Apple treeA few months ago I read The Blogging Church and was sold. I’m convinced that blogs can be an incredibly effective tool for congregational communication. But I’m just one of my church’s webmasters. It’s not enough for me to see this potential. For it to take off, this understanding has to spread.

To that end, yesterday I met with one of our committees that’s likely to take the blogging ball and run with it. It’s our Children’s Religious Education steering committee. The committee is functioning well and many on it are very comfortable with computers. They generously allocated 45 minutes of their annual retreat to discussing this possibility with me.

Because I’m such an enthusiast, I wish I could report that they instantly understood what a blog could do for them, and were poised and ready to run with it. But given the larger world’s understanding and use of blogs, that was unlikely in the extreme. Thus, while that wasn’t the outcome, we made good progress.

From my perspective, the main work that has to be done is bridging a gap. Judging by yesterday, most of the gap is a lack of understanding of what blogs really are. It makes perfect sense. From my perspective, even the definition of “blogs” is a rapidly moving target. I think back to 1999, when I first learned I was already doing a “weblog.” I’d been collecting web links of interest to others in my profession, and thought of my posts as “web news.” I’d been doing it for a while. I just didn’t know it was called a weblog (what later became shortened to blog).

Fast forward to today, when the definition is more meshed with a new breed of software that generates blogs, including another very powerful technology in its own right — RSS feeds. Of course, that’s a technical perspective. Add to this mix the perception of blogs, and you get to the crux of the gap we were trying to bridge yesterday.

The Big Barriers

It turns out there are three big barriers we face, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other churches face them too.

Blogs are perceived as online journaling. Of course, much of the blogosphere is just that. But for someone like me, that’s never been the primary appeal of blogs. The vast majority of blogs I subscribe to I still think of as “news.” This was an enormous eye-opener for the committee. When I mentioned my original news blog, one member said, “Well I’d be interested in a blog like that.”

Blogs are perceived as a “time-suck.” This certainly makes sense, and I think it’s probably the biggest barrier. Time is so precious these days, especially to committed church volunteers like them. Of course, they’re thinking of more traditional blogs, such as this very one that you are reading. Yes, this is a big time commitment for me. But another type of blog, such as one for Children’s Religious Education, should end up saving many people a lot of time, and wouldn’t be that big of a time investment for any one person. To that end, one person asked, “Can it replace the listserv we already have?” It’s a great question. And while I can’t be sure, my bet is the answer is yes. What I am certain of is that it can largely replace the listserv if they want it to — and clearly they do.

We don’t yet share a vision. This is the hardest barrier to cross. The members of this committee are, on average, tech-savvy. But tech-savvy does not equate with blog-savvy. Two people in the group clearly do see the potential. One of them (our Director of Religious Education) made it possible for me to be there yesterday. But we shouldn’t be doing a blog for the sake of indulging us enthusiasts. Even worse would be doing a blog for blogging’s sake. To do it right, this has to be a shared ministry.

Yesterday my church planted and watered more blogging seeds. While I don’t know how these particular seeds will bear fruit, it seems certain that in time they will. The barriers are much clearer now, and that means we’re more likely to get past them. It mostly takes patience and a willingness to communicate to become a blogging church.