Ministry Related Research Project

BREAKING THE BUBBLE:

Relational and Incarnational

Ministry online via Weblogging

Michelle Johnston

BOX 2120

Reader: Marv Penner

RD 809 MRRP

A paper presented in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the

degree of Master of Arts

Briercrest Biblical Seminary

April 1, 2004

OUTLINE

Purpose Statement: The purpose of this study is twofold, firstly to discover how Christian webloggers are interacting online with themselves and non-Christians webloggers, and secondly, to encourage and facilitate online relational and incarnational ministry via weblogging, especially pointed towards adolescents.

I. Introduction

II. Literature Review

A. Christianity and Christians Online

1. Seekers Online

2. The Church Online

3. Teenagers Online

4. Response Needed.

B. The Blogosphere

1. Swift Growth

2. Christian Growth

C. Longing for Community

1. Postmodern Mindset

2. The Virtual Community

3. Weblogging Community

D. Relational and Incarnational Ministry

1. Choosing to Build Intentional Relationships

i. The Why of Relational and Incarnational Ministry

ii. The How of Relational and Incarnational Ministry

iii. The What of Relational and Incarnational Ministry

2. Principles of Relational Ministry

i. Discovering Christ With People

ii. People Naturally Support Their Creations

iii. Helping Others Discover Their Calling

iv. Church Community is for All

E. Conclusion

III. Project Narrative

A. Making Contact

1. Promotion of Christian Webloggers Survey

2. Distribution of Blogging ChristianYouth Workers Survey

B. Christian Webloggers Survey

1. Study Population

2. Reading Habits

3. Relationships

4. Writing Habits

C. Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey

1. Study Population

2. Church Statistics of Youth Workers

3. Reading Habits

4. Relationships

5. Instant Messenger

D. Conclusions

IV. Conclusion

A. The Christian Weblogging Bubble

B. Communication and Relationships

C. Promoting Relational and Incarnational Ministry Through Weblogging

D. Final Encouragement

APPENDIX

1. A Short Introduction to Weblogging

2. Christian Webloggers Survey Part One

3. Christian Webloggers Survey Part Two

4. Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Gender of Respondents

Figure 2: Age of Population Surveyed

Figure 3: Blogging Tool or Service

Figure 4: Geographical Location

Figure 5: Professions

Figure 6: Denominational Affiliation

Figure 7: Pie Chart of Daily Reading Habits

Figure 8: Blogs Read Daily

Figure 9: Blogs on Blogroll

Figure 10: Percent Christians on Blogroll

Figure 11: Communication Outside of Blogging with Bloggers

Figure 12: Hits/Visitors Daily

Figure 13: Ministry Position of Youth Workers

Figure 14: Church Size of Youth Workers

Figure 15: Youth Group Size

Figure 16: Age Groups Worked With

Figure 17: Are Your Youth Aware of Your Blog?

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Nature of the Problem

The Internet, although still considered new by many, was in fact was conceived in the 1960s.[1] No longer "new," the internet is now commonplace in the lives of the majority of North American, Western European, and Australian youth, as well as a growing number of Asian young people. Today's adolescents are familiar with what we call cyberspace, a concept that was first conceived before many of them were, in William Gibson's 1984 book "Neuromancer."[2] The emerging generation of adolescents has grown up using the internet daily, exchanging email, searching for homework answers and help, talking to both real life friends and online virtual friends via instant messenger, and enjoying the accessibility of information at their fingertips.

In the mid to late 1990s, Christian thinkers started publishing the idea that internet ministry was a viable option and should be embraced by the church as a whole in order to stay culturally relevant, and to avoid being passed by on the information highway. The idea of the Church using technology to advance the Gospel was not a new one (think of radio and television programs, for example). Internet evangelism simply stemmed out of other ways of evangelism.[3]

With Generation X (and younger generations), "it's all about relationships,"[4] and incarnational ministry is important. If we want to reach the young adults and adolescents of today, connecting with them through relational and incarnational ministry is key. Youth today want to see the genuineness that incarnational ministry promotes.

One of the swiftest growing realms on the internet in the past year or two has been in the area of personal weblogging, especially among youth. Blogs are "a cross between an online journal and a list of commented links,"[5] “a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.”[6] Weblogs foster virtual communities online, some on the internet refer to the entire weblogging community as a whole as the "blogosphere."[7] Weblogs foster the exchange of ideas, critical thought, the sharing of personal lives, and, importantly, they cultivate relationships between writers and readers. Weblogs are journals, thus they often hold the thoughts and daily activities of the writer, or "blogger". With weblogs fostering communication, relationships, and community, it would seem that they would be an ideal place on the internet to do ministry. Relational and incarnational ministry, it seems, have the potential to flourish via weblogging. The online presence of individual Christians is growing through the continual increasing numbers of webloggers, and through this, the opportunity for relational ministry is growing.

But, are Christians grabbing hold of the potential of ministry through weblogs, specifically the potential for youth ministry? How are weblogging Christians online fostering relationships? Are they simply developing relationships with other Christians and alienating the non-Christians? Are they creating a distinct Christian weblogging community and alienating themselves from the rest of the online blogosphere?

My preliminary research led me to believe that many weblogging Christians are, in essence, creating a weblogging "bubble," a closed Christian circle that includes only others of "like mind." The average Christian weblog does not seem to welcome non-Christians. While Christian fellowship is happening amongst the Christians, what about the seeker? How is the world of Christian weblogging ministering to him, and how can it be improved?

Significance of the Study

Although weblogging has been around since the 1990s, it took awhile to be noticed and it is still considered to be in it's infancy stages as a new part of the rapidly developing and swiftly changing internet. Because of it's relative newness, there has not yet been much, if any, research done into how Christians are utilizing weblogging as a ministry medium or means of ministry.

The internet is becoming more and more of a presence in the lives of many, especially adolescents, and weblogging is only one realm of this vast net. The popularity of weblogging is increasing steadily, and I believe the potential for ministry is vast via this new medium.

If indeed 51.5% of blogs are created by those between the ages of 13 and 19,[8] it would seem logical that youth ministers should be there, part of the whole "meeting them where they're at" philosophy.[9] It is possible to build relationships and practice incarnational evangelism and ministry on the internet. Youth are thirsting for friendships with adults[10] who will take an interest in them and who they are, helping them grow to the next level and beyond.

If Christians are not grabbing a hold of this vision for ministry outside the Christian community within the blogosphere, then the potential is lost. If Christian webloggers are not interacting outside of their little community of believers, and are just sticking to their own, then they are missing a very important part of the Great Commission. Jesus commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations, not to just remain in our own little towns.

Part of this study aims to discover if and how Christians are interacting with non-Christians via blogging, and if youth ministers or those who work with youth have a different approach to weblogging than the "mainstream Christian weblogger." I also want to know if Christian youth workers are interacting with adolescents in this realm at all.

Because very little research has been done in the field of Christian webloggers and their practices, this study is perhaps opening up a new discussion. It is expected that this study will contribute knowledge on weblogging in the field of Christian webloggers and their processes and relational endeavors therein.

Practically, I hope through this study to encourage and facilitate Christian webloggers to reach out via weblogging to Christians and non-Christians through relational and incarnational ministry, especially to adolescent webloggers.

Theoretically, I hope through this study to change the way Christian webloggers are currently interacting online, especