"We Know More Than Our Pastors"
Category: Faith...
Posted Sunday, November 09, 2003 at 08:25 PM [GMT-6]

Clarence, over at Can You Hear Me Now? responds to a rather lengthy and interesting post at e-Church entitled "We Know More Than Our Pastors: The Rise of Spiritual Bloggers."

The e-Church post is ambitious and contains enough material to fuel many different discussions. The author, Tim Bednar, holds it out as a "white paper on how spiritual bloggers are creating the participatory church." However, I can't get past the title.

Tim writes that the research he's done - a series of interviews with other bloggers about motivations and perceptions - leads to this (emphasis mine):

It's only fair to note that this statement didn't become a recurring or even significant theme through the rest of the article, but the fact that it was used as an introduction seems to give it significance that cries out for a response.

There's a common saying in ministry: people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It's a cliché, but that doesn't mean that it's inaccurate.

I can't speak for others, but for me, having a pastor that "knows more than me" is not at the top of my list. Granted, I'd like to hear messages that stimulate me intellectually, but that's just gravy. And if my pastor's overriding characteristics aren't love, compassion, joy and encouragement -- all of which have as their source an ongoing love affair with the Gospel -- then no amount of fancy preaching is going to make up for the shortcoming.

Face it -- there will always be someone smarter or better educated than your pastor (or you, for that matter). God and His will are not found exclusively in the realm of the intellectual (or even logical).

I believe that if the creation of the "participatory church," one that exists only in the blogosphere, is successful, it will still ultimately prove to be unsatisfying (and thus will not last). However, Tim's post includes a number of very good points about the strengths of blogging as an alternative medium for presenting the Gospel. If you're interested in how the evolution of blogging might be used for this purpose, you'll find much in his essay worth considering.