Sunday, March 27, 2005 AD
What does this (blog) mean?
This blog is an experiment - an attempt to see whether a group-blog discussion format can make a positive contribution to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England, as we consider how our synod's ministry can develop as it faces the second fifty years of its existence.
I first had the idea while reading the booklet recently circulated round ELCE churches of suggestions made at the "Think-Fest" earlier this year. By its very nature, a "brain-storming" session is going to produce suggestions of varying quality, and some of the proposals in the Think-Fest booklet were very encouraging, some less so. But the main problem with an exercise like that is it can lead to lots of itty-bitty suggestions, rather than a "strategic" sense of what the ELCE is for. What is the reason for existence of a small Lutheran synod of a few hundred members. in a country like the UK?
The other area where it was lacking was a lack of awareness of how the web could be used to address some of the issues covered: the need to increase the profile of the ELCE, to strengthen the ties between congregations and between individual members around the country; for improved outreach among our local communities (as well as the "Lutheran diaspora").
Hence this blog. The aim of this site is to enable members of the blog (and non-members, using the comments boxes for each post) to engage in constructive discussions about what the ELCE is here for - in relation to worship, evangelism, fellowship, theology etc - and how we should go about fulfilling those purposes in practice, all with a view to meeting those objectives set out in the Think-Fest report: more effective (but still distinctively Lutheran) outreach, increased profile in the wider church, better ties between congregations, etc.
Why a blog format? Well, I have some experience in Christian blogging, both via my own personal blog, Confessing Evangelical, and via the Here We Stand group blog. This experience leads me to believe that the blog format has some benefits for an exercise of this nature that are necessarily found with, say, a discussion board. It allows a core of members to develop their thoughts, which can then be sharpened and improved by the ensuing discussion in the comments to each post. It allows for easy interaction with other blogs and other websites.
In many ways, it reminds me of the "open source" philosophy which has had such an impact on the software world, through programs like the Linux operating system, the Firefox web-browser and so on. In his classic essay on open source software, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Eric S Raymond describes two key principles that make open source such an effective way to develop high-quality software:
The hope is that a group blog like this can function in much the same way. Instead of spending hours preparing finely-crafted essays on various topics, people can jot down their thoughts on an issue and post it ("release early, release often"), and then other people can contribute thoughts and ideas that help the original contributor (or other contributors) develop the idea further ("many eyeballs tame complexity").
Hopefully this process can enable a blog such as this to make a real contribution to the process of reflection and consideration that the ELCE is going through at the moment, and enable us to fulfil God's purposes for a small Lutheran synod in a largely non-Lutheran country. And even if we cannot achieve anything quite so ambitious, at the very least we will, hopefully, have some good and useful discussions, and help strengthen the bonds of friendship between our various churches within the ELCE.
I first had the idea while reading the booklet recently circulated round ELCE churches of suggestions made at the "Think-Fest" earlier this year. By its very nature, a "brain-storming" session is going to produce suggestions of varying quality, and some of the proposals in the Think-Fest booklet were very encouraging, some less so. But the main problem with an exercise like that is it can lead to lots of itty-bitty suggestions, rather than a "strategic" sense of what the ELCE is for. What is the reason for existence of a small Lutheran synod of a few hundred members. in a country like the UK?
The other area where it was lacking was a lack of awareness of how the web could be used to address some of the issues covered: the need to increase the profile of the ELCE, to strengthen the ties between congregations and between individual members around the country; for improved outreach among our local communities (as well as the "Lutheran diaspora").
Hence this blog. The aim of this site is to enable members of the blog (and non-members, using the comments boxes for each post) to engage in constructive discussions about what the ELCE is here for - in relation to worship, evangelism, fellowship, theology etc - and how we should go about fulfilling those purposes in practice, all with a view to meeting those objectives set out in the Think-Fest report: more effective (but still distinctively Lutheran) outreach, increased profile in the wider church, better ties between congregations, etc.
Why a blog format? Well, I have some experience in Christian blogging, both via my own personal blog, Confessing Evangelical, and via the Here We Stand group blog. This experience leads me to believe that the blog format has some benefits for an exercise of this nature that are necessarily found with, say, a discussion board. It allows a core of members to develop their thoughts, which can then be sharpened and improved by the ensuing discussion in the comments to each post. It allows for easy interaction with other blogs and other websites.
In many ways, it reminds me of the "open source" philosophy which has had such an impact on the software world, through programs like the Linux operating system, the Firefox web-browser and so on. In his classic essay on open source software, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Eric S Raymond describes two key principles that make open source such an effective way to develop high-quality software:
- Release early, release often; and
- Many eyes tame complexity.
The hope is that a group blog like this can function in much the same way. Instead of spending hours preparing finely-crafted essays on various topics, people can jot down their thoughts on an issue and post it ("release early, release often"), and then other people can contribute thoughts and ideas that help the original contributor (or other contributors) develop the idea further ("many eyeballs tame complexity").
Hopefully this process can enable a blog such as this to make a real contribution to the process of reflection and consideration that the ELCE is going through at the moment, and enable us to fulfil God's purposes for a small Lutheran synod in a largely non-Lutheran country. And even if we cannot achieve anything quite so ambitious, at the very least we will, hopefully, have some good and useful discussions, and help strengthen the bonds of friendship between our various churches within the ELCE.
