bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Monday, April 19, 2004 ::

Blogging about God, etc.
Michelle has been surveying the "Christian" blogging community about blogging habits and has come up with some interesting stats. Her research (now released from time to time on Michelle's Dialog blog) is stirring up a lot of dust and discussion among bloggers.

Some stats from her April 15 entry at Dialog are of special interest to me in terms of how Christians use their blogs as expressions of their faith:
Do you intentionally include Christian topics in your blogging?

* 15 % (17/115) of respondents said no.
* 85% (98/115) of respondents said they do intentionally include Christian topics in their blogging, however, the large majority of them stated that it just comes through naturally, it is not something they think about. They intentionally include Christian topics because Christ is whom their life is centered around.
* Three respondents said sharing Christ intentionally is the purpose of their blog.
* Only one respondent said no, they do not include any Christian topics in their blogging as that is not the intent (a linguistics/teaching blog).

Do you try to intentionally "reach out" (minister) through your blog?

* 43% of respondents stated they did not.
* 28.5% stated that they do not try to intentionally minister through their blog, it just happens that what they write ministers to others.
* 28.5% said they intentionally reach out through their blog.

A spinoff from Michelle's work contiues in a Holy Huddle discussion at Darren Rowse's Living Room. But not everyone thinks this discussion is worthwhile. I agree that it can lead to too much navel-gazing. It often boils down to this: How imuch of our "outreach" truly beyond our limited circles of Christian blog buddies? And how much of it is truly authentic -- not forced outreach for outreach's sake but truly an attempt to learn from others, have conversations with others? With millions of people surfing the Net in search of spiritual content of some sort, we ought to be able to have something of value to add to the discussion.

Meanwhile, Tim Bednar has released a draft of his study on "spiritual" blogging, We Know More Than Our Pastors (PDF file).

:: Andrew 09:08 + ::
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