JollyBlogger, a personal blog written by David Wayne, the pastor of Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Glen Burnie, Maryland, has recently written about a new beta website for his church (for those who don’t know, “beta” simply means they are in a testing phase).
The new website uses TypePad, a popular blogging service, and it definitely has a blog-feel to it - complete with a three-column look, lists of recent posts and comments, a photo album, categories, etc.
What is most exciting to me, however, is that the church has decided to take a big leap and leave the commenting system open so that anyone can add a comment (or a trackback) to entries on the front page of the site.
For too long, it seems to me, the church (at least in America) has seemed like a closed institution - only members can really contribute. That flies in the face of the practice of the early church, whose meetings were literally open to the public. The meetings of the first century church took place in the public areas of houses, areas which were largely open so that anyone walking down the street could hear what was happening, and it was perfectly acceptable in the culture of the day for a passerby to walk into the meeting to find out what was going on.
As an aside, doesn’t that put a new light on 1 Corinthians 14:23-25:
Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.
One of the reasons I am so excited about the decision of Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church to allow anyone to comment is that it allows seekers to interact with believers who are part of the church and enter into conversations with them.
Since I firmly believe (as I have said before) that authentic Christian community is the foundation of all effective outreach (John 17:21-23), I see this as a very important step. Not only can unbelievers now observe community, but now they can enter into and experience that community (albeit only in a digital sense until they are intrigued enough to desire face-to-face relationships with believers and also only to the extent that an unbeliever can experience true Christian community).
Kudos to David Wayne and the folks at GBEPC for such a forward-looking outlook!
I believe that the internet provides today's church with a historic opportunity .... to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love in ways which could only have been imagined in times past. The objective of this website is to explore the various ways in which today's technology can be used to spread the gospel around the world.
