Blogging and MY local congregation

June 11, 2008 by · 5 Comments
Filed under: Religion 

It’s been a few days since I posted the question about blogging and the local congregation.  I’m still mulling over the question.  I can’t seem to let it go – blogging is reflective of several major parts of my personality (the top 3 on my Goals for How to Live My Life), and I’m entering a new phase of my relationship with the congregation (though it will probably look a lot like the current phase).  This question/problem is gnawing at me.

This post is kinda stream of consciousness.  Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, pull back on the bar until you hear the click, and hang on.

So far, the comments on blogging about one’s congregation (and the comments, concerns and complaints received offline) fall into a few categories:

  1. Be who you are.  You’re good enough, and people will always pick on what they don’t like.  (With a tiny bit of “what’s wrong with them?!?”)
  2. You should never write anything negative about your congregation.  If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.
  3. It might make things more difficult for you (and usually for the speaker) if someone in the congregation gets upset about what you write.
  4. You need to be sure you’re willing to take the consequences that come with writing about the congregation.
  5. You should always discuss any criticisms with the subject person first.

Surprisingly, nobody is talking about the upsides that I see of a person blogging about their congregation, positive or negative.

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  1. For positive posts, a potential member/attendee sees good things about the congregation.  Pictures make an even greater impact.
  2. For positive posts, having individual feedback on the congregation can be more effective than the “insider” church website.  Today’s seekers take individual reviews of a product, place, or service more seriously than the “advertising” of the “seller”.
  3. For positive or negative posts, the leadership gets a chance to “read the mind” of the blogger.  (Of course, the good blogger knows this …)
  4. For negative posts, the blogger may provide early warning of a problem within the congregation.

There are a few other conclusions to draw from this stream of posts and comments.  It seems to me that my fellow bloggers see me differently than the folks from my congregation.  Some of that has to do with the fact that each side sees me in a different forum – the folks at the church see me in person and the folks online see me only through my writing (more rarely in person).  It feels like the folks from my congregation see me as a nice guy, a little strange, and I have this annoying habit of blogging.  The folks online seem to see me as a thoughtful writer, measured in criticism, sometimes prophetic, and sometimes a bit of a loose cannon.  It really does feel like the folks online understand me better than most in my congregation – the online community has a level of activity and intimacy that is missing in the church model of one to a few times a week interacting in groups.

I’ll be honest – all of this feels a bit like a personal attack to me.  What I’m hearing is “we really like your gifts, but we don’t like the way you’re using this one.”  What I’m feeling is “we want you to be yourself, but not this part of you.”

All of this has me tending toward a decision never to blog about my congregation – good or bad.  There are side-effects of that decision.  This will likely decrease my feeling of being connected to the congregation.  This will likely increase my feeling of being an outsider in the congregation.  It probably won’t hurt my faith, though it will be something of putting at least part of my light under a basket.  This will also reduce my ability to ask others for help with issues that come up through my work in the congregation.

Blogging only the good is not an option for me.  There is no way that my psyche would allow it.  I’m a person with a scientific mind – unchallenged ideas are of little value.

I haven’t made a decision yet, and I value your feedback on it.  I particularly value the feedback of people from my congregation – either here on the blog, in e-mail, or in person.