GodBlogCon Day 3 & Reflections
October 16, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
Today was the final day of the GodBlog Convention. The only
scheduled activities were breakfast and two blocks of breakout sessions. I
attended DJ Chuang’s session on Emerging Church blogs. He co-led the discussion
with Aaron Flores of thevoiz. DJ did a great job outlining the history of the
emerging church and what’s going on with it in relation to the blogosphere. The
size of the group allowed for easy discussion, which was nice since Dr. Andrew
Jackson of SmartChristian.com was there and had plenty of good insights to
offer. The last thing we talked about was why there were so few emerging church
bloggers present at the convention, especially considering how central blogging
is to the emerging church community. The Smart Christian made a good point that
we can’t really say it’s economics since plenty of emergent folk go to their
own conferences and retreats like the one this past week in New Mexico. Rather,
it seems the main reason is some sort of separatism.
The second session I went to was one by The A-Team on
apologetics blogging. It was the best thing at the convention and entirely
worth the registration fee. So you know how sarcastic that comment was, I hope
to post the mp3 of the session here tomorrow. There was a late addition to the
schedule- the Narnia trailers and behind the scenes clips. Though I’d seen it
all before, it’s always fun to watch it on the big screen and get chills when
Aslan’s around. He’s good, but not safe.
Overall the convention was a blast. Definitely the best
thing about it was simply meeting people and hearing about their experiences
online. The networking and community opportunities would be good enough, but
the plenary and breakout sessions were also great. Matt Anderson and his team
of volunteers did an excellent job of putting the whole thing together. I was
disappointed at how many people weren’t there. There are so many Christian
bloggers, especially in southern California, who would have benefited from
this. There’s really no reason for anyone not to be at next year’s convention.
I’d like to lodge some minor random
complaints/suggestions hoping they’ll be helpful for next year… There was too
much emphasis in the panels on pastoral blogging- It’s an important subject but
it didn’t seem relevant to most of us. The last day should have at least one
group function (aside from breakfast). I’d like to see more lectures like what
John Mark Reynolds gave on Thursday night as opposed to a bunch of panel
discussions. Since we got Hugh Hewitt at the event, why was he just moderating
and not on the panel? I’ve heard some people say they’d like to see people with
moderate hit counts on panels and such- I think they really mean they’d like to
see themselves up there. The reason people with higher hit counts are on panels
is because they appear to be doing something right, and those are the people I
want to hear from. I do agree, though, that an absence was felt by only having
male panelists. Enlist a graphics designer to do the paperwork and logos.
Since Stacy Harp asked that I Iink to her again, here you go. I also had a great time at lunch with Lores Rizkalla, Aaron Pina, DJ Chuang, Charles Lehardy, Alex Jordan, and Christy Lynn Wilson.
Related posts:
- GodBlogCon Day 2: Donahewitt
- GodBlogCon Day 1
- GodBlogCon 2008 – Time to Register!
- GodBlogCon 2007: Paul Spears
- GodBlog Con Day 1-2: John Mark Reynolds
- The Importance of Community IV: Practical Application
Posted in Main Page, Miscellaneous, Roger's Posts
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October 16th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Thank you very much for your suggestions on how to improve GodBlogCon 2006! I have been scouring the Blogosphere today particularly looking for suggestions such as these that will help the students of the Torrey Honors Institute make GBC 2006 bigger and better!
October 17th, 2005 at 9:08 am
Thank you for being a part of our little breakout on emerging church blogs, and good to hang out with the A team this weekend! I do think emerging church bloggers participate in the blogosphere in notably different ways than the majority of GodBlogCon attendees, and I'll note some of those at my blog, now that I've had a few more hours to simmer my reactions.
While separatism is a factor (for the lack of emerging church bloggers at GodBlogCon), I think that's a knife that can cut both ways. Someone could say the same thing about traditional evangelicals and why they don't show up more at emerging church events, when the welcome mat and open arms are there too.
More reasonably, a great opportunity is right here in the blogosphere for that conversation to be cultivated and continued.
October 17th, 2005 at 10:15 am
“Someone could say the same thing about traditional evangelicals and why they don't show up more at emerging church events, when the welcome mat and open arms are there too.”
It's not exactly the same thing. They're not part of the emerging church so they're not likely to show up at emergent events, but emerging church bloggers are part of the God Blogs.
I'm just disappointed I didn't get to meet Andrew Jones. I was sorry he didn't make it there.
October 17th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Amy took the words right out of my mouth. As I noted at the workshop, blogging is a very central feature of the emerging church discussion, so it would make since to have emerging folk at a Christian blogging convention. The emerging church isn't understood as being central to what traditional evangelicals do.
You bring up another interesting point to discuss, though. Why aren't traditional evangelicals flocking to emerging church conventions? Well, I think some do, the problem is that we don't typically where our theology on our t-shirt. Plenty of people are somewhere in between traditional and emergent, and I've met those people at emergent events. Also, aside from myself, some of the STR and White Horse Inn staff have been to at least one emergent convention, and they're all very traditional. While the welcome mat may be there, there isn't anything offered for the traditional evangelical at emerging conventions. We go to find out about emergent, but nothing is geared toward helping us do what we do.
October 20th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Okay, okay, okay, it's not exactly the same identical thing re: emerging types going to a evangelical event vs. evangelical types going to an emergent event. I did not want to use more words to explain the imprecision of my choice of words, and simplified for a little brevity in a comment field.
Believe you me, even when I do go to emerging church events, I'm asked “what's blogging” more often than I run into bloggers there, so while blogging has a more pertinent role in the forming of theology and thw way of life of an emergent type, it is not pervasive among emergent types. Perhaps I should clarify this aspect of it. Bloggers do not comprise a majority among emerging church types, but blogging does help emerging church types connect with each other, when it often feels like they are isolated and marginalized by society at large and by traditional churches. How's that?
October 20th, 2005 at 10:52 pm
DJ,
That sounds about right
Also, I appreciated the distinctions you made between those who blog for different purposes. I think you're on to an important point that's helpful in understanding the different types of blogs out there.