What is in Kelvin's Head?

Can you help me out here?

25/01/2013

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?

church, growth, mission, online

11 responses to “The Pink List”

Ryan

23/10/2011

Ooh, you’re in some illustrious company – there are worse places to be than beneath John Barrowman!

Congratulations 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  He and I are almost the same age, Ryan. It is why we look so alike.
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan
    
    23/10/2011
    
    Made more impressive by the fact that the praepostorial look is presumably, unlike Mr Barrowman’s, all-natural 😉
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      23/10/2011
      
      Mostly natural.
      
      Reply
Rosemary Hannah

23/10/2011

Yes, I’d quite like to be under … sorry, got lost in thought there. Well done, Kelvin, and yes, more church people, please. As long as they spell your name right, that is all that maters ….

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Revd Ross Kennedy

23/10/2011

I don’t think the paper got it wrong at all. St Mary’s is Glasgow’s Cathedral (that is if we ignore the chapel by the Clyde). The C of S place was a cathedral but not any more – it hasn’t had a cathedra for hundreds of years and so is merely a parish church now (nothing wrong with that). The C of E has done away with provosts (they were the head of the cathedrals which also functioned as parish churches). The boss priest in all the
C of E cathedrals is now called the Dean. And so it should be in SEC because the title ‘provost’ is the designation accorded to the head of toon cooncils.
Yes I know we have deans in the SEC dioceses but they could be retitled as archdeacons which is what (I think) is their function.

As to the pink list…how times have changed….. years ago it would have been called the black list! (sorry!)

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  Times have indeed changed, Ross. Something which is to be celebrated.
  
  I’ve no desire to be a Dean. Deans in Scotland do something quite different to what I do, and Provost described me nicely. The title of Dean is also used in secular life now too, in education, as is the term Rector.
  
  There are four cathedrals in Glasgow. St Mungo’s, St Luke’s, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s, each no doubt dearly loved by their people.
  
  Reply
Ryan

24/10/2011

Archdeacon is a great title tho, suggesting to the layperson that it involves deacons raising one eyebrow and making drily witty comments.

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chris

24/10/2011

I’d’a thunk you might have been a ‘national treasure’ by now…maybe next year. 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  24/10/2011
  
  I’m a National Treasure round about this blog. That’ll do for now.
  
  Reply
Uncle Al

25/10/2011

I seem to recall that at Coates Hall back in the very early 1970s the student charged with providing services at the Mission Church in Dean Village was known [tongue very firmly in cheek] as the Archdeacon of the Water of Leith. A resounding title but no gaiters came with it.

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