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:
-----
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 in Manchester
July 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 [email protected] 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.
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?
Not at all
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?
Not enough – probably only two hours a week max…love to do more but no time!
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
will explore blogging as part of the assessment regime…or at least as a course requirement.
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.
------
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
Cliff College are immensely proud to announce that Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, the Principal of the College, has been designated to be the President of the Methodist Conference from July 2007 to July 2008. This is an incredible honour to Martyn, to the office of Principal and to the College as a whole and will certainly raise the profile of both the College and its charisms of evangelism and Wesleyan holiness to the forefront of the public eye. We are sure you will join with us in sending Martyn many congratulations and will want to pray for him and for the Committee as they begin to prepare for all that lays ahead. 
