-binbiblepassage=1Corinthians+143A26ampversion=NIV

4 It may be argued that Luther never intended to support my claim He may have never meant for us to say ldquoI am my own Priestrdquo which is essentially what I claim Timothy George ldquoThe Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrityrdquo Founders Article first appeared in the Criswell Theological Journal (Sp 1989) and is reprinted by permission httpwwwfoundersorgFJ03article1_frhtml

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 4

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud I will explore blogging in a moment but first I need to confess that the term ldquoblogrdquo sounds ridiculous

ldquoBlog Blog Blogrdquo

I blogged for about two months before I struggled to explain it to a friend I can still see his befuddled expression as I uttered the word ldquoblogrdquo

ldquoI started blogging about a month agordquo

ldquoDid you say bloggingrdquo He suppressed a snicker and smirk

I too thought it sounded absurd Suddenly all my enthusiasm evaporated and I began to doubt the whole enterprise I was able to write the word with confidence but had never used it in conversation

ldquoYes I said bloggingrdquo

It sounded foreign Blogging had become the most exciting part of my spiritual life yet it sounded ridiculous

He hesitated ldquoOkay whatrsquos a blogrdquo

ldquoBlogging is kind of like journalingrdquo I offered ldquoIn the last year they have become very popularrdquo

I admit that ldquoblogrdquo sounds more like a term Douglas Adams would use in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy or a word found on the pages of my daughterrsquos Dr Seuss books It certainly does not have the cachet of a term coined by William Gibson

The word blog does not sound cool it is ugly and abrupt This is regrettable since blogging is a uniquely literate way to interact in community

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 5

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 6

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 8

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 3: We Know More Than Our Pastors

10 Introduction This paper explores how Christians are using blogging for spiritual formation and how they are redefining the scope of Martin Lutherrsquos ldquothe priesthood of the believerrdquo Throughout the paper I will defend my claim that ldquowe know more than our pastorsrdquo and by the end of the paper I will show why bloggers are the vanguard of what I am calling the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

I started blogging July 9 2002 and I believe that this increasingly popular online activity signifies an impending sea change for pastors and the church This paper is the result of a survey I conducted from October to November 2003 and over six months of research1

My conclusion is simple bloggers know more than our pastors2 I believe that our network of blogs exceed the reach of any single pastor To be clear no one thinks they are personally smarter or more ldquocalledrdquo than any pastor However as a network we know more than our pastors In this we are not alone Thousands of bloggers circumvent established hierarchies and relate unmediated with one another We are part of a participatory phenomenon that is impacting mass media technology education entertainment politics journalism and business

Emboldened by this participatory movement and empowered by easy-to-use technology we are starting to expect different things from our churches pastors and denominations We look forward to something more profound from our churches than vision casting finding our spiritual gifts mall-like facilities coffee bars and candles We expect to participate we expect to co-create the church

As bloggers we take an active role in our personal spiritual formation We take seriously Paulrsquos admonition to participate ldquoWhen you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the churchrdquo3 As we blog we push the boundaries of what Martin Luther meant when he wrote about the ldquopriesthood of all believersrdquo4

Blogging is creating a robust and growing network of participators We are not just a new kind of Christian or an ldquoemerging churchrdquo fad We are a new kind of preacher theologian pundit apologist and church-goer We exist outside (and inside) church hierarchies The phenomenon of blogging is transforming our expectations of church Soon this mememdasha product of our online spiritual formationmdashwill emerge from our cyberchurch and transform the existing church

I believe that bloggers represent a vanguard that is co-creating a new kind of ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo In this paper I will attempt to describe blogging explain the specifics of blogging explore the participatory social movement and describe the emerging ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

1 Tim Bednar ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions for Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle

October 30 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=12 The Cluetrain Manifesto states that ldquomarkets are getting smartermdashand getting smarter faster than

most companiesrdquo httpwwwcluetraincom Dan Gillmorrsquos first journalistic pivot point is ldquoMy readers know more than I dordquo My claim that we know more than our pastors extends these observations to the church

3 1Corinthians 1426 NIV httpbiblegospelcomnetcgi-binbiblepassage=1Corinthians+143A26ampversion=NIV

4 It may be argued that Luther never intended to support my claim He may have never meant for us to say ldquoI am my own Priestrdquo which is essentially what I claim Timothy George ldquoThe Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrityrdquo Founders Article first appeared in the Criswell Theological Journal (Sp 1989) and is reprinted by permission httpwwwfoundersorgFJ03article1_frhtml

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 4

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud I will explore blogging in a moment but first I need to confess that the term ldquoblogrdquo sounds ridiculous

ldquoBlog Blog Blogrdquo

I blogged for about two months before I struggled to explain it to a friend I can still see his befuddled expression as I uttered the word ldquoblogrdquo

ldquoI started blogging about a month agordquo

ldquoDid you say bloggingrdquo He suppressed a snicker and smirk

I too thought it sounded absurd Suddenly all my enthusiasm evaporated and I began to doubt the whole enterprise I was able to write the word with confidence but had never used it in conversation

ldquoYes I said bloggingrdquo

It sounded foreign Blogging had become the most exciting part of my spiritual life yet it sounded ridiculous

He hesitated ldquoOkay whatrsquos a blogrdquo

ldquoBlogging is kind of like journalingrdquo I offered ldquoIn the last year they have become very popularrdquo

I admit that ldquoblogrdquo sounds more like a term Douglas Adams would use in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy or a word found on the pages of my daughterrsquos Dr Seuss books It certainly does not have the cachet of a term coined by William Gibson

The word blog does not sound cool it is ugly and abrupt This is regrettable since blogging is a uniquely literate way to interact in community

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 5

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 6

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 8

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 4: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

1 Tim Bednar ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions for Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle

October 30 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=12 The Cluetrain Manifesto states that ldquomarkets are getting smartermdashand getting smarter faster than

most companiesrdquo httpwwwcluetraincom Dan Gillmorrsquos first journalistic pivot point is ldquoMy readers know more than I dordquo My claim that we know more than our pastors extends these observations to the church

3 1Corinthians 1426 NIV httpbiblegospelcomnetcgi-binbiblepassage=1Corinthians+143A26ampversion=NIV

4 It may be argued that Luther never intended to support my claim He may have never meant for us to say ldquoI am my own Priestrdquo which is essentially what I claim Timothy George ldquoThe Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrityrdquo Founders Article first appeared in the Criswell Theological Journal (Sp 1989) and is reprinted by permission httpwwwfoundersorgFJ03article1_frhtml

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 4

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud I will explore blogging in a moment but first I need to confess that the term ldquoblogrdquo sounds ridiculous

ldquoBlog Blog Blogrdquo

I blogged for about two months before I struggled to explain it to a friend I can still see his befuddled expression as I uttered the word ldquoblogrdquo

ldquoI started blogging about a month agordquo

ldquoDid you say bloggingrdquo He suppressed a snicker and smirk

I too thought it sounded absurd Suddenly all my enthusiasm evaporated and I began to doubt the whole enterprise I was able to write the word with confidence but had never used it in conversation

ldquoYes I said bloggingrdquo

It sounded foreign Blogging had become the most exciting part of my spiritual life yet it sounded ridiculous

He hesitated ldquoOkay whatrsquos a blogrdquo

ldquoBlogging is kind of like journalingrdquo I offered ldquoIn the last year they have become very popularrdquo

I admit that ldquoblogrdquo sounds more like a term Douglas Adams would use in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy or a word found on the pages of my daughterrsquos Dr Seuss books It certainly does not have the cachet of a term coined by William Gibson

The word blog does not sound cool it is ugly and abrupt This is regrettable since blogging is a uniquely literate way to interact in community

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 5

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 6

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 5: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

20 Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud I will explore blogging in a moment but first I need to confess that the term ldquoblogrdquo sounds ridiculous

ldquoBlog Blog Blogrdquo

I blogged for about two months before I struggled to explain it to a friend I can still see his befuddled expression as I uttered the word ldquoblogrdquo

ldquoI started blogging about a month agordquo

ldquoDid you say bloggingrdquo He suppressed a snicker and smirk

I too thought it sounded absurd Suddenly all my enthusiasm evaporated and I began to doubt the whole enterprise I was able to write the word with confidence but had never used it in conversation

ldquoYes I said bloggingrdquo

It sounded foreign Blogging had become the most exciting part of my spiritual life yet it sounded ridiculous

He hesitated ldquoOkay whatrsquos a blogrdquo

ldquoBlogging is kind of like journalingrdquo I offered ldquoIn the last year they have become very popularrdquo

I admit that ldquoblogrdquo sounds more like a term Douglas Adams would use in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy or a word found on the pages of my daughterrsquos Dr Seuss books It certainly does not have the cachet of a term coined by William Gibson

The word blog does not sound cool it is ugly and abrupt This is regrettable since blogging is a uniquely literate way to interact in community

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 5

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 6

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 6: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

30 Cyberchurch Pilgrimage In 1998 I launched a web site called e-Church as an extension of my Sunday school class It has morphed through several iterations each intending to build a learning community using the Internet Each variationmdashmagazine classroom and curriculum publishermdashunequivocally missed the mark5 I spent as much time designing (and redesigning) web pages as I did creating content It was a burden to update the site once a week and the results disappointed me

I repeatedly failed to build is what I sought mostmdasha community that fostered spiritual formation without the limitations of time buildings money programs or pastors After three years of maintaining e-Church on a weekly basis I set it aside and did not update it for the better part of 2001

I cannot remember where I first heard of blogging but sometime in 2002 I Googled it and read Doc Searlsrsquo and Dan Gillmors blogs I had previously used Jordon Cooperrsquos web site and he pointed me to Martin Roths Semi-definitive List of Christian Bloggers (created April 2002) which eventually became blogs4God (July 2002)6

I finally found what I was looking for--a community of people who like me sought a literary way to interact in community For us the Internet held a magical allure And we wanted to rediscover Christ for our churches our world and ourselves I urgently worked to re-launch e-Church as a blog and participate in this new community

I researched blogging tools and settled on a popular blogging platform called Movable Type On July 9th 2002 I posted by first blog entry

Established in 1997 e-church has been many things As of today e-church community is in the process of becoming a user-created online community modeled after online communities like Kiro5hin and Wiki Web I want it to be experimental and explore what it means to be an online church I want to take Pauls admonition seriously

1Corinthians 14 26 -- What then shall we say brothers When you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction a revelation a tongue or an interpretation All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church If anyone speaks in a tongue two -- or at the most three -- should speak one at a time and someone must interpret

The purpose of this weblog is to openly develop e-church through online journaling Categories of discussion include promotionrecruiting missionvision technology inspiration and ecclesiology7

(You can see the seeds of this paper and the current e-Church blogging application in this first post) To my amazement I experienced community as I blogged In the past I modeled my web site after a traditional church I expected my visitors to follow a certain predetermined program I e-mail my newsletter on Fridays they visit the site and read the full article where at the end I pleaded for feedback Now as a blogger I let go of

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 7: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

agenda and just started posting entries

I blogged and read other bloggers like Andrew Careaga Dean Peters Jordon Cooper Rachel Cunliff and Alan Creech I hyperlinked to their posts and participated in the larger conversation Soon I found myself in the position of initiating memes (fragments of culture that act like a virus) that other bloggers discussed In time they read my entries and interacted with me

Then one morning my cell rang and fellow blogger Dale Lature said ldquoHellordquo I never met Dale except through his blog now we were talking I knew that he was going through a rough patch of unemployment It was a remarkable moment but an awkward one (I am an introvert and was caught off guard)

I got off the phone and it happened

I opened my eyes and found myself in the midst of what can only be called the cyberchurch I was interacting on a spiritual level with other believers scattered across the world We shared ideas but also extended concern and caring to one another

Pioneer blogger Bill Quick coined the term blogosphere to represent the intellectual space that bloggers occupy8 As a subcategory of the blogosphere I think that the term cyberchurch--a network of sacred places created by believers through bloggingmdashmight be an appropriate term to describe the subject of this paper I believe this is similar to Teilhard de Chardins mystical noosphere Chardin imagined an organic thinking layer evolving above the visible biosphere9 Steven Berlin Johnson believes that we traditionally organized the Internet around pages (ie Yahoo or Google) He proposes that we can just as easily do it around minds10

