Friday, November 03, 2006

Serinity Now!

My brother Geoff had a great post today that sums up why I am getting tired of reading blogs, and why I am hesitant to blog anymore. There seems to be a formula that has developed in the church blog world and here are some of the current phrases/hype that need to go away:
  • Culturally relevant
  • Engaging and authentic
  • Missionally glocal
  • "You will not hear this topic (sex, money, fly fishing, etc.) talked about in any other church."
  • "Do NOT miss this Sunday, it will be the biggest, culturally relevant presentation you've ever seen!!!"
  • The next week after said Sunday: "You will ABSOLUTELY not want to miss this Sunday, it will totally blow last week away!!!"
  • "Don't EVEN think about going on vacation and missing this Sunday. You will not be able to live without it."
  • "You will never hear that song done in any other church."
  • Relevant environments
  • Post-modern anything
  • We have contemporary worship (what does that mean anymore?)
  • "If you don't get everyone you have ever talked to to church this Sunday, they will die and go to hell on Monday!" (or something to that extent)
I am sure that I have been guilty of some of these in the past and that is why it has been hard for me to return to blogging. I just want to be real without having to sound like a John Maxwell book...not that there's anything wrong with his books. I just think church can be a place where people learn how to be missionaries in their own culture - without the hype and phrases. People's lives don't revolve around our church service at 11:00 on Sunday morning. The other 6 days are pretty important as well.

Who knows, maybe this rant is from all of the caffeine today and will disappear tomorrow...but I feel better and self-important now!

3 comments:

Rick said...

Can I push back here? :) You and Geoff are spot on for certain aspects of "church" and especially the "church blog" - concepts born out of fad just can't sustain their own place.

For the church, or at least our church in its many identities, the "blogs" need to be about sharing information in a way that shows what's coming, where we've been, and what we look like now. There's the historical and the future-tense - with a smackerel of vision casting. For personal blogs, however, they really need to be a reflection of the author - not trying to be something else. Those are the ones that seem to last, seem to feed their own fires.

Just a couple of thoughts on my side. So few folks have kept up their blogs after initially being so gung-ho - seems like the concept was off before it started, doomed it to failure right there, you know?

Anonymous said...

The fact that you posted this blog is the very reason you should continue to blog.

What a conundrum!

Gary Lamb said...

I agree with your post and I say most of the things you wrote. :) I think a lot depends on the purpose of your blog. For example I started blogging to network and share my thoughts on planting. About 3 months ago I realized our church was to the point I needed a better way to communicate and be real to my people. Thus a change in the target of my blog.

It has been funny to watch my hits plummet but that is okay because my focus is communicating to the church I pastor and therefore I have to be a cheerleader in some respects now on my blog.

Good stuff and your blog is always one of my favorites....when you post. :)