Doug says it all
From Preaching Re-Imagined:
"This is my hope for what preaching can be: the mutual admonition of one another in life with God. The plain reality is that speaching [monologues] is not adequate to accomplish this. Preaching is far too valuable to be reduced to speech making. I'm not suggesting we become a people who spend less time telling the story, less time talking, or less time leading one another, but certainly less time using one-way communition as our primary means of talking about and thinking about the Gospel. I'm not suggesting a practice that reduces speaking, but one that encourages more. What I'm advocating is that we become communities who listen to the preachers among us, not just the preacher standing in front of us."
Beautifully said.
And there are other ways to do this, beyond just the Sunday morning gathering. I'm amazed that when it's cheap and free, there are still churches that make no use of online forums. Yeah- it's hard to get people to participate all the time. But when you make it a priority in your community, give people a place to ask questions, get answers, teach one another, admonish one another... If you make it a value in your community, I think people will get on board. Especially when they feel heard... when the leadership in the church is present there, interacting with them.
Perhaps this is the way that large churches will become more interactive? Perhaps it's the only way for many large churches... I hope they'll take advantage of the technology and walk down that path...
Here's ours
"This is my hope for what preaching can be: the mutual admonition of one another in life with God. The plain reality is that speaching [monologues] is not adequate to accomplish this. Preaching is far too valuable to be reduced to speech making. I'm not suggesting we become a people who spend less time telling the story, less time talking, or less time leading one another, but certainly less time using one-way communition as our primary means of talking about and thinking about the Gospel. I'm not suggesting a practice that reduces speaking, but one that encourages more. What I'm advocating is that we become communities who listen to the preachers among us, not just the preacher standing in front of us."
Beautifully said.
And there are other ways to do this, beyond just the Sunday morning gathering. I'm amazed that when it's cheap and free, there are still churches that make no use of online forums. Yeah- it's hard to get people to participate all the time. But when you make it a priority in your community, give people a place to ask questions, get answers, teach one another, admonish one another... If you make it a value in your community, I think people will get on board. Especially when they feel heard... when the leadership in the church is present there, interacting with them.
Perhaps this is the way that large churches will become more interactive? Perhaps it's the only way for many large churches... I hope they'll take advantage of the technology and walk down that path...
Here's ours
3 Comments:
Bob, the think with online forums is that for some they become a replacement for human interaction instead of an extention of it. Then people "say" things online that they would never say to a real live human.
We invested a lot of hours into encouraging people to communicate appropriately, but by the time that was done, a few soapboxers had driven away most users.
Someone who has seen more success in this should publish some ideas on cultivating good online discussions.
...and then sometimes people say things online that they would never say to a real live human. At least not at first.
It cuts both ways. I often need the relative privacy of being able to compose my thoughts into cogent sentences in order to really be open about things too close to the bone for me to bring up in social conversation.
Our forum helps me be authentic and has fostered a degree of intimacy with those in our community that would have taken me years of face-to-face interaction to achieve. Now every Sunday I see people and I know who they are and they know things about me and we have meaningful conversations about those things.
The forum helps me initiate and develop my relationships with people. Because I'm just not that social in real life. But in an online sense...
I'm a postmaster.
:)
--Sean
If you don't mind Bob, I'm going to hyjack the blog and respond to Daniel (Dan?)
I really think that our forum at Evergreen works because of Bob's approach. It is really radical to see a pastor change his mind through a conversation. The fact that he doesn't need his thoughts/position to be perfect has had a profound impact on the community. I don't think our forum works because of any process. But, I think that it works because of Bob's character and openness. (Granted, there are limits to an online community, but for us the positive far outweighs the negative)
If I'm wrong, don't let me know.
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