Ever since the Web entered the popular consciousness observers have noted that it puts information at your fingertips but tends to keep wisdom out of reach In a space organized around connected minds however the search for wisdom becomes more promising The Web remains a space of functionally infinite data but that space is increasingly mapped by human minds linked in ways were only beginning to imagine If its wisdom youre looking for you couldnt hope for a better guide

I suggest that we need to consider the Internet as a map of the soul Before I understood and experienced this I arrogantly sought to establish my web site as ldquotherdquo cyberchurch created by bloggers And late fall 2002 I re-launched e-Church Heavily influenced by Vannevar Bushs seminal Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think11 e-Church combines the personal publishing tools of Blogger with the research tools of Tinderbox

As e-Church evolved and I matured in my understanding of the cyberchurch I realized that one web site cannot create the cyberchurch It exists and I am a member of it because I participate No one created hermdashshe manifests in the interaction of believers who use Internet technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 7

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 8

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 8: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

After a year of blogging I no longer seek to be ldquotherdquo cyberchurch as the name rdquoe-Churchrdquo implies rather I participate with bloggers who collectively link the cyberchurch into existence (It is Alan Sondheim who said ldquoI write myself into existence I write myself out of existencerdquo)12

As believers use blogs for spiritual formation and organically form the cyberchurch the memes we co-create are emerging from cyberspace and beginning to transform the traditional church I believe this change will result in what may be called the ldquoparticipatory churchrdquo

5 Internet Archive httpwebarchiveorgwebhttpwwwe-churchcom6 Martin Roth Christian Blogs The Semi-Definitive List Martin Roth Christian Commentary July

29 2002 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomoldbloglisthtm7 Tim Bednar ldquoAn Open Letterrdquo e-Churchcommunity weblog July 9 2002 Copied from offline

archive of Movable Type blog 8 Bill Quick ldquo1254 AMrdquo Daily Pundit January 01 2002

httpwwwiw3pcomDailyPundit2001_12_30_dailypundit_archivephp - 83151209 Phillip J Cunningham Teilhard de Chardin and the Noosphere Computer-Mediated

Communication Magazine March 1997 httpwwwdecembercomcmcmag1997marcunninghtml

10 Steven Berlin Johnson ldquoMind Share BLOG SPACE Public Storage For Wisdom Ignorance and Everything in Betweenrdquo Wired June 2003 httpwwwwiredcomwiredarchive1106blog_spchtml

11 Vannevar Bush ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo Atlantic Monthly 1943 httpwwwtheatlanticcomunboundflashbkscomputerbushfhtm

12 Joel Weishaus interviews Alan Sondheim Being On-line A Conversation with Alan Sondheim Rhizome June 8 1999 httprhizomeorgthreadrhizthread=446amptext=1469

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 8

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 9: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

40 Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging I post to my blog several times a day and make daily pilgrimages to my favorite list of bloggers This process has revolutionized my spiritual life It has become an important spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing learning conversation community and prayer with an abiding incarnational13 mission

A blog is a frequently updated web page where entries are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first) Blog entries typically consist of links accompanied by commentary They may read like dairies op-ed pieces letters rants essays documentaries satire or conversations

Bloggers usually publish a ldquoblog rollrdquo or their list of favorite bloggers This usually defines (in a fuzzy way) the affinity group to which they belong (ie technologists diarists marketers pundits) Blogs encourage conversation through informality enthusiasm for errata comments (usually posted alongside the original entry) and reciprocal hyperlinks Steve Collins writes

my blog doesnt have a theme its whatever i happen to feel like--noting links spouting about random issues and feelings--sure theres church-related stuff because that occupies a lot of my energies but my blog isnt about that as such like i said i assume the audience is my friends its the kind of things id say to them over a drink or meal14

The funny thing about defining a blog is that there are many exceptions In the end the most important trait of a blog seems to be that it is updated frequently honestly and consistently Darren Rowse explains his blogging regimen

The process for me is quite rhythmic I make time most mornings and evenings to blog for 15 or so minutes In a sense itrsquos become a discipline On other days when I have more time I will do it more15

Enabled by wireless networking Jordon Coopers blogging style is more spontaneous

I have wifi in my house and high-speed internet so a lot of things get posted because I can and not because I really thought about it I really admire those blogs like Alan Creechs that can communicate deep spiritual truths far better than I do16

Rudy Carrasco explains how he blogs

Someone asked how I blog so much Well you gotta be there mentally If you are in line at Starbucks and read something in the newspaper headline and think Id like to link to that then you are most of the way home I have a laptop DSL at both home and work and wireless connectivity at both home and work This means that I can take my son into the bathroom for his bath and sit in the next room within earshot and also blogging a thought (or answering email or finishing a newsletter etc) You get the picture With the appropriate technology

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 9

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 10: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

its not as tough (or obsessive) as it seems17

A sub genre of blogosphere is the Christian blog For this paper I interviewed over four dozen bloggers and to a person they resisted being labeled a religious spiritual or Christian blogger Steve Collins explains that his blog is ldquonot spiritual except that everything human isrdquo18 Andrew Careaga reinforces this idea ldquoI try to consider most of the conscious activities as spiritual activities even if not exactly religiousrdquo19

This passion to live incarnationally unites these bloggers Jordon Cooper writes about his blog and describes what I mean

Many of the sites 20000 monthly visitors cant seem to get their head around how a site that has so much about postmodern thought and the church can also have links to the Calgary Flames and the Saskatchewan Roughriders [] I started to get e-mail back saying wait a minute it is knowing about you that gives the site some character and credibilityrdquo [] People went on to say that without the personal stuff the site just became a collection of links posted by someone they dont know My stories about my life gave it some context and something to judge it by for good or bad20

This holistic engagement between author and audience is what makes blogging unique and compelling In this respect these ldquoChristian bloggersrdquo are no different than all the other opinionated bloggers except that they intentionally bring their faith in Christ to bare on everything that interests them hockey Microsoft George W Bush Jennifer Lopez or Strongbad

41 We Blog to Participate This sense of incarnational mission motivates many bloggers on a personal level because of deep convictions It also translates to social networks Bloggers possess an unsurpassed desire to participate in community A blogger named Mumcat commented on Maggi Dawnrsquos Blog

[hellip]For me blogging is putting something I think and the write about out on the table and I can get immediate (or almost immediate) feedback It doesnrsquot happen 100 of the time but enough that it is helpful Irsquom not a college professor or published writer (just a whininrsquo wannabe sometimes) and certainly everything I blog about isnrsquot deep theological thoughts or even good exegesis of a text or a cogent interpretation of a current event or trend At the end of the day Irsquom just a butt in the pews who likes to have her say polished or not21

There are a growing number of people whose ldquobutts are in the pewsrdquo who desire a deeper level of participation in the church They are not looking for more volunteer opportunities or chances to use their spiritual gifts (these often feel like sophisticated recruiting schemes for bloated church programs) They do not just want to participate in small groups or even lead them They want a chance to set the agenda and to direct the conversation (not permanently but spontaneously) The numbers of those wanting a deep level of participation in the church far outnumber the hundreds of bloggers listed in

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 10

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 11: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

directories like blogs4God but we are the most visible part of this phenomenon

42 We Blog in the Present Most blogs list entries in reverse chronological order or the most recent first Typically the first page of a blog publishes the most recent entries and archives the rest as permalinks Andrew Jones explains

Blogging is about valuing and honoring the moment It is about the kairos time more than the chronos time the opportune time more than the continuous progressive time Jesus said that tomorrow had enough worries Jesus said Give us this DAY our daily bread Jesus said to his brothers who were rushing him to the Festival The time for you is always right but my time has not yet come His brothers were running on modern ever-progressive time the nonstop time that the slaves were under in Egypt or the Yuppies in New York or the Salarymen in Tokyo Jesus resisted Times Arrow Jesus was running on Kingdom time the right and ripe time It was not even the non-directional cyclical time of the East It was moment time It was Kingdom time kairos more than chronos seasonal time opportune time Right time Blogging challenges me to capture the moment To seize the day and then reflect on it22

The blog format forces us write in the present and leaves little time for traditional editing It lends to an immediate forceful style that attempts to capture the moment Addressing the complaint that many blogs are thus poorly written Andrew Jones confesses that he writes quickly and without a spellcheck to preserve the feeling of immediacy However he also admits this is also an excuse for sloppiness23 The typical blogger modus operandi is to write better tomorrow instead of editing existing material The resulting entries are informal spontaneous reflective entries

Blogs may be likened to a fire they demand a continuous supply of fuel in order to provide light and heat Occasionally we get our hands on some good dry wood but other times we make due with damp mealy sticks Either way we need to throw it on the fire Some days I blog well but what matters is that blog

43 We Blog in the First Person We blog in the first person We try not to hide behind worn out platitudes like ldquothe Bible saysrdquo rather we say what we think and take responsibility for it As an example of a spiritual bloggers commitment to incarnational mission I offer this entry posted Alan Creech at 1119 AM October 16 2003 where he explicitly revealed his thoughts regarding a friend who expressed marital doubts

Married for 10 years with a 5 year old son And then suddenly he thinks perhaps theyve been incompatible all along and made a mistake WHAAAATT I realize things are more complicated than they appear in the beginning - most always I am married you know But here is my basic response to this deal -- BULLSHIT24

Then at 1124 PM after over two-dozen comments he posted this follow up entry

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 11

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 12: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I dont understand what went on with that last post I dont even understand myself How can I get so emotionally torn up over stuff like this I dont understand that any more than I do sneak attacks I was going to take the post down I think Ive decided against that now I said what I said It may be right or wrong or whatever It was genuinely what I thought If Ive hurt or offended anyone I am very sorry If my language has likewise caused you offense I apologize Im sure Ill still talk that way in the future as well as I have in the past but I dont do it with some underlying intention of making people mad I feel like Ive stepped into a hornets nest Not pleasant I want to say once again that I do not hate anyone I may not always say the right things but I do not say what I say out of any kind of hate25

I have read Alan Creech for over a year He is vulnerable and transparent with his journey and many read him for just that reason Alan does not hide behind platitudes in either post Leila Fast explains the value of being vulnerable

When I started this blog I did so on the premise that I would be painfully honest I decided that this would be a place perhaps the only place where I would bare it all As time went by and more people who knew me started reading I had to be a little more selective choosing not to write about certain topics but staying as raw as I could and taking whatever chances that involved I understood that there are risks involved with posting any kind of personal information on the internet

[] But as bloggers we share with one another the things on our hearts and the thoughts in our heads and this is the information that draws us together For this reason I hold steadfastly to my theory that absolute vulnerability is the only reason I have for writing Anything less is pointlesshellipmediocrity is not something I aspire to although I achieve it so frequently26

This authenticity is the juice that often keeps bloggers publishing We support and validate those who are vulnerable even if we disagree with them because we do not want to break the fragility of this unwritten pact Being vulnerable also opens the door to misunderandings hurt feelings and errors A recent study reported that 36 of the bloggers surveyd have ldquogotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogsrdquo27 I wrote this at my blog following a recent dust-up over Andrew Jonesrsquo use of the word girl when speaking about women in ministry28

It is a lesson to all us bloggers to think before we hit post It also teaches us that if we dont think there is forgiveness and understanding waiting for us who are willing to stay in there and keep in the conversation29

Blogging in the first person is deeply personal and spontaneous For example I will describe how I write my blog Bartleby published this quote by Ray Bradbury

Run fast stand still This the lesson from lizards For all writers Observe almost any survival creature you see the same Jump run freeze In the ability to flick like an eyelash crack like a whip vanish like steam here this instant gone the

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 12

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 13: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

nextmdashlife teems the earth And when that life is not rushing to escape it is playing statues to do the same See the hummingbird there not there As thought arises and blinks off so this thing of summer vapor the clearing of a cosmic throat the fall of a leaf And where it wasmdasha whisper What can we writers learn from lizards lift from birds In quickness is truth The faster you blurt the more swiftly you write the more honest you are In hesitation is thought In delay comes the effort for a style instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping In between the scurries and flights what Be a chameleon ink- blend chromosome change with the landscape Be a pet rock lie with the dust rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparentsrsquo window long ago (Zen in the Art of Writing)30

