Ray Pritchard, our pastor in the Chicago years, has a great post about churches, church leaders, and church members who decide to duke it out via their blogs.
I really like this point…
14) Having said all of this, I don’t think the Internet caused the
problems in any of these churches, but putting the fight online
definitely made things worse. The Internet only revealed what was
already there, bubbling under the surface.
One thing that I have often heard as a "negative" to churches is that people don’t like politics. While I agree that the politics of the local church is never fun the simple fact remains: Politics reveals the passion of the people. And politics reveals that you’ve got more than 1 person. In fact, since most politics have to do with answering the question, "How do we do ____ best?" it’s not abnormal to see two or three political opinions on an issue in a single person. So… there is no such thing as the apolitical church. It’s just not out there so stop looking.
The point is that Ray gives a great insight into what blogs are and aren’t. Here’s a quick summary of my "rules for blogging."
Rule #1 Don’t ever write something you wouldn’t want your mother to read.
Rule #2 Opinions are like…. bellybuttons… everyone has one.
Rule #3 Don’t throw gasoline on a fire.
Rule #4 Beware of Trolls, learn to love Lurkers.
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