Value of Church Blogging
Though blogging has “been around” for a few years, many churches are still trying to determine if it has value. There are many applications of a blog that can advance the scope of any ministry. A blog primarily affords a church the opportunity to open a dialogue on contemporary spiritual issues and topics. It also allows conversation around sermon topics. Generally, it brings to life another communication channel for your church.
Will everyone read it or participate by writing comments? No. But there is a certain percentage of your church that will and it is an easy and affordable way to give your church a voice and your members an opportunity to participate by accessing the leadership in a new venue. Sometimes it may just be the pastor who is the writer of the posts but I think having several different leaders involved broadens the voice, reach, and conversation (plus it takes the weight of the commitment off the pastor).
Valerie Johnson at Your Ministry Helper has written a good post called Should Your Church Have A Blog? where she explores some of the benefits of blogging to a church. I would encourage you to read her article and share any thoughts you have with her. Churches have a lot to learn about the application of this technology and I would challenge any church to at least experiment with it. You will learn a lot about your church this way…and you will have another channel to communicate spiritual concepts that help people grow closer to God. That is always good!
What are your thoughts about church blogs? Does the church you go to have one? Please share your comments below.
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Comments
David, rather than our church having its own blog, I and our Youth Pastor each have blogs, which are integrated into the front end of our church’s web site using the RSS feeds, but I’ve seen multi-author church blogs that also worked very well. They key is to put something on it and not allow it to be neglected.
Thanks Brandon! You make a very good point that is vital…frequency of posting. Each writer or church can decide on a schedule of posting, but regardless of the schedule, it should be somewhat regularly. Minimally I would suggest once per week. If it can be more, all the better. If there is no consistency, the effectiveness of this medium as a communication tool will be lost and community will not be established.
I agree that a blog must be updated regularly to be useful.
Also, it’s important to think about the needs of the church. I go to a church in a retirement community, so having a blog on our church would not serve most of the members well. (They don’t even use email much.)
On the other hand, our youth group uses facebook extensively.
With buddypress coming out, I’d love to see what it looks like for a church to add that set of networking plugins.
I definitely think churches should be taking advantage of bloggish activity. Even if they don’t allow for comments (which I don’t recommend), it gives them a quick outlet to communicate to their membership.
I think if ministers would think of a blog as their own newspaper column to their church, with the added advantage of getting feedback and conversation and input, then many more would be doing it.
our church has a blog, where the pastor puts in ‘additional material’ that he cant include in the sermon.
I like it — its a much more indepth way to for those who want more.
http://www.bvchurch.org/pages/BearTracks.php
David,
Thanks for mentioning my article. I plan to do a series for those ministries new to blogging.
We’ll look forward to your articles. Thanks for serving churches so well!
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