To write in the first person I write by ldquoblurtingrdquo I do not find that ideas emerge consistently--rather they seem to pounce upon me dig in their claws tear at the heart then bound over the horizon If I do not record them quickly I lose them like a half-waking dream

In the liminal moments I find rest calm down and absorb I swell like a sponge soaking up the information and data around me In these times I do not work I seek to recognize the memes Later I will attempt to find the trails between them

To do this the most difficult thing is to turn off my internal censor This does not refer to turning off my moral compass rather I attempt to disengage from the rules that I have been taught by tradition When I do this the world and God have a better chance to appear to me at is it with less mediation

An example might be when looking at a new meme I try to turn off everything I have been taught about it I start with questions giving myself freedom to ask anything question everything I need to see this meme as it is rather that as I say it is -- or worse they way others say it has been

This is where I blurt I grasp at ideas that flash upon my conscious but I also seek to experience what feelings lie beneath What is my unconscious saying How do I feel about this text Do I hear God speaking to me What is He saying

Once I have immersed myself in my subjective experience -- then I take my observations and test them against reason and offer them to the blogging community I leave a great deal unpublished but then there emerges the odd meme that shocks turns my head and changes my life The Spirit rushes over me and I change It is then that I blog It is not always such a epiphany but never the less the process seems consistent

44 We Blog as a Discipline Blogging is a regular interactive discipline where I find God in community It is a discipline because blogging intentionally seeks to connect with God through hypertext For most people (including authors) writing is a difficult and often draining experience

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 13

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 14: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Henri JM Nouwen expounds

We should know that a spiritual life without discipline is impossible Discipline is the other side of discipleship The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small gentle voice of God

It is interactive because it requires an audience and invites participation Mike McKee explains ldquoI share my journey not as a model but to just say Here I am kicking rocks down the street toordquo Dallas Willard says in an interview regarding community and spiritual disciplines

they are much more effective if they can be practiced in community and you cant really practice them without community If you have a community where they are understood as a normal part of our lives there can be instruction or teaching about them which brings about a kind of accountability31

Bloggers crave interaction and community We desire to find the ldquotruthrdquo not as isolated individuals who get revelations directly from God instead we believe the truest truth is found collectively

45 We Use Blogging to Preach We use blogging to preach (or proclaim) the gospel to our postmodern culture by telling our stories rather than reasoned apologetic or homiletic craft Alan Creech explains how bloggers redefine ldquopreachingrdquo by infusing it with incarnational and participatory values

[] preaching as I see it to mean ldquoproclaiming the good newsrdquo is something that is to be done [by] every believer with their lives So in so much as I am a member Christs body and I am living my life and in some way I put my life and thoughts out there for people to see everywhere I am ldquopreachingrdquo by being who I am and saying what I think32

This type of preaching that bloggers employ radically departs from the altar-call modality of evangelical pulpits and step-by-step discipleship programs (ie 40 Days of Purpose)33 We do not come to conclusions articulate takeaways or create eitheror situations Bloggers present the truth and curiosities of their lives Thus our audience is responsible to synthesize and discover their truth We release ourselves from the responsibility of having to ldquolead someone to Christrdquo or disciple them We have no other agenda than to share the truth as we experience it yet it is our belief that the Holy Spirit speaks through us Thus we preach

46 We Blog to Earn Permission As bloggers we not only redefine preaching but evangelism as well We earn the permission of people before we speak in to their lives For example because Googlebot crawls my blog daily thousands of visitors have read my thoughts on Johnny Cash Hurt Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails or my explanation of the Corpus Christi Film

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 14

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 15: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Urban Legend because they typed keywords into Google34 This new way of evangelism evolves out of Christians using Internet technology Rachel Cunliff explains it better

Blog posts are somewhat timeless I have people come and leave comments on posts I wrote ages ago and sometimes the conversation is lit again Google enables people to find posts that interest them no matter what the date35

This kind of contextual relevance means that I have a permission to interact with a person at the moment of their interest Fast Company interviews Seth Godin who contrasts permission verse interruptive marketing practices in business

The biggest problem with mass-market advertising Godin says is that it fights for peoples attention by interrupting them A 30-second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner A print ad interrupts this article The interruption model is extremely effective when theres not an overflow of interruptions Godin says But theres too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore

The new model he argues is built around permission The challenge for marketers is to persuade consumers to volunteer attention - to raise their hands (one of Godins favorite phrases) - to agree to learn more about a company and its products Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers he says Its not just about entertainment - its about education36

Bloggers infuse evangelism with holistic incarnational values thus redefining it with their the use of Internet technology No other form of ldquoevangelismrdquo has achieved this kind of access Google (as well as other search technologies like Blogdex Technorati Feedster or Feed Demon) places my blog at the crossroads of the marketplace of ideas at the moment when people want to discuss it As they search the web I am invited in to peoples lives I get permission to speak about how I apply the gospel to Johnny Cash and Nine Inch Nails The Da Vinci Code or The Star Wars Kid This is a radical departure from interruptive practices of direct mail revivals or Evangelism Explosion

I think it is impossible to understate the ability of blogging to affect our culture As we post we are able to affect the tenor direction and conclusions of the culture industry37 In the last year I have gotten permission to dialog with people over the Dixie Chicks Rocori school shootings The Da Vinci Code and whether Jesus smoked pot

47 We Blog to Care Blogging promotes real world care and concern To ldquoofflinersrdquo this seems counterintuitive however the fact is that blogging is a way to care for others Jordon Cooper revealed in an Ooze message board

When my wife Wendy had her miscarriage a little over a month ago I went downstairs and posted it when we got home in the middle of the night By the next morning many people who only know me through my weblog had e-mailed

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 15

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 16: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

commented on the site and later on made several phone calls to see if we needed anything At the time I was on staff of a church of 1500 people who went on and on about being an authentic community Outside of my sons godparents not a single phone call from any of the staff and leadership

There is a reason we flock online There is people interaction and community here that in many ways is more real than in the offline world38

Blogging is more than an echo chamber kicking rocks down the street or navel-gazing It often results in real world changes in the form of new relationships social justice inner transformation and ecclesiastical reformation As with the Dean For Amercia campaign we are only beginning to experience the changes made possible by social networking applications like blogging

48 We Blog Build the Kingdom We blog in community in order to find spontaneous relationships that build the Kingdom in the ldquoreal worldrdquo39 Steve Berlin Johnson quotes Kurt Vonnegut

In his classic novel Cats Cradle Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations the karass and the granfalloon A karass is a spontaneously forming group joined by unpredictable links that actually gets stuff done as Vonnegut describes it a team that do[es] Gods Will without ever discovering what they are doing A granfalloon on the other hand is a false karass a bureaucratic structure that looks like a team but is meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done40

Chad Canipe explains in an e-mail how this works in the karass-like cyberchurch

Blogging has provided an avenue for building relationships that just wasnt there in days past I wouldve never imagined just a few years ago having conversations with acquaintances from the other side of the globe But one of the most satisfying results of my blogging experience has been local people finding me and the resulting friendships In fact I meet with weekly here in Cincinnati with a group of guys that has become affectionately known as fight club This group consists of fellow bloggers and church planter-types Kevin Rains Chris Marshall Glenn Johnson and myself In fact this past weekend all of our families (wives kids and all) all got together for an evening of hanging out and dinner

Out of this nucleus an even larger movement here in the midwest has emerged A semi-regular gathering of likeminded leaders from different emerging churches and networks from several midwestern states gets together here in Cincinnati41 The vast majority of these folks all got connected to each other through an ever-expanding relational network that was facilitated by the web and weblogging This has been very very rewarding

Another personal friendship that come about has been with David Moutz a fellow

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 16

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 17: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

pastorchurch planter here in Cincinnati who found my blog via a guy in his core group We exchanged emails and phone calls and eventually began meeting together fairly regularly to support one another

Each of the guys that Ive mentioned are now like brothers to me Its not an overstatement to say that they are the closest friends that I have I feel extremely blessed that God saw fit to connect us

Chad captures the potential of blogging to build not just a cyberchurch but also the Kingdom of God Blogging has evolved into an advanced social networking tool Edward Cone writes about how the Dean For America campaigns uses the Internets social networking technology

Online tools are a way to get people to act -- to meet in the physical world to put up flyers and posters write letters and checks speak to other people face to face And ultimately to get out and vote The Internet is moving from information technology to organizing technology she says sitting in a windowless conference room at the campaigns offices I e-mail you that I like Dean maybe youll tell your wife If I tell you face to face youll tell everyone42

The Dean campaign model demonstrates a best practice that can translate in the church As we apply this same concept to the Gospel Bill Bean offers this Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote

God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men When one person is struck by the Word he speaks it to others God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brotherthe Christian needs another Christian who speaks Gods Word to himagain and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for by himself he cannot help himself43

Jordon Cooper Spensor Burke of The Ooze and Charlie Wear of Next-Wave organize and promote IndieAllies gatherings using the same MeetUp technology as the Dean For America campaign44 As of April 2004 there are 2154 people in 362 cities that make up this loosely joined group of independent Christian thinkers worldwide that meet to discuss ldquoacts of compassion and the church in our postmodern culturerdquo

Martin Roth points to Darren Rowse where he notes that the Living Room is ldquosteadily morphing into far more than just a simple blog Darren is pro-active He doesnrsquot simply write down stuff and then invite comments or suggestions Hersquos actually making community His latest venture is a bloggersrsquo kris kringle ndash an anonymous exchange of Christmas giftsrdquo45 Darren expects to connect over 23 bloggers this Christmas in a virtual anonomous gift exchange and Blogger Idol46

Ashely Benigno created something called ldquogrid bloggingrdquo which can be defined as a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes47 By placing ldquo[gridtopic]rdquo in the blog entry title search engines like Google are able to gather every related blog entry about a particular subject Bloggers like Andrew Jones and Jordon

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 17

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 18: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Cooper initiated a grid blog for Advent

This penchance to use virtual reality to more fully engage real life is the basis for my forecasting that the existing church will (in time) have to deal with the memes bloggers are co-creating

13 Richard J Fosters Renovare ministry defines incarnation as making present and visible the realm

of the invisible spirit This spiritual dimension addresses the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life and quotes 2 Corinthians 47 We have this treasure in earthen vessels httprenovareorginvitation_intro_discipline_incarnationalhtm

14 Steve Collins e-mail survey October 26 2003 15 Darren Rowse e-mail survey October 30 2003 16 Jordon Cooper e-mail survey October 29 2003 17 Rudy Carrasco Urban Onramps November 7 2003 752 AM

httpurbanonrampsblogspotcom2003_11_01_urbanonramps_archivehtml18 Steve Collins email survey 19 Andrew Careaga e-mail survey October 24 2003 20 Jordon Cooper ldquoBlogging Advice for Church Websitesrdquo Next-Wave April 2002

httpwwwnext-waveorgapr02blogginghtm21 Mumcat ldquoComment on The Blog A new form of writing or a new form of transmissionrdquo Maggi

Dawnrsquos Blog February 17 2004 httpmaggidawnblogspotcom2004_02_01_maggidawn_archivehtml Mumcatrsquos blog The Cats Cradle can be found at httpcatcradletypepadcomabouthtml

22 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo The Ooze April 23 2002 httpwwwtheoozecomarticlesarticlecfmID=302amppage=1

23 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Skinny on Postmodernity No3 - Time and Space Being NowHererdquo 24 Alan Creech October 16 2003

httpwwwvbccnetalancreech2003_10_01_alancreech_archivehtml25 Ibid 26 Leila Fast Little Bear November 06 2003 1100 PM

httplittlekermodecom2003_11_02_archivehtm27 Fernanda Vieacutegas ldquoBlog Survey Expectations of Privacy and Accountabilityrdquo January 2004

httpwebmediamitedu~fviegassurveyblogresultshtm28 Andrew Jones ldquoThe Girls Post A Definitive Historyrdquo Tallandskinnykiwi Feburary 2004

httptallskinnykiwitypepadcomtallskinnykiwi200402the_whole_storyhtml 29 Tim Bednar rdquo The Women In Ministry and lsquoGirlrsquo Saga The Importance of Language In

