fishers, surfers and casters

The United Methodists in the USA have launched an online ministry programme called “Web Ministry 101″. I checked it out, and read as much as I could before I was asked to register/enrol. Its aim is to educate churches in developing a “user-centered” presence on the www.

From what I could see, it looks like a useful programme, aiming to teach churches to talk about “why” to be online, rather than just “how”.

It is a practical course, so from what I could see there was nothing about how churches explore their own web-missiology, and it does look like it’s aim is for churches to promote themselves on the web, rather than explore online religious community. So for that reason I wonder if “Web Ministry 101″ is an appropriate title.

Check it out here.

Thank you to Stephen Webb, from the Communications Unit in the NSW Synod (Uniting Church in Australia) for the heads up on both this site, and the info about the Sydney Anglicans new site, too.

Technorati: United Methodist, Web Ministry 101

From this article in the Sydney Morning Herald I checked out the Anglican Archdiocese of Sydney’s new site, christianity.net.au. The first question I asked myself while reading it was: is this proselytism?

The site has three sections, named “God makes sense”, “Does God make sense to you?” and “Making sense of the world”. The first section is definitely apologetic, asserting that Christians are not whackos, but the choice to believe is a rational one. The third section has information about music, TV, current affirs, etc etc with a Christian editorial. So far, not so bad, I thought, a fairly run-of-the-mill Christian information site so far.

But the second section was the one that disturbed me. “Does God make sense to you?” is a machine that answers questions posted by the site’s readers. In the sidebar are five “top” questions. Number three asks “Are Catholics Christians?”. I opened the link to read the site’s response. To them, a Christian is someone who “repents and turns to Jesus”. Typical evangelical response, I gather. Following this, the response acknowledged that:

So the question that I want to ask anybody who claims to be a Christian is have they truly repented from their sin and turned to Jesus? Let me also say that there are some church-going Anglicans who sadly have not truly believed in Jesus and who align themselves with the Anglican Church or attend church for a whole host of other reasons.

The response’s big problem is the aged question of justification by faith over works, for which the response held that Catholics differ from Anglicans. Again, fair enough. A big debate that some will still fight to the end. But then I read this:

So I would recommend a Christian to not go to a Roman Catholic church because of what they teach, but if they do it doesn’t mean that they’re not a Christian.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I, as an ordained minister or any respresentative of my church, would recommend that people don’t go to seek faith in a particular denomination, I would expect that the powers that be in my Synod would give me a big rap on the knuckles. It’s just not right.

If this site is built to fulfil Jensen’s goal “to convert 10 per cent of Sydneysiders to the gospel by 2012″, then this attempt to wrap an old product in new wrapping paper smacks of age-old proselytism. For those seeking faith, going to a web site to get information about what is good religion and what is bad religion (and the site authors aren’t afraid to tell you what’s bad religion) just won’t work.

There’s no people, just institution.

Technorati: Sydney Anglicans, Anglican web site

Having collected some data, so far, from EC blog sites, I thought it was time to start organising some posts made with a view to compiling an overview of discourses made by EC bloggers on different topics. There has been some previous research on typologies, or taxonomies, on religious internet sites. But I’ve found them to be unhelpful.

E. Johanna Hartelius (2005). “A Content-Based Taxonomy of Blogs and the Formation of a Virtual Community”. Kaleidoscope: A graduate journal of qualitative communication research. 4: 71-91.

The title sounds really promising, but I’ve found the ground of research limited. Hartelius posits that blogs fall into three categories: (1) group blogs, (2) personal blogs made for professional or semi-professional purposes, and (3) personal blogs. Hartelius’s main argument is that group blogs, i.e. single sites with contributions by a number of blog authors, genertes the most social capital, or perception of virtual community, while personal blogs allow for little social capital to happen. Category three, where people blog about their own personal experiences and reflections, have the least power to generate an online community, since bloggers can have little idea of who their audience is. So group blogs only, generally speaking, foster virtual community, and not personal blogs.
I’m finding this to be untrue in the sample before me. While some blogs in the sample may be seen as professional or semi-professional, most are deeply personal. Yet I believe I can show evidence (after the interviews and the completion of the sample period) that EC bloggers are aware of their audience, not just by the comments posted by some (and a small percentage of) readers, but by the trackback comments that are made across each blog.

Hartelius’s category of group blogs should be sub-divided. Group blogs could mean single sites with multiple bloggers, but it could also mean multiple sites with single site authors. It appears to me that the perception of virtual community is clear and present among EC bloggers, not just in their comment threads, but in the acknowledgement of readers across the sites.

Karaflogka, A. (2002). “Religious Discourse and Cybersace”. Religion. 32: 279-291.

This article is mainly a “have-a-look-at-this-and-what-about-this-and-oooh-this-is-different” kinda overview of religion online. It doesn’t scratch the surface much into how religious discourse is shaped by cyberspace. It also seeks to create a typology of different static sites, not blogs, let alone discussion in blogs. Being at least 4 years old now, we know that research into religion online has moved away from identifying sites and making boxes to fit them into. So I hoped that Karaflogka would go a little deeper, but the most she could say was the boxes will never make sense, as the Internet is always changing.

If anyone knows of anyone who’s tried anything to develop a typology of blog posts/discussions, please recommend them to me, otherwise I’m doing this on my own.

My first try is this, for EC bloggers in my sample:

• Posts about faith practices, e.g. liturgies, prayers, dance, tai chi, etc, divided between posts about indidivual faith practices, and discussions about communal practices (e.g. worship)
• Discussions about God, Jesus and Spirit
• Posts about the Bible, incl. authority of Scripture
• Posts about Christian understandings of justice
• Posts on Christian missions, involving evangelism and church marketing
• Posts about being “emerging”, or “postmodern”
• And, using Driscoll’s labels, discussions around Church 1.0 and Church 2.0, including discussions about modern structures and debates on authority, doing theology, role of the ordained, etc.

Technorati: Karaflogka, Hartelius, Blog taxonomy

I arrived in Sydney last night. Now, while I’ve lived most of my life in some of Australia’s top five cities, I always feel like a country boy when I come here. I took the train from the airport to Circular Quay, where I stood for about half an hour staring into the harbour before I realised I needed to get to the hotel. I could stare into that harbour for hours. Every city should have one. My city should have one.

It was well into rush hour when I started walking down George Street. Reading the address of the hotel, I assumed it was at The Rocks’ end of the street. I was sadly mistaken. The street was long and crowded with walkers and I had two large bags to carry and it was hot and I was sweaty and did I mention how long the street was?

Now I’m a large man, and in Shepparton people would acquiesce within a metre of me. I can normally command a little room around me. Once in a crowded bar in Shepp I accidentally stepped on some guy’s foot and he said sorry to me. But in Sydney no joy. I was forever begging pardon to people who rammed into me and my bags, as if I was the only person in the city heading south.

I was polite for about twenty minutes. But the no more. I refused to blink an eye if I happened to hit anyone as I was passing, refused to change direction. I stared down people walking towards my face until they slid to the side for me. Some refused to back down, so they got a hit of Paul in the chest. “Excuse me” became “Move, please” which became “Watch out” to slower walkers in front of me.

Forty minustes of walking down one city street made me mean. The city made me mean. I had to shower the disgust from me when I got to my room.

I couldn’t sleep. I was busy catching up on blog reading and making notes and figuring out some questions to ask some people I’m meeting over the weekend. I’m in Castle Hill later day and staying until Sunday. Might see if I can find some Hillsong activity to join into.

Technorati: Sydney, mean city.