I saw the following questions on NTGateway and thought I would respond to them. See Mark's comments which are very different since they come from a professional biblioblogger. My blog is a tad more personalised and diverse than Mark's excellent NTGateway...it does a different thing and these questions have been useful in articulating what i think I am doing on this blog...but I might not, of course, it might all be in my head still!
Francis Ward emails:
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Hi! I’m Frankie Ward and with Elaine Graham and Heather Walton we’re the speakers at the British and Irish Association of Practical Theology conference that meets inJuly 18 – 20th this year, with the theme of theological reflection. I’d like to do something at the conference on blogging as a method of theological reflection – and would be really grateful if you could answer any or all of these questions – and forward them on to anyone else you know who might be prepared to answer them too. I need responses, if possible, by July 3rd … I don’t blog (yet!) so responses to my email address at fefward@btinternet.com although if there’s any way that some dialogue can be generated within whatever blogging community you belong to, it would be great to be notified of any links etc that I might otherwise miss. Manchester
Many thanks in anticipation …
1. How long have you been blogging? Since 27 April 2004
2. What got you started? Reading Jonny Baker’s Blog and being involved/on the periphery of the emerging church/fresh expressions conversations.
3. Do you have a history of diary/journal/log writing beforehand?
4. How in your own mind do you negotiate the boundary between private and public? E.g. are there things that you would not put on your blog that you would put in a journal? I oscillate between being too personal and too academic – and because my blog relates to who I am, what I do and not just professional Biblical Studies, it actually acts as a theological reflection in itself. My wife always says that I should print the whole lot off and send it to a publisher. (Eco did that in Hyperreality with a whole series of his newspaper articles – fun but disjointed!) I don’t think it is worth that but I would be interested to use it at some point as the basis for a theological exploration of who I am and what my theology is – is does provide raw material for this. I do keep some things to myself and guard what I say at times – note the hesitation in the recent posting on being rejected for some jobs…
5. How do you decide? What criteria do you use for inclusion/exclusion? I don’t exclude anything really. I tend to think, Oh, I’d like to blog on that and so I do! I don’t have strict criteria.
6. How much time, on average, do you spend blogging each day or week?
7. How many other people do you actively engage with – e.g. are part of your blog community? Not many, I don’t crunch the numbers for site visits. I don’t get much feedback and so the journal seems to feel like my personal diary and that’s why I am a bit more open about things – it’s me chatting rather than telling loads of people interesting biblical nuggets.
8. Who is your readership – literally; as far as you know? Don’t know – some students, some friends, some contacts, some emerging church people, some biblical people…
9. and metaphorically? Do you imagine someone to whom you write/with whom you engage? Me – I think I write for myself. When I am conscious of the whole implied reader construct, it tends to be for internal consumption – getting something down so it is actually outside of my own head or for general consumption – anyone at all – Joe Bloggs – anyone daft enough to read the blog!
10. What counts as successful blogging? If it feels good to me! If I actually get it to go from draft to publishing on the site!
11. What does blogging offer as a method of theological reflection? It’s a good tool for expressing yourself if you express yourself in this way. I tend to be verbal and so being able to write things down means that I can say what I want and not just think it all the time. So it’s a form of self-expression and often that self-expression, because of what I am doing in my teaching and academic development involves theological reflection all the time, it ends up being my own theological reflection which people then chip in to and discuss – occasionally. It’s drawbacks are that it is so verbal and does not have the same dialogical strengths as doing theological reflection in a group situation or a real situation. How much is what I do on the blog simply my own ruminations? What does it all mean and what is the significance. I mean I don’t reference things, I don’t attempt to apply strictly academic criteria, I think that most of the reflection is actually amateur and personal. But having said that, it is real because it is what I am experiencing, thinking, reflecting. If it doesn’t match academic criteria – tough! Do I care?
12. What potential do you see for blogging as a method of theological reflection? See above – good potential if mixed with other things – but would need to be dialogical as well as personal and would need some attempt to be community-based. But then isn’t that a forum like Deinde rather than a blog as such. I am not sure community blogs like Mootblog and Deinde actually work as a community…
13. Do you know of examples of theological education programmes where students are required to keep a learning journal and blog as a form of journal? Cliff’s new MA in Emerging Church
14. Blogging and gender: do you think gender makes any difference to any of the above questions? I have a hunch that my need to get things out of my head and onto paper may well reflect a gender issue i.e. I am naturally bad at talking about things – I am happy to retreat into my cyber-cave and the blog might be part of the paraphernalia of that cave…But I’m not sure that my blog is much different (certainly it is much inferior!!!) to Maggi Dawn’s, for example. So perhaps there is not so much a difference as you might think? Dunno.
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Interesting exercise! It makes me wonder whether anyone does read this blog or whether it all is in my head! I know some people do cos I get comments...but...who is my implied reader? it's interesting that I felt the need to amend some of my answers to the one's I actually sent to Francis - just odd little adjustments - like calling readers 'people' rather than 'peeps'! Does that mean I am more aware of the implied reader construct than I think?
Pete
Really... The MA in Emerging Church will look into 'blogging... That is interesting!
A few of us at MCF are looking into the possibility of 'blogging as a tool for our church community - starting with youth (i.e. contemporary culture). Although not many of the youth read my 'blog - not that it's aimed at them - I do think that the immediacy of the current culture and the availability/flexibility that the internet offers, a "blog issue" site within a church community could act as a viable tool for the development of personal understanding and/or spirituality. As some of us looked into in our degree dissertations, a cyber church really can't be classed as "church" - the reverse, however, of a church interacting through the medium of cyberspace, could be an interesting engagement with contemporary culture.
With all this said, it does need to be noted that the implementation of an idea such as this needs to have a clear direction to it. We all know of 'blogs that state in their summaries what they're about, and then when you read them they're nothing like what they state. A 'blog of this nature would need to keep to its ethos, not to limit its effect, but in order to facilitate its life and productivity...
That's my opinion anyway! Any further comments would be interesting to reflect on...
Pete.
Posted by: Pete Everitt | June 28, 2006 at 03:46 PM