Postmodernismrdquo Moxy Turtle Feburary 24 2004 httpe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=545ampBloggerID=1

30 Ray Bradbury ldquoRun Fasthelliprdquo Zen in the Art of Writing 1989 httpwwwbartlebycom6648104html

31 Dallas Willard ldquoDisciplines in a Postmodern Worldrdquo taken from an interview published in Radix magazine Vol 27 No 2 httpwwwdwillardorgarticlesartviewaspartID=56

32 Alan Creech e-mail survey October 27 2003 33 Rick Warren ldquo40 Days of Purposerdquo Purpose Driven Church

httpwwwpurposedrivencomcontentaspxtypeID=334 Googlebot httpwwwgooglecombothtml35 Rachel Cunliff e-mail survey October 27 2003 36 Interview with Seth Godin ldquoPermission Marketingrdquo Fast Company Issue 14 April 1998

httpwwwfastcompanycomonline14permissionhtml37 Reference to Theodor W Adorno ldquoThe Culture Industryrdquo 1944

httpwww-2cscmuedu~mdr2classescosk2221_zAdornos Culture Industryhtm38 Jordon Cooper ldquoThe Ooze Message Board Is it ok to only attend Church in cyber space

Message 11330 The Ooze November 30 2002 1047 AM httpwwwtheoozecomforumsdiscussionscfmforumid=16amptopicid=11245ampkw=cyber20church

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 18

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 19: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

39 I have found this distinction dubious I believe there is a corollary between virtual reality and reality

and the visible and invisible aspect of the Kingdom of God 40 Steve Berlin Johnson ldquoSocial Networks Steve Berlin Johnson Weblog March 13 2003

httpwwwstevenberlinjohnsoncommovabletypearchives000053html41 Chad is referring to Not Alone Connecting Missional Communities In The Midwest

httpwwwnot-aloneorg42 Edward Cone Marketing The President Baseline November 17 2003

httpwwwbaselinemagcomarticle203959138605100asp43 Bill Bean Life Together Chapter 1 Community The Unnecessary Pastor December 04 2003

httpbillindychurchorgarchives000392html44 IndieAllies httpindiealliesmeetupcom45 Martin Roth Cybermonks and the Liquid Church Martin Roth Christian Commentary December

8 2003 httpwwwmartinrothonlinecomChristianInternetcybermonkshtm46 Darren Rowse Secret Santa Blogger Living Room December 05 2003

httpwwwlivingroomorgaublogarchivessecret_santa_bloggerphp47 Ashely Benidgo Grid blogging (an invitation) notes from somewhere bizarre November 7 2003

httpwwwashleyborgarchives000188html

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 19

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 20: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

50 Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed By calling and gifting I am a teacher who has long desired to find a way to promote spiritual formation using the Internet The portal model of Crosswalk and Gospelcom push so-called Christian information MethodX offers online versions of ancient spiritual disciplines Beliefnet and The Ooze build community through message boards Other sites like Next-Wave Relevant and Christianity Today continue to publish articles using a magazine model

With regard to spiritual formation these models possess a fatal flawmdashmembers have no way to take essential formative step of application and responsibility In short the few people creating these sites are actively engaging in spiritual formation online but their audience is de facto excluded from that process Even though they may participate in message boards or chat rooms they do not own their work which is an essential to spiritual formation

My blog is a place where spiritual formation is accomplished where I gather loose strands of conversation where I participate in the church by writing about my spiritual journey where I am held accountable

I use term ldquoplacerdquo for a reason Other web ministry models own their content I visit them and leave a message or chat in their domain As a blogger I own my content and that encourages a sort of honesty not found in offline church settings Elijah Fan explains ldquoItrsquos nice to be able to share my thoughts without having to worry about offending people because itrsquos on my own siterdquo48 This makes blogging a powerful tool for spiritual formation When you maintain your own blog and bypass the structures of traditional Christian education you become more aware more introspective and more connected You take responsibility for your spiritual formation

51 Cathedral and Bazaar Jordon Cooper reminded me of a seminal book written by Eric Steven Raymond Using the metaphor of the cathedral and bazaar Raymond conveys explains the novel development process used to create the open source operating system Linux

Linus Torvaldss style of developmentmdashrelease early and often delegate everything you can be open to the point of promiscuitymdashcame as a surprise No quiet reverent cathedral-building heremdashrather the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches []out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles49

Bloggers have learned to use a similar process We gather memes50 from diverse sources and post blog entries quickly We do not formulate full concepts but iterations We are open almost to the point of promiscuity (or heresy) and uncompromisingly reserve the right to change our mind Andrew Jones explains the dynamism of the iterative process

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 20

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 21: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

I write something in the morning publish it and by the evening it has been discussed argued over linked to and the response has already been sent back to me for feedback (or repentance)51

The blogging cyberchurch is not a cathedral with set rules processes or content rather it is a bazaar that bloggers wonder around attempting to create order using hypertext I contend that blogging reinforces the real process of spiritual formation better than seminaries and Sunday school classes It forces the blogger to set their own course discover their own truth in public where they take responsibility for their beliefs

A magazine article Quicktime movie or Flash animation is an artifact of spiritual formation but a blog is a record of the very process of spiritual formation We see our individual entries like static frames of a movie--when projected at 24 fps they create motion While movies are an illusion my blog represents real spiritual activity

52 Memex Machines As records of spiritual formation blogs act like Vannevar Bushs prescient memex machine In his July 1945 Atlantic Monthly article ldquoAs We May Thinkrdquo he describes a mechanical machine that helps researchers track multiple trails of data

Consider a future device for individual use which is a sort of mechanized private file and library It needs a name and to coin one at random memex will do A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory52

Blogs are memex machines that promote spiritual formation through peer review open conceptualization and continual refinement This promotes spiritual formation because over time the introspective blogger sees trends that demand assessment Chad Canipe blogged about this process

Ive noticed -- and maybe you have too -- that my writing here has been on a more superficial level over the past few weeks and its bugging me

Before you brush off this comment as just another example of over-analytical navel-gazing by a narcissistic blogger (heck Im even tempted to think that) let me state my case for why its not

I think part of the spiritual discipline of blogging (chuckle if you like but it can be) for me is that it serves as a sort of stethoscope that listens to the condition of my heartsoul What am I learning How am I living Whats important to me Whats not important Am I growing Where can I see God at work in the midst of my life

I think those sorts of questions get answered when I read back over my recent posts So when I find it hard to write anything of substance it tells me that Im

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 21

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 22

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 22: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

either too busy or Im drifting or coasting through life I mean for Petes sake Im writing more about my bathroom tile than I am about whats going on at soul-level Granted we all encounter seasons of rest and work freshness and stagnation The process of maturity in life is never a straight line -- the need for mid-course corrections are inevitable So thats where I am at the moment Sensing the need for some change in my soul Not in a self-loathing miserable Christian sort of way but with an attitude that says Thank you Lord for nudging me again53

I used my blog archive to write large sections of this paper and offer it as an example of the value of using a blog as a memex machine If I did not use text directly from my post I certain used my blog to augment my memory for this research54

53 Vanguard of the Church I am unable to empirically prove this thesis However I suspect that blogging propagates not only the cyberchurch but is the vanguard of the church (whether Catholic or Southern Baptist or the so-called Emerging Church55) I believe that blogs are where the newest memes emerge and spread Darren Rowse explains the connection between blogging and emerging church modalities

For me it functions as a sounding board as I think about theology church etc I often post questions that Im thinking through or ideas for church activities I love that there are people like me around the world experimenting with new forms of church like me [] I dont see blogging as me telling others how to do church or ministry but rather as a way of learning and forming networksit is very interactive56

I do not contend that we are completely original in our thinking We are often accused of getting excited about something outside our personal tradition and then shouting ldquoeurekardquo even though it has been part of church tradition for 200 years However those who think we are cute because we are reconnecting with our ancient past must remember that the Renaissance was birthed by the rediscovery of Greek culture We will mature and cease having the faux epiphanies And in the process we may do some original work and impact church history And it may be a sad day when we stop being excited by uncovering ldquonewrdquo aspects of our faith

54 Priesthood of All Bloggers The bazaar of the blogging cyberchurch is naturally susceptible to excesses untruths syncretism or blatant heresy It is not a homogeneous well-ordered or accurately labeled universe There is no pastor to shepherd it or denomination handing out credentials We take Martin Luthers concept of the priesthood of all believers to its extreme conclusion

The bloggers I surveyed seem to organically work out their conflicts over faith doctrine or praxis through peer review and vetting Bloggers take their faith seriously and actively engage in the process of spiritual formation This naturally causes them to protect what

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

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Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 23: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

they believe to be true about the church faith praxis and the Bible We unsystematically correct and challenge one-another

In the process the stories of truth seem to gather strength and eventually overshadow stories of untruth This is not accomplished through elimination of minority voices there is no Darwinian ldquosurvival of the fittestrdquo at work except that only very motivated bloggers blog for more than two months57 This filtering process is aptly represented by the PageRank algorithm which Google uses to rank search results

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual pages value In essence Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes or links a page receives it also analyzes the page that casts the vote Votes cast by pages that are themselves important weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important Important high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank which Google remembers each time it conducts a search58

None of those I surveyed felt that orthodoxy doctrine theology or the Bible were threatened by blogging Darren Rowse sums up the basic approach that bloggers employ

Im not sure it is necessary to authenticate another persons faith over the internet My approach is that we are all on spiritual Journeys (does that sound too new age) My role is not to authenticate another persons faith but rather do everything I can to help those around me (virtually and in real life) to move towards Jesus59

George Ertel is a little more precise

Do I need to authenticate believers Loosely I guess Paul was content to have the gospel preached even by those with weak motives60 I expect everyone has some bad theology so I am content to fellowship with those who assert that Jesus is the only Lord Personally I feel this will include some who profess belief without repentance but Irsquod rather be more accepting than more exclusive61

Bloggers are not looking for theological debates watertight syllogisms acclaim or credentials Rather they make the process of spiritual formation their apologetic Mike McKee explains

I believe that credibility comes from consistency and dedication Showing up to post on a regular basis helps A body of work with lots of posts gives people plenty of material on which to judge your credibility62

You will notice that Mike does not mention any theological criteria rather he judges according to a bloggerrsquos commitment to the process Rick Stillwell explains how these subjective judgments are made

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 23

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 24: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

People will show their colors youll just know But I dont like setting up some criteria that will probably always leave someone out God judges the heart I can only read their stuff - and if its worth sharing its worth sharing regardless of the label or tag we want to attach to it63

This does not mean that bloggers are relativists (although some are)mdashit simply means they do not objectify spiritual progress They recognize its iterative nature and prefer a subjective inwardness similar to the kind Soren Kierkegaard describes in his August 1 1935 journal entry

What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do not what I must know except in the way knowledge must precede all action It is a question of understanding my destiny of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do the thing is to find a truth which is true for me to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die And what use here would it be if I were to discover a so-called objective truth or if I worked my way through the philosophers systems and were able to call them all to account on request point out inconsistencies in every single circle And what use here would it be to be able to work out a theory of the state and put all the pieces from so many places into one whole construct a world which again I myself did not inhabit but merely held up for others to see What use would it be to be able to propound the meaning of Christianity to explain many separate facts if it had no deeper meaning for myself and for my life [] What use would it be if the truth were to stand before me cold and naked not caring whether I acknowledge it or not and inducing an anxious shudder rather than trusting devotion Certainly I wont deny that I still accept an imperative of knowledge and that one can also be influenced by it but then it must be taken up alive in me and this is what I now see as the main point It is this my soul thirsts for as the African deserts thirst for water64

In the cyberchurchmdashthere is no authority that determines what is in and what is out Steve Collins explains offers an excellent explanation

A closed set is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set all that is outside does not

