Note to Readers:  I edited this post because I didn't like how the hyperlink looked in the title. The hyperlink has been moved to "this week's question."

At the Great Church Websites forum (Edit: 30 Jan. 2005 A.D. 06:30: David Gillaspey who runs GCW and the forum pointed out that I typed .com instead of .org in that URL. I have corrected it. Sorry, David.), the moderator posts a Question of the Week. This week's question asks:

How is your church using blogging to help fulfill the Great Commission?

I felt it appropriate to answer this question in my blog, and then post the Permanent Link to the forum. So here is my answer.

First of all, I wrote an article the other day about how blogging can help us to prepare a defense for the hope that is in us as we are called to do in I Peter 3:15. The post was designed to provoke thought. However, I believe that writing can help foster spiritual development, and I agree with some of the remarks made by Tim Bednar in an article called We Know More than Our Pastors (PDF, 601 kB). Bednar postulates that blogging can foster spiritual development by making the blogger think about what he/she believes, and providing feedback (through the blogging commentary, which unfortunately is not yet enabled on this blog) helps this development process by challenging the thought process more. Now this may seem that I have gone off topic, but I think that more mature Christians that are more secure in what they believe are more ready to share the gospel with others (in otherwords, fulfill the Great Commission: "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations...")

However, I think the blog is more powerful than that in terms of fulfilling the Great Commission because the blog gives someone a voice. With very little knowledge of XHTML, HTML, and/or CSS, a person can be set up on a blog. There are a number of pre-defined templates out there, and there are a number of services that make it easy to blog. With the help of a church's IT staff, a very good blog can be set up in little time at all. In fact, the custom template for this blog, although not finished, is functional, and was done in under 3½ hours. By giving these people a voice, they are then enabled to share their testimony with a wider audience than they may have access to on a normal basis. They can also discuss the testimony through the comment area of their blog, as a seeker might post questions there.

Finally, a blog can encourage others to carry out the Great Commission. A prime example of this is e-Vangelism.com, which is the site of Andrew Careaga, who wrote a book by the title of E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace (1999. Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press.). When I purchased the book, the site (as I recall it) was a collection of links. In fact, the book didn't even include the term "blog" in the glossary. However, today, Andrew posts relavent information about Christianity on and off the net (from American Idol to U2 to Yahoo!).

In summary, blogs can help churches carry out the Great Commission in three ways:

  1. By encouraging spiritual development, giving church members the courage and maturity to evangelize.
  2. By giving church members a voice and "expanding their territory."
  3. By encouraging church members to evangelize, both on the internet and off.