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Why Pastors Should Blog

I believe pastors should consider blogging. There are a lot of good reasons not to, and I understand that, but I think there are some good reasons why pastors and church leaders should blog.

Understanding the Blog:

Blogs do not normally reflect someone's polished work or their final thoughts on a subject. Nearly everything in a blog is "off the cuff" and it is important to understand this in reading a blog. You will find typos, unfinished sentences, immature thoughts, etc. On a blog that is OK because it is supposed to be a work in progress, not necessarily the publishing of a final position. Why is this helpful? For many of us "thinking out loud" is an important part of the thought and reflection process. "Thinking out loud", however, is of little use if no one else hears and no one else pushes back or responds. A blog simply allows you to articulate some thoughts you may have today on a subject with the understanding that these thoughts are tentative and in process. Everything on a blog is stamped with a date and time. That means that this is what I thought and wanted to express at that time. It may change in the future. It is part of a process.

How Blogging Helps the Community of Christ

I believe blogging can be of use to the overall building up of the church and the development of its leadership. The Internet in general allows pastors and church leaders to communicate in a way that gets around the obstacles of time and space. Communication is vital for the health and growth of church leadership and via the Internet church leaders can talk together, share ideas, share resources, challenge ideas, and post these things so that other can read them, and even refer them to others. Here are some ways that church leaders and pastors can use blogs:

• Share helpful books, movies, articles, music, etc. with others
• Allow church shoppers a window into the mind of a potential pastor. Who is he? What does he like? Some may decide to NOT attend your church after reading your blog, but maybe that is OK too.
• Keep things that you have to repeatedly share available to others: There are times when multiple people ask me the same question or request the same resource. Via my blog I can point them here for an answer, more details on something, or a resource that really doesn't work to pass via e-mail. Also, if another pastor made an interesting point that I think a third party would find helpful, I can simply pass along that link and they can find it too.
• Sometimes people say "well can't you just send it e-mail". Yes you can, but it is even more convenient and helpful often to send a link to a piece that I have been working on over time.
• Blogs allow other people with similar interests and gifts to find to, helping to expand your network
• Blogs allow you to accumulate in a searchable database references to things you have found helpful. I often have ideas, hear about resources, discover books and movies, etc. that I found valuable but in the rush of things I forget about or misplace. I often simply just put an entry in my blog where I can search for it later and find what I had written or found earlier. The blog then becomes a personal librarian that isn't tied to my computer in the office, or my computer at home, or my computer on the road. It is accessible to me from anywhere and I can refer others to it if I want to pass something to them.