Applying this to the Church closed set believers have a territorial concept of Gods kingdom enclosed within a boundary Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion Once inside Kingdom territory care must be taken not to cross the boundary again

An open set has no territorial boundary but is defined by relationship with a centre all that is moving towards the centre seeking relationship belongs all that is moving away abandoning relationship does not

[] In the open-set model the Church appears as a fluid network of relationships The shape and structure of the Church changes constantly as components move and connections change It cannot be frozen at one moment in time or fixed in a

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 24

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 25: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

particular pattern Any maps of the Church are snapshots and provisional readings65

The blogging cyberchurch de facto works like a Collinrsquos ldquoopen setrdquo The network unsystematically becomes the governing authority There is no formal action (no one is de-listed or censored) But that does not mean no action is taken

The cyberchurch hyperlinks to those who are moving towards Christmdashthis highlights the truth without having to eliminate untruth Bloggers use an appreciative filter that helps them determine the direction of the blogger they are reading We link to what is good Google or Popdex aggregates these links and over time the network distills that information to produce the truest truth66

We hold tomdashhowever lightly--the objective and certain reality of God however we believe the truth is discovered as we live link and blog in community In this we are spiritually formed in the image of Christ and participate in the church

48 Elijah Fan e-mail survey November 6 2003 49 Eric Steven Raymond ldquoThe Cathedral and the Bazaarrdquo September 11 2000

httpwwwcatborg~esrwritingscathedral-bazaarcathedral-bazaar50 A meme is an idea considered as a replicator esp with the connotation that memes parasitize

people into propagating them much as viruses do Coined from anology to gene by Richard Dawkins Meme The Hackers Dictionary of Computer Jargon httpwwwworldwideschoolorglibrarybookstechcomputersTheHackersDictionaryofComputerJargonchap35html

51 Andrew Jones e-mail survey 52 Vannevar Bush 53 Chad Canipe ldquoMidcourse Correctionrdquo September 25 2003

httpwwwnewlifecincycomchad2003_09_01_archiveasp54 Here is a list of blog entries that informed this paper in ascending chronological order Google

Adsense My Dreams My Wife Decides To Stay At Home And My Jesus Year August 20 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=316ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX The Need For An Audience September 2 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=332ampBloggerID=1 BloggingXXX Questions Im Thinking September 5 2002 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=342ampBloggerID=1 We Know More Than Our Pastors The New Amateur Clergy Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=364ampBloggerID=1 Participatory Media And the Changing Roles of Preachers This Rise of Bloggers As The New Amateur Preachers October 16 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=396ampBloggerID=1

55 Earl Creps Emerging CultureEmerging Church Resources v20 AGTS August 7 2003 httpwwwagtsedufacultyfaculty_publicationsbibliographiescreps_bibliographyindexhtml

56 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 57 This survey reports that 66 of blogs are abandoned after two months ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of

412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo Perseus Development Corporation October 4 2003 httpwwwperseuscomcorporatenews_shellphprecord=51

58 ldquoGoogle Technologyrdquo Google Emphasis added httpwwwgooglecomtechnology59 Darren Rowse e-mail survey 60 John references Phillipians 117-18 NIV 61 John Ertle e-mail survey November 7 2003 62 Mike McKee e-mail survey November 7 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 25

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 26: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

63 Rick Stillwell e-mail survey November 7 2003 64 D Anthony Storms Commentary On Kierkegaard ldquoJournals and Papersrdquo

httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgjournals_34-35htm65 Steve Collins ldquoSet Theoryrdquo Small Ritual httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsettheoryhtml66 Phillipians 48 NIV

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 26

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 27: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

60 Problems with Blogging I have purposely avoided using the term Christian blog and employ the term only in order to place us in a context but not label us I just want to demonstrate that we are not technical business or marketing blogs I use the term blogging solely to place us the wider context of the blogosphere The biggest problem with ldquoChristian bloggingrdquo is being labeled as a Christian Blogger Michael Cossarwal argues against labeling blogs ldquoChristianrdquo

I am a Christian My belief and relationship with Christ is the centre and pinnacle of my life My worldview influences my every thought and action My words are soaked in my faith But only a eighth or less of my posts deal with religion in any direct aspect I write about life Though life be effused with the divine so is it also filled to overflowing with the secular To abandon the secular is to lose perspective - and what good is a writer with no perspective

I am a Christian and this is my blog But this will never-ever-in-a-million-years-ever be a Christian Blog [] This is a Life Blog Good bad and ugly I embrace life for what it is holy and secular and write of coalescence I am The Dane and this is my Life Blog Welcome to it67

For all the promise that blogging holds for spiritual formation it also is wrought with warnings pitfalls and hype If we are to realize the potential of this phenomenon we need to find ways to deal with the problems inherit in the discipline of Christian blogging even if we do not label it as such This also does not prevent us from judging the enterprise as Christians

61 Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity The most prevalent critique of blogging is noted in this quote of Elizabet Osder by Noah Shactman

Bloggers are navel-gazers [] And theyre about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books [] Theres an overfascination here with self-expression with opinion This is opinion without expertise without resources without reporting68

Blogs replaced vanity home pages where people aggrandized themselves by posting narcissistic pictures and information Anyone who follows the Daypop Top 40 (a search engine that ranks a ldquolist of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the worldrdquo) knows that bloggers are often fascinated with themselves and their enterprise (as this white paper demonstrates)

As with any spiritual discipline (fasting prayer etc) vanity often rears its ugly head in the posts by bloggers However the counterbalance to vanity is built into cyberchurch created by bloggers Bene Diction explains why the blogging cyberchurch does not reward vanity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 27

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 28: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Some time ago Mark Byron wondered who would be the next star or breakout [Christian] blogger like Martin Roth had been The bottom line from what Ive looked at is we can hope there wont be one

Why Blogging is interactive and immediate There can be bloggers that gain a group of readers because of buzz or hype But the reality is in the god-blogosphere the core group are ordinary people who keep at it pay attention to their readers add personal content from time to time and lead by serving They find and link others It isnt flash in the pan stuff They can be current and thoughtful without receiving a speck of celebrity type attention69

Vanity is counterbalanced by the nature blogging it is hard work and takes a long time to build an audience The so-called A-list ldquogod-bloggersrdquo did not seek this designation but it was rather bestowed on them by other bloggers by virtue of their dedication thoughtfulness and lack of hubris

62 Seeking a Virtual Journey The other seduction of blogging is getting trapped in seeking an anonymous risk-free virtual journey that is dislocated from reality Dr Huber Dreyfus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Graduate School adapts Soren Kierkegaard s critique of the press and the public sphere in the 19th century Denmark to our use of the Internet Dreyfus explains Kieregaards criticism of the public sphere which we might call the Internet

[] the new massive distribution of desituated information was making every sort of information immediately available to anyone thereby producing a desituated detached spectator The new power of the Press to disseminate information to everyone in a nation led its readers to transcend their local personal involvement and overcome their reticence about what did not directly concern them As Burke had noted with joy the Press encouraged everyone to develop an opinion about everything This was seen by Habermas as a triumph of democratization but Kierkegaard saw that the Public Sphere was destined to become a realm of idle talk in which spectators merely pass the word along

[] The public sphere thus promotes ubiquitous commentators who deliberately detach themselves from the local practices out of which specific issues grow and in terms of which these issues must be resolved though some sort of committed action What seems a virtue to detached Enlightenment reason therefore looks like a disastrous drawback to Kierkegaard The public sphere is a world in which everyone has an opinion on and comments on all public matters without needing any first-hand experience and without having or wanting any responsibility

He then applies this to the Internet and by virtue to blogging

Kierkegaard would surely have seen in the Internet with its web sites full of anonymous information from all over the world and its interest groups which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic endlessly

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 28

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 29: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without consequences the hi-tech synthesis of the worst features of the newspaper and the coffee house On their web page anyone can put any alleged information into circulation70

Blogging is exceptionally susceptible to this problem because it delights in errata We can endlessly write about a topic transferring literate tid-bits between users never needing to resolve the issue The Apostle Paul warns against the seductive habit of ldquoalways learning but never able to acknowledge the truthrdquo (1 Timothy 36-8 NIV)71 Andrew Careaga explained why he stopped blogging about the church for a time

You probably wont be seeing much talk about Christianity church and religion for awhile Frankly Im tired of blogging about it Tired of the factions the petty debates the inchoate chorus of God-bloggers who bully and belittle one another the church the faith and the faith of others The telegraphic posts The flotsam of links The attempts at wit and irony The caustic know-it-all soapbox speeches Im tired of being a part of that crowd I wish to wash my hands of it all For the time being anyway Of course as soon as I say this no doubt Ill read a posting somewhere or a news article that intrigues me or angers me and off Ill go into the fray arms flailing like nobodys business adding to the confusion and muddle of the blogging hoard72

All the bloggers surveyed acknowledge that spiritual formation is a process a journey However we need to reach a point where we jump off the merry-go-round and we begin to live the truth We can never just seek the journey or the process without taking a risk making commitments and choosing to do something with our knowledge Otherwise we are Gnostics not Christians

63 Spreading Discord Some may see the entire enterprise as iconoclastic providing disgruntled Christians a global platform to spread discord It is true that many bloggers routinely criticize and deconstruct the church polity praxis and doctrine For example my blog has followed the plight of McGill Baptist church pastored by Steve Ayer which has been thrown out of two denominations (Cabarrus Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina) for baptizing two homosexual men I vehemently disagreed with both associations calling their decision ldquoasinineldquo I published this critique on September 29 2003

It seems that the whole problem stems from a mistaken link between baptism and membership From my reading of the New Testament baptism is a sacrament that issues the believer into the church--BUT NOT a particular church rather the church universal (catholic)

Why have many dominations made this link

Because they think of baptism in marketing terms It is a way to capture individuals and families and promote allegiance to a particular local church--which allows them to grow (which in the last 30 years almost means buy bigger

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 29

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 30: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

church buildings) If that sounds crass that is because it is In our pursuit of church membership growth we often twist biblical principals into shear marketing techniques that grow churches rather than disciple individuals and families As the church we need to repent of making such linkages because they are (at the root) spiritually abusive and unbiblical73

Is this spreading discord Or is it a legitimate attack upon Christiandom74 Some think that I should not ldquotouch Gods anointedrdquo (1 Chronicles 1622 and Psalm 10515 NIV) I believe that entries like mine are what Glen Renyolds and other bloggers call ldquofact-checking your assrdquo75 We are entering a new era where bloggers are able to cover church and pastoral misdeeds hypocrisy and abuses

By analogy Kathy McGregor used Google to discover that her pastor and employer Rev Alvin ONeal Jackson plagiarized many of his sermons for a year and a half76 Also Jackson later admitted to also plagiarizing portions of his book causing the publisher to remove the book from the market77

Although she is not a blogger she employed the same values as bloggers and not without consequences She has received threatening e-mails accusing her of being a a poor excuse for a Christian and a human beingrdquo78 This is not spreading discord but holding leaders accountable (As I will argue later this is prime evidence for my thesis that congregations know more than their pastors because they habitually underestimate the sophistication of their congregations)

Blogging offers lay people an unprecedented tool to express themselves without being filtered by a church denomination or doctrine For many in positions of power these tools may represent discord but to the rest of us they are the 21st century tools of the spontaneous prophet Like any communication channel blogging can devolve into screeds and rants that are malicious and irrational Other times they raise valid issues or report real instances of abuse hypocrisy or excesses With each post bloggers walk the line between being a prophet or a problem

We must not allow the odd (or regrettable) screed to overshadow the promise and power of blogging The best bloggers embrace opposing views attempting to enter into dialog A constructive rant is sometimes necessary to bring about change but if it is an end to itself then we invalidate our mission It is a grave miscalculation to dismiss bloggers as cranks

The cyberchurch created by bloggers must explore ways to address questions of accuracy trust theology and orthodoxy Not because it must answer to some denominational or Catholic authority but because it is a worthy discussion

64 Cronyism and Groupthink The blogging cyberchurch can produce the same sort of ldquogroupthinkrdquo that it originally sought to deconstruct in the traditional church An article at the Ackley Associates website explains how communities or networks form

