What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Can you help me out here?

    I’ve been asked quite a few times this week for help. However I need you to help me out first before I can decide what to say or do.

    The thing is, people keep saying to me that they want to learn how to do the online thing better in a church context. After I posted that piece about 8 Things the Churches Can Learn from the Collapse of HMV last week that really stepped up. Indeed nothing I’ve written has been retweeted, shared on Facebook or passed around more for months.

    The thing is, I know that you can help a church congregation to grow by using the internet well. I know I’ve a lot to learn but I also know that I’m just ahead of the curve on this and able to see slightly further over the horizon than most people. It isn’t magic glasses that make me able to do this, it is because I’ve had an interest in communication techniques for a long time, a background in IT and I’ve done a wee bit of mission work with congregations. My recent sabbatical also gave me some time to think. I’m also aware that what I’m writing about has something to say to campaign groups, community organisers and other assorted politicos. I write in my context. You read in yours and I don’t forget it.

    I’m happy to write more about all that and it seems to be something that quite a lot of people want to hear about. Indeed, I’ve almost begun to think that I should start up a different blog just devoted to that topic. Would that be a good idea?

    If I’m going to write more though I need your help. What exactly do you want me to write about? Oh I know that you’d like me to offer you a free magic wand that would fill a church with nice unthreatening people who happened to glimpse on a website that there might be a church in the area. However, you know and I know that isn’t going to happen.

    Help me out here. What aspects of this do you want me to address a bit more? Is there anything you are aware of me doing online well that you’d like to hear more about. Or even better, is there anything I’m not doing I could try or anything I could try to do better?

    I’m aware of an outstanding comment from a few days ago asking for a bit more gen on posting sermons online.

    What else would you like?

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5 responses to “The Christian Year and Social Media”

  1. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    I certainly agree with passive learning… I have called it ‘knowledge Grazing’ in a book I’m working on at the moment…. There’s a bit about this here… http://www.agent4change.net/grapevine/platform/2050-hungry-for-learning-knowledge-grazing-fits-the-bill.html

    And for the church, well, maybe the passive learning paradigm is good. You already post the vid of the sermon for folks to watch again and digest – the number of questions people ask you or points they raise with you about the sermon after watching it again would perhaps be an indication as to how much passive church-type learning is taking place?

    Reply
  2. Margaret of the Sea of Galilee Avatar
    Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

    More especially the internet provides access to the 0.001% (probably less) of the population whose lives – like one’s own – revolve around these things. And exactly which stole who wore last Sunday to reduce everything to such an absurdity which of course is a Christian/liturgical idiosyncracy in itself. “It just encourages them!” as my mother would have said…

    Reply
  3. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    I’m not sure what you mean, Margaret.

    But you sound sniffy.

    Reply
    1. Margaret of the Sea of Galilee Avatar
      Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

      That you can find people interested in your own Very Specific Areas of Interest…a good thing but of course encourages you in your idiosyncracies which is less good

      Reply
      1. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar
        Kelvin Holdsworth

        Ah. I see why I didn’t understand at first Margaret. What I was suggesting was precisely the opposite of what you are saying. I think I learn about all kinds of things (spiritual and otherwise) that I never expected to learn through following interesting people online who have quite different interests to my own.

        Reply

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