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 30

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 31: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

As people first gather together into a group there may be only a rough consensus and partial agreement on shared values interests and modes of behavior Individuals may not even be consciously aware of which behavioral patterns are common to most members But when people of like mind continually gather and live together they create a system with strong feedback As they interact their common values become mutually-reinforcing When one member sees most other members behaving in a certain way that member will tend to align with them Over time these behaviors strengthen into self-sustaining norms and standardized accepted behavioral patterns 79

Then as the community matures is seeks self-preservation and prominent members of the community attempt to maintain their status and privilege Again Ackly Associates explain ldquoCloser adherence to a core set of behavioral norms becomes necessary for the stability of the overall community Leaders emerge or are appointed to help maintain order and represent the community-as-a-whole in external affairsrdquo80

Clay Shirky summarizes a common lament of this cultural process in the blogosphere

A persistent theme among people writing about the social aspects of weblogging is to note (and usually lament) the rise of an A-list a small set of webloggers who account for a majority of the traffic in the weblog world This complaint follows a common pattern weve seen with MUDs BBSes and online communities like Echo and the WELL A new social system starts and seems delightfully free of the elitism and cliquishness of the existing systems Then as the new system grows problems of scale set in Not everyone can participate in every conversation Not everyone gets to be heard Some core group seems more connected than the rest of us and so on81

Essentially he describes what we experienced in the schoolyard there are cliques of popular kids who get all the attention and privilege Shirky reminds us that cronyism is not malevolent but natural

What matters is this Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality and the greater the diversity the more extreme the inequality In systems where many people are free to choose between many options a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention or income) even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome This has nothing to do with moral weakness selling out or any other psychological explanation The very act of choosing spread widely enough and freely enough creates a power law distribution82

Most of us lament this situation for envy but this misses the real problem This situation makes the cyberchurch susceptible to groupthink ldquoa dysfunction in which some group members attempt to preserve group harmony by suppressing the voicing of dissenting opinionrdquo83 Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post summarizes this critique

What began as the ultimate outsider activity -- a way to break the newspaper and

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 31

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 32: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insiders game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique The more blogs you read and the more often you read them the more obvious it is Theyve fallen in love with themselves each other and the beauty of what theyre creating The cult of media celebrity hasnt been broken by the Internets democratic tendencies its just found new enabling technology84

This critique can also be aimed at the blogging cyberchurch Bloggers attempts to circumvent the cult of charismatic church growth gurus and the Christian media industry but we may be simply creating another cult of blog gurus This may turn us into hypocrites if we are not careful and intentional A recent study by Hewlett-Packard also determined that the most popular blogs are not the most innovative

The most-read webloggers arent necessarily the ones with the most original ideas say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs

Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution85

The so-called A-list Christian bloggers (although they may hate being labeled as such) and portal sites like blogs4God carry a heavy burden We need to intentionally promote less read bloggers for if we do not the cyberchurch will fall victim cronyism and groupthink

65 Hype When I read the hype that surrounded Googles purchase of Pyra (the company that created Blogger) I flashed back to 1996 when the Internet was going to save the world86 AOL 90 now offers AOL Journal to its 34 million members and recently Microsoft leaked that it is working on social networking application mysteriously called Wallop David Sifry creator of Technorati (portal site that tracks over 12 million blogs) estimates that a new weblog is created every 11 seconds and updated every 86 seconds87 Perseus Development Corporation survey for BlogCon 2003 counts 42 million blogs but figures two-thirds are abandoned88

The fact that 66 of blogs are abandoned means that blogging is in fact a discipline And any as novice blogger can attest gaining audience is slow and difficult Jeffrey Henning COO of Persus concludes that Nanoaudiences are the logical outcome of continued growth in blogs and notes that most blogs have no more than two-dozen readers89 This may explain why many blogs are quickly abandoned the majority of bloggers toil for small audiences Sara writes about her experience with her audience and why she blogs

My Christian site got one newspaper article which massively backfired and got me a ton of hate mail That was a crisis which made me take the site more

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 32

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 33: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

seriously as a tool for ministry The blog is just my journey and if Im getting hostility for my journey then maybe there are other people out there who are also concerned that they cant be a Christian because theyre not like the Christians on TV or the ones who write angry letters to bloggers If reading my writing makes people feel like Christ isnt just here for Ned Flanders then yay Ive done my job Also I just like to talk about myself90

Blogging cannot save the world or the church but it does impact small niche audiences in profound ways My research demonstrates that blogging does the work of spiritual formation In the end bloggers need a better motivation than mind-share vanity or hype to persist In the end they do it for themselves in light of their incarnational mission and their passion to participate

66 Question of Orthodoxy On June 29 2002 Martin Roths ldquoSemi-definitive List of Christian Bloggersrdquo moved to a more technically advanced site called blogs4God The new directory lists sites ldquofrom professing Christiansrdquo In August the webmaster Dean Peters decided that it was necessary to change the directorys original seven-point ldquoStatement Of Faithrdquo to a list of hyperlinks to creeds documents and confessions pertaining to ldquothe historic tenants of the Christian faithrdquo91 The purpose of the directory was to list those who practiced ldquohistoric Christianityrdquo The reason for the change is that the original statement of faith was ldquoover the toprdquo 92 according to Dean Peters and did not account for historic tradition Peters explains ldquoI wanted the list to represent those who practiced Historic Christianityrdquo93

I use blogs4God as an example because it seems reasonable that we should be able to determine who is and who is not a member of the cyberchurch It is the purpose of orthodoxy to define a set of standard of beliefs held by followers of Christ The problem is that it seems that the church is unable codify this standard set of beliefs I posted an early version of this section online and one commentator surmised ldquoOrthodoxy doesnt work because there are too many lsquoorthodoxiesrsquordquo94 Clay Shirky explains why labels like orthodoxy break down when applied to a network

Many networked projects [hellip] have started with the unobjectionable hypothesis that communication would be easier if everyone described things the same way From there it is a short but fatal leap to conclude that a particular brand of unifying description will therefore be broadly and swiftly adopted (the this will work because it would be good if it did fallacy)

Any attempt at a global ontology is doomed to fail because meta-data describes a worldview The designers of the Soviet librarys cataloging system were making an assertion about the world when they made the first category of books Works of the classical authors of Marxism-Leninism Melvyl Dewey was making an assertion about the world when he lumped all books about non-Christian religions into a single category listed last among books about religion It is not possible to neatly map these two systems onto one another or onto other classification schemes -- they describe different kinds of worlds

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 33

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 34: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Because meta-data describes a worldview incompatibility is an inevitable by-product of vigorous argument

The question of orthodoxy is easily answered (and even useful) within a homogeneous community of self-interest like a denomination because the stakeholders approach the topic from a common worldview The recent election of the Episcopalian Churchs first openly homosexual bishop and the subsequent dispute teaches us the question of orthodoxy is not easily answered Furthermore answering the question of who is orthodox becomes unwieldy and distorted when applied in a global network like the Internet or I would contend the church simply because there are too many so-called orthodoxies

This is why the modern approach to apologetics espoused by scholars like Ravi Zarcharias are unable to answer the question of orthodoxy when applied to a network It is just impossible to craft universally accepted terms as Zarcharias claims are essential in order to arrive at truth95 (I would argue that the existence of some 33830 denominations points to a fundamental impossibility of defining orthodoxy96) I believe that the best we can hope for is a transparent tolerant ontology that is useful for a particular community of self-interest like the one employed by blogs4God (I think it is notable that Dean Peters solved the problem with blogs4Godrsquos statement of faith by creating hyperlinks to documents from church antiquity)

The unsuccessful attempt by Donald Hughes at JesusJournal to create an ldquoAssociation of Christian Webloggersrdquo and issue a so-called ldquocode of conductrdquo demonstrated that any attempt to control who is and who is not a Christian blogger is foolish97 The verdict of the blogging cyberchurch is that nothing could be more damaging to blogging Paulo Brown observed

I think that such a tact can only add to the veneer of mediocrity which faith-oriented forms of media have come to be associated with Far better to form a community of mutual links [blogs4God] than to artlessly throw manifestos at a crowd which will only dismiss you as ingenuous at best

I certainly dont want to antagonize our misguided but well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ at Jesus Journal but what do you all think of this what causes this visceral response as Bene Diction calls it Is it because of the grasp of a potentially legalistic religious fist or is it just indignance at the presumptuousness of this outsider and newcomer to the faith-based blogosphere98

The difficulty centers on who gets to define orthodoxy and who has the authority to apply the definition As my earlier section suggests ldquoThe Priesthood of All Bloggersrdquo bloggers usually devise their own orthodoxy (I argue that this is a fundamental activity in spiritual formation) This makes the doctrinal stance of the blogger difficult to codify and makes the question of orthodoxy insignificant

Issues of orthodoxy arise when directories or researchers (like me) attempt to define who is and who is not a Christian blogger This question rarely gets addressed by

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 34

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 35: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

bloggers unless they are asked The closest they come to addressing the issue is for their blog roll (list of their favorite bloggers) In my research however bloggers employed a generous and open filter when selecting their blog roll They mostly included blogs they liked or interacted with rather than those they define as Christian My research indicates that most bloggers do not feel that questions of orthodoxy yield anything very useful

To make the case that determining the orthodoxy of bloggers is unnecessary I offer my adaptation of an article by Micky Kauas ldquoThe Case Against Editorsrdquo99 (which was written in the aftermath of the Greg Easterbrooks blogging about ldquoJewish executivesrdquo Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein100) This is my case against the need to authenticate the orthodoxy of a blogger

Almost everyone can agree that seminary degrees denominational oversight and ordination are no guarantee of orthodoxy Christiandom is littered with examples of those who test long-accepted doctrines (ie Open Theologians) or who exist on the margins of orthodoxy (ie Benny Hinn) Why should bloggers be any different I also reiterate my previous point that no orthodox consensus exists in the traditional church either Why should we expect the cyberchurch to be any different

Furthermore we cannot deny the fact that many bloggers produce orthodox content without proper expertise denominational credentials seminary degrees or pastoral oversight

On the other hand it is pompous to think that church structures degrees pastoral oversight and denominational credentials have no impact on protecting orthodoxy The real question is whether they protect it enough to make the question fruitful Early church history demonstrates that orthodoxy thrived before the various councils of the early church codified it in creeds and decrees It was just confusing It is also a misnomer that all bloggers are untrained many of the bloggers I surveyed held degrees or some credentials that provided external credibility So traditional channels of preserving orthodoxy continue to work within cyberchurch

A good question to ask is ldquoHow is blogging any different that extemporaneous preaching or live TVrdquo These outlets are just as prone to mistakes and heresy I argue that blogging is more accountable than most media channels because bloggers often keep extensive (unedited) archives of their material which can be searched hyperlinked and commented

Blogging has built in checks and balances that provide immediatecontinuous peer review and vetting E-mail comments Google and hyperlinks compensate for excesses and act as a corrective force The collective brain of the blogging cyberchurch demands that readers are editors as well as publishers101

A case can be made that there is more wiggle room at a blog than in other genres of gospel communication because it is a unique literary form It is misguided to judge blogs by the same standards as sermons dissertations or journal articles

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 35

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 36: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Admittedly blogging brings with it certain ldquodangersrdquo At my blog the question of orthodoxy is not answered by denominations bishops or doctoral thesis rather I answer it with the help of the community that surrounds me I am not sure that the church establishment can do much to reverse this trend as society embraces self-created experts peer vetting continuous-learning and posts more primary source material online

At my blog I regularly ldquodefendrdquo what I believe to be orthodox Christianity In one particular case I commented on this statement by the Dalai Lama ldquoI think it is best if one is a believer to keep the religion with which one was brought up which one is used to which is familiarrdquo102 Confused by the statement I set out my reasons for converting to Christianity the foremost being that I believe it to be exclusively true I received several comments arguing for a universalist position For example Mike McKee commented

Since the Dalai Lama like other good Buddhists lives his life very much in accord with the example set by Jesus and deeply in accord with His only sermon I would venture to say that in practice his HH is a better example of actually living the teaching of Christ than that of most Christians Yes Christianity is True I cannot believe that God is either so narrow or petty that He cannot be worshiped in many seemingly contradictory ways I simply dont believe that Christianity is exclusively true 103

While I disagree with Mike I am not willing to cut myself off from him as he believes in Christ Traditional church denominations might find this untenable (they would probably seek to proselytize him) but I believe that we are living in a new (call it postmodern) era where we need to accept all believers in Christ not just those who ascribe to our denominational statement I do not see Mike as someone to convert but a person with whom I join in a common desire to be spiritually formed in Christ

I believe the blogging cyberchurch is on the frontline of addressing the issues of apologetics and orthodoxy in this new era I believe we exist in a liminal moment where old structures have caved in and new structures are being invented but are not yet formed Using technology and stories I argue that bloggers are creating new ways to maintain orthodoxy in this era These new structures will inevitably emerge from cyberspace and impact the traditional hierarchies of the church I believe this synthesis will create something stronger and more creative than what existed before

67 Michael Cossarwal Nowwheresville USA Thursday August 1 2002

httpwwwnowheresvilleusarch2002_08_01_old1php68 Noah Shactman ldquoBlogs Make Headlinesrdquo Wired

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012845697800html69 Bene Diction I Want To Be A Blogging Star Bene Diction Blogs On November 16 2003

httpbenedictionblogsoncom70 Hubert L Dreyfus ldquoKierkegaard on the Internet Anonymity vrs Commitment in the Present Agerdquo

2002 httpist-socratesberkeleyedu~hdreyfushtmlpaper_kierkegaardhtml71 Bible Gateway httpbiblegospelcomnetbiblepassage=2TIM2036-872 Andrew Careaga ldquoHave you noticedrdquo blogedyblog August 21 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 36

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 37: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpbloggedyblogblogspotcom2003_08_17_bloggedyblog_archivehtml - 106155543127505254

73 Tim Bednar Baptizing Homosexuals McGill Baptist Gets Thrown Out Of Yet Another Association Moxy Turtle September 29 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=379ampBloggerID=1

74 Reference to Soren Kieregaardrsquos attack upon Christiandom httpwwwsorenkierkegaardorgkw23ahtm

75 Glen Renolds Instapundit May 21 2002 httpwwwinstapunditcomarchives001123php76 Bill Broadwaym ldquoBorrowed Sermons Roil Downtown Congregationrdquo Washington Post August 16

2003 77 Jackson to take leave from National City will skip General Assembly Disciple World November 10

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-102003-10-11aview78 ldquoWoman who discovered sermon-borrowing denies tipping off Postrdquo Disciples World August 20

2003 httpwwwdisciplesworldcomNewsItems20032003-082003-08-20cview79 ldquoCommunity Culturerdquo Ackley Associates April 13 2003

httpwwwackleycom1_social_systems33_community_culturehtm80 Ibid 81 Clay Shirky ldquoPower Laws Weblogs and Inequalityrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet

February 8 2003 httpshirkycomwritingspowerlaw_webloghtml82 Ibid 83 Chapter 13 Glossary Communication Works 7th Edition Teri Kwal Gamble and Michael Gamble 84 Jennifer Howard ldquoIts a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphererdquo Washington Post November 16 2003

httpwwwwashingtonpostcomwp-dynarticlesA43254-2003Nov14html85 Amit Asaravala ldquoWarning Blogs Can Be Infectiousrdquo Wired March 5 2004

httpwwwwiredcomnewsculture012846253700htmltw=wn_tophead_186 GartnerGroups Hype Cycle is a termed explained by Jackie Fenn When to Leap on the Hype

Cycle June 30 1999 Concept developed in 1995 httpwww3gartnercomDisplayDocumentid=299925

87 David Sifry ldquoTechnorati Growing Painsrdquo Sifrys Alerts November 6 2003 925 PM 88 ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg Of 412 Million Weblogs Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandonedrdquo et al 89 Jeffrey Henning ldquoThe Blogging Iceberg - Of 412 Million Hosted Weblogs Most Little Seen Quickly

Abandonedrdquo November 26 2003 httpwwwperseusdevelopmentcomblogsurveythebloggingiceberghtml

90 Comment from Sara UPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy Turtle November 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1

91 The original statement is quoted by Glenn Frazier Whats New GlennFraziercom July 29 2003 httpwwwglennfraziercomarticles20020729221044php The altered statement can be found at Creeds And Confessions Of Historic Christianity blogs4God June 1 2002 httpwwwblogs4godcomlinkerarticlephpa=20

92 Dean Peters ldquoChanging The Statement of Faith Comment 705rdquo Keith Devons Weblog August 16 2002 httpkeithdevenscomweblogarchive2002Aug16ChangingStatementOfFaith

93 Comment by Mean Dean (aka Dean Peters) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 10 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

94 Comment by Torch (aka RevDeansbcglobalnet) BloggingXXX Question of Othodoxy (COMMENTS NEEDED) Moxy Turtle December 11 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=456ampBloggerID=1

95 Ravi Zacharias Living an Apologetic Life RZIM 2003 httpwwwgospelcomnetrzimpublicationsjttranphpjtcode=JT03FRZ

96 Richard N Ostling Researcher tabulates worlds believers Associated Press May 19 2001 httpwwwadherentscommiscWCEhtml

97 Donald L Hughes ldquoChristian Weblogging A Manifestordquo JesusJournal August 10 2002 httpwwwjesusjournalcomjj_newsmanifestohtml

98 Paulo Brown ldquoChristian Bloggers Manifestordquo how now brownpau August 12 2002 httpwwwbrownpaucomblogarchives200208 - christian_bloggers_manifesto

99 Mickey Kaus The Case Against Editors kausfiles October 28 2003

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 37

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 38: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

httpslatemsncomid2090405

100 Jack Shafer Blogosmear Gregg Easterbrook and the perils of writing before you think Slate October 20 2003 httpslatemsncomid2090091

101 Jay Rosen Whats Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism Pressthink October 16 2003 httpjournalismnyuedupubzoneweblogspressthink20031016radical_tenhtml

102 Tim Bednar ldquoDalai Lama Says NOT To Convert To Buddhismrdquo Moxy Turtle November 21 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomblog-detailaspEntryID=407ampBloggerID=1

103 Tim Bednar The Fallacy Of Being Good And Being Peaceful Moxy Turtle December 4 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=453ampBloggerID=1

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 38

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 39: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

70 The Vanguard of the Participatory Church The dominant theme to emerge from my research is that bloggers value this medium because they can participate without being filtered by church structures denominational restrictions or even doctrinal impurity We have grown tired of pastors being the gatekeepers of what is important In this we feel our pastors are often times set apart from our real authentic lives and not by choice But they are distanced by traditional church structures We genuinely believe that we have more to offer than what the church is structured to receive Jurgen Moltmann observes this trend in his article ldquoChristianity in the Third Millenniumrdquo

The more modern people become conscious of their freedom the less they want to be cared for and watched over by a hierarchy of bishops theologians and pastors All polls indicate that people want more participation in the church and that they are ready for responsibility [hellip] The strength of religious belonging on the basis of birth and custom is diminishing The strength of individual choice is growing People themselves are making a new participatory church out of the old church in which they remained passive and were cared for The number of members will diminish but the active participation of those members will increase104

With the explosion of easy-to-use ldquoblogwarerdquo we are able to circumvent traditional structures publish our ideas and unite with others with a common desire It would be a mistake to simply label us as disgruntled or individidualistic In fact we desire to reclaim our spiritual formation from pre-packaged sermon series and small group programs that structurally resist (or suppress) participation in favor of a solitary voice We are not convinced that pastors know more about following Christ than we do

We feel we have every right to participate In an interview for his book Emergence Steven Berlin Johnson crafts the catchphrase for my thesis ldquothe whole is sometimes smarter than the sum of its partsrdquo105 This is why I believe that bloggers know more than their pastors and why we make up the vanguard of what I will call the participatory church

In the process of blogging we have discovered that our emerging network is smarter more responsive and more creative that our churches pastors and denominations Michael Boyink interprets it this way rephrasing a point from Cluetrain Manifesto ldquoPeople in networked congregations have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another that from [their churches]rdquo106

What we seek goes far beyond being elected to a board obtaining credentials working in the ministry or being in leadership The Purpose Driven Church model of finding ldquospiritual giftsrdquo and leadership development may have been a good start but we desire to participate in a more fundamental manner107 Neely explains the empowering effect of blogging

It has given me a voice that I normally would not have as a volunteer lay leader and intern It also gives me a sense of freedom in that I can express my opinions

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 39

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 40: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

without fear that I will be judged for my thoughts I also gain some confidence when other readers respond to what I write108

The one-to-many communication paradigm found in existing church structures needs to change We want a church that encourages and values participation that sees congregations as a conversation This change is not happening in a vacuum but we are part of a larger social phenomenon Bloggers belong to the same cultural shift that is transforming journalism business mass media education and politics For instance Terry Heaton writes about how these changes are affecting journalism

The institutions of the world would do well to listen to the people on the street for their view is quite different than the opinion of those atop their pedestals Of course they have no incentive to do so so the smokescreen of polling is offered as an attempt to hear the voice of the people This is not only true in the business world but itrsquos the mainstream mediarsquos sad excuse for interactivity [hellip] Therersquos a new movement underway today that says relevant journalism could bemdashand perhaps should bemdasha conversation not a lecture or the squawk and noise that comes when journalists talk to each other [hellip] The essential conflict between the old and the new in journalism is the belief by those of the new breed that ongoing feedbackmdashand interaction with that feedbackmdashadvances the story

The church growth and mega-church phenomenon answered the question of how to present the gospel to a consumer by adopting the language of business They began using marketing techniques excellent production values and consumer-focused service in order to recapture the attention of the Baby Boom generation But the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism Doc Searls writes after hearing a keynote speech by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple computers

[Steve Jobs] spent an almost unbearabley long time showing off a new application called GarageBand ldquoan anytime anywhere recording studio packed with hundreds of instruments and a recording engineer or two for good measurerdquo For the first time I saw that this isnrsquot simply a technical or marketing hackmdashitrsquos an economic one

Itrsquos easy to say that what Apple is doing here is about marketing But itrsquos not even though clever marketing is involved See marketing is about influencing markets Itrsquos about spin In the mass-market milieu where Apple lives itrsquos about maintaining the fully saturated Matrix-like habitat we call Consumer Culture That culture was built by those who own and control the means of production So what we call ldquoconsumer electronicsrdquo is really producer electronics It isnrsquot about what you and I invent and contribute to the marketplace Itrsquos about what Sony and Panasonic and Nikon and Canon produce and distribute through retailers for us the mass market to consume constantly Itrsquos producerism really As a label ldquoconsumerismrdquo is a red herring Talk about ldquoconsumerismrdquo takes the conversation off into victimville where the poor consumer needs to get better stuff and less abuse from the big bad producer

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 40

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 41: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers This practice radically transforms both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it

As I describe what I call the participatory church I am answering the question ldquoHow does the church present the gospel to participative producers rather than consumersrdquo Clay Shirky writes in ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo

The Internet heralds the disappearance of the consumer altogether because the Internet destroys the noisy advertisersilent consumer relationship that the mass media relies upon The rise of the internet undermines the existence of the consumer because it undermines the role of mass media In the age of the internet no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet109

Pew Internet amp American Life Project recently found that ldquo44 of Internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to Web sites creating blogs and sharing filesrdquo110 Whether the existing church likes it or not we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants For now we are a small minority but still number in the hundreds of thousands111 We make up the creative vanguard that will guide and mentor the emerging participatory church into maturity Our elders the Baby Boomers learned how to communicate to consumers but to find success in the future a new generation will need to learn how to speak to a new breed of producers who have been radically transformed by using the Internet

104 Jurgen Moltmann ldquoChristianity in the Third Milleniumrdquo Theology Today April 1994

httptheologytodayptsemeduapr1994v51-1-article06htm105 Andrew Leonard ldquoThe Emergent Order Interview With Steven Berlin Johnsonrdquo Salon November

2001 httpdirsaloncomtechfeature20011128emergenceindexhtml106 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto For Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive date

httpwwwboyinkcomportfolio_more299_0_4_0_M9107 Find resource on web 108 Neely commented on ldquoUPDATED Open Survey Five Questions For Christian Bloggersrdquo Moxy

Turtle November 8 2003 httpwwwe-churchcomBlog-detailaspEntryID=410ampBloggerID=1109 Clay Shirky ldquoRIP The Consumerrdquo Clay Shirkys Writings About the Internet May 2000

httpwwwshirkycomwritingsconsumerhtml110 Pew Internet And American Life Project ldquoContent Creation Online 44 of US Internet users have

contributed their thoughts and their files to the online worldrdquo February 29 2004 httpwwwpewinternetorgreportstocaspReport=113

111 The Pew Project identified the ldquopower content creatorsrdquo as young with an average age of 25 and equally divided along race and gender lines While most Boomers fit the profile of a ldquocontent omnivorerdquo which remains the majority of Internet users

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 41

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 42: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

80 Participatory Church As a former Christian education director with ten years experience my peers and I lamented the lack of participation in Christian education or discipleship programs in our churches It seemed as though the majority were content to come on Sunday morning but had little desire to pursue an on-going discipleship program I always found this at odds with the dramatic rise in lifelong learning as evidenced by the success of Barnes and Noble and evening college courses As a result traditional Christian education programs are albeit eliminated or transformed into self-help teaching series that meet ldquofelt-needsrdquo And research seems to indicate that the evangelical church in particular maintains an immature unexamined passive Christian faith precisely because of its ineffective educational programs112

The seminal ClueTrain Manifesto--written by Chris Locke Doc Searls David Weinberger--described the new realities shaping our congregations113 They uniquely described the transforming effect that the Internet was having on people I base the following description of the participatory church on their work and the derivative work of Michael Boyink and Dale Lature114

The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is a ldquomemberrdquo and who is not 115 It believes that it owns these definitions This is no longer true Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ Those involved in the conversation define the terms not the church

Conversations are all around us Christianity is one of many

Christians get information for their conversation from multiple sources that include but are not limited to Christianity We no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition church pastor or denomination We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies116

Every Christian is a creator We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ

Christians belong to multiple congregations

Participation in the conversation is spiritual formation

Congregations are conversations They have a human voice Congregations are getting smarter and more informed as they talk to each other Participation in this new kind of networked congregation fundamentally changes people

Churches are not congregations They do not participate in the conversation of their congregation In fact churches spent most of their time energy and money creating parallel conversations and get frustrated when no one participates in them In this new reality churches sound hollow flat and literally inhuman to their congregations They do not speak the same language because they do not have a human voice

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 42

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 43: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

Churches that think they do are kidding themselves and missing an opportunity

Congregations are more important than churches117

Most churches and pastors assume they build congregations This is not true Rather they belong to congregations In this new era congregations (like conversations) are all around usmdashwe are in search of churches (and pastors)

Congregations credential pastors they trust and invite into their conversation Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness

Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help congregations deal with complexity They see themselves as benevolent keepers of Christian tradition who enable Christians embrace emergence and foster learning They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church

Pastors are not primarily preachers Sermons are no longer teachings but learning experiences Goal of preaching is to learn not teach

Congregations are looking for pastors who serve them and offer the Sacraments We are not looking for a vision

Church planters are people who are called to find and eventually pastor emerging congregations

The participatory church intimately connects with the real storytellers of Christianity namely the congregation Pastors and churches no longer tell the gospel story All truth statements are co-created by congregations through the process of emergent conversations

These new participatory churches work on a gift economy This means that Kingdom work is the reward not financial remuneration or power

Relational authenticity and longevity--not attendance--equals success in the participatory church A churchrsquos primary value to the congregation lies in its ability to connect Christians in conversation service and sacrament Connectedness equals healthy spiritual formation

Participatory churches provide more meaningful and memorable experiences because they participate with congregations Even if Christians do not contribute to the conversation they still expect a better experience because of the participation of others

The participatory church is diverse in viewpoints and traditions The new ministry of the pastor is to co-create systems that help congregations manage complexity

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 43

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 44: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

The greatest skill a participatory pastor will possess is the ability to listen

Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy arbitrate membership or filter their conversation Orthodoxy will emerge Call it emergent orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is not determined by a single source but is distributed throughout the congregation Neil Cole a leader in the organic church movement observes ldquoThe best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in lsquothe pulpitsrsquo but better-trained people in lsquothe pewsrsquordquo

What I am trying to describe is a new kind of church created by believers transformed by their use of the Internet Their so-called virtual life is changing them and in turn they will change the church 112 ldquoSpiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003rdquo Barna Research Group December 22 2003

httpwwwbarnaorgcgi-binPagePressReleaseaspPressReleaseID=155ampReference=F113 ClueTrain Manefesto httpwwwcluetraincom114 Michael Boyink ldquoThe ClueTrain Manifesto for Churchesrdquo Boyink Interactive February 3 2004

Dale Lature ldquoCluetrain Category Archivesrdquo Theoblogical httptheoblogicalorgmovtyparchivescat_cluetrainhtml

115 I use the term ldquochurchrdquo to mean a local legal entity 116 Steve Collins called this the network or portfolio church ldquoNetwork Church and Portfolio Churchrdquo

Small Ritual August 2002 httpwwwbtinternetcom~smallritualsfcolumnaug02html117 I confess I got this from listening to Drive105 The on-air tagline states ldquoYour music is more

important than any radio stationrdquo httpwwwdrive105com

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 44

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 45: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

90 Epilogue The initial meme that made me think about how bloggers might transform the church began with my reading of Dan Gillmorrsquos ldquojournalistic pivot pointsrdquo118 Journalism is a stodgy institution that tenaciously protects its constitutional role in democracy I found that these issues closely mimic those in the church In his Columbia Journalism Review article ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo Gillmor writes

[] in an emerging era of multidirectional digital communications the audience can be an integral part of the process Call it ldquoWe Mediardquo Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode mdash herersquos the news and you buy it or you donrsquot mdash to include a conversation

[] our readers collectively know more than we do and they donrsquot have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves This is not a threat It is an opportunity And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt119

Like professional journalism the church also needs to deal with these issues and see bloggers as the vanguard of these changes As Gillmor suggests this is not an option but a reality However I want to go further We need to view participants as co-creators This is not what passes for participation in churches today

Rick Warren pastor of SaddleBack and author of the Purpose Driven Church often sees participation at church like this

I was talking with some people after a weekend service once and I mentioned that we really needed someone to create a multimedia videotape for an upcoming event The person I was talking to said Why dont you get her

And he pointed to a woman standing a few feet away I walked over found out the womans name and asked what she did Her reply was Im the chief video production director for Walt Disney120

He seemingly advocates participation in this example He is using the gifts God gave to the body Or is he Warren does not approach the chief video production director for Walt Disney as a co-creator but as someone who will help him create the church In the past this worked and satisfied the laity But a new generation of creators do not want to work on ldquothe pastorrsquos visionrdquo121 They expect pastors to instead help them realize their vision I am advocating something more radical that the popular spiritual gifts-based volunteer recruiting practices refined by WillowCreek and SaddleBack where leaders retain absolute control122

For example Edward Cone explains how Dean for America encouraged participatory co-creation in its 2004 presidential campaign

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 45

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 46: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

With the Internet an effective campaign creates a community that will on its own begin to market your product for you Properly done you wont be able ndash or want mdash to control it

We want to let [grassroots volunteers] have control let them help the campaign how they want to help the campaign says Deans campaign manager Joe Trippi

The trick is to turn the buyers of a product concept or candidate into evangelists willing to take action on their own to spur demand And the recruitment doesnt have to cost much123

What the Deaniacs were to Democratic Party in 2004 bloggers will be to the church Congregations want access to the raw and uncensored bits that make up the church in order to use it in their conversation They do not want to control of the church or eliminate pastors they want to be co-creators In this new era of participation congregations still recognize the unique spiritual gifts and calling of clergy They just no longer accept that they are the sole creative source or that they should function as gatekeepers

118 Dan Gilmore ldquoJournalistic Pivot Pointsrdquo 119 Dan Gillmor ldquoHere Comes We Media Tech-Savvy Readers Want In on the Conversationrdquo

Columbia Journalism Review MayJune 2003 120 Rick Warren rdquoThe Four Pillars Of A Strong Lay Ministryrdquo Pastorscom May 14 2003

httpwwwpastorscomRWMTid=102ampartid=3984ampexpand=1121 For example The Power of Vision Conference

httpwwwchristianitytodaycomconferencesevents200440330html 122 ldquoNetwork Curriculum Kitrdquo WillowCreek Resources

httpwwwwillowcreekcomsearchsearchaspstrSearch=spiritual20gifts 123 Edward Cone Marketing The Presidentrdquo

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 46

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names
Page 47: We Know More Than Our Pastors

Tim Bednar | e-Churchcom

100 Index of Names Alan Creech 7 9 11 12 14 18 Alan Sondheim 8 Alvin ONeal Jackson 30 Andrew Careaga 7 10 29 36 Andrew Jones 11 17 18 20 25 Ashely Benigno 17 Bene Diction 27 34 36 Bill Bean 17 19 Bill Quick 7 8 Chad Canipe 16 21 Charlie Wear 17 Chris Marshall 16 Clay Shirky 31 33 37 Dalai Lama 36 Dale Lature 7 Dallas Willard 14 18 Dan Gillmor 4 6 Darren Rowse 9 17 19 22 23 David Moutz 16 David Sifry 32 37 Dean Peters 7 33 34 37 Dietrich Bonhoeffer 17 Doc Searls 6 Donald Hughes 34 Douglas Adams 5 Dr Huber Dreyfus 28 Dr Seuss 5 Edward Cone 17 19 45 46 Elijah Fan 20 25 Elizabet Osder 27 Eric Steven Raymond 20 25 George Ertel 23 Glen Renyolds 30 Glenn Johnson 16 Greg Easterbrook 35 Harvey Weinstein 35

Henri JM Nouwen 14 Jeffrey Henning 32 Jennifer Howard 31 37 Jordon Cooper 6 7 9 10 15 17 18

20 Kathy McGregor 30 Kevin Rains 16 Kurt Vonnegut 16 Leila Fast 12 18 Linus Torvalds 20 Mark Byron 28 Martin Luther 3 22 Martin Roth 6 8 17 19 28 33 Melvyl Dewey 33 Michael Cossarwal 27 36 Michael Eisner 35 Micky Kauas 35 Mike McKee 14 23 25 36 Neely 39 Noah Shactman 27 Paulo Brown 34 37 Rachel Cunliff 7 15 Ravi Zarcharias 34 Ray Bradbury 12 Rick Stillwell 23 26 Rick Warren 18 45 46 Rudy Carrasco 9 18 Sara 32 Soren Kierkegaard 24 28 Spensor Burke 17 Steve Ayer 29 Steve Berlin Johnson 16 19 Steve Collins 9 10 18 24 26 Teilhard de Chardin 7 8 Vannevar Bush 7 21 25 William Gibson 5

| We Know More Than Our Pastors 47

  • Introduction
  • Blog Sounds Ridiculous When Said Out Loud
  • Cyberchurch Pilgrimage
  • Blogs and ldquoChristianrdquo Blogging
    • We Blog to Participate
    • We Blog in the Present
    • We Blog in the First Person
    • We Blog as a Discipline
    • We Use Blogging to Preach
    • We Blog to Earn Permission
    • We Blog to Care
    • We Blog Build the Kingdom
      • Blogging Is Being Spiritually Formed
        • Cathedral and Bazaar
        • Memex Machines
        • Vanguard of the Church
        • Priesthood of All Bloggers
          • Problems with Blogging
            • Vanity Vanity All Is Vanity
            • Seeking a Virtual Journey
            • Spreading Discord
            • Cronyism and Groupthink
            • Hype
            • Question of Orthodoxy
              • The Vanguard of the Participatory Church
              • Participatory Church
              • Epilogue
              • Index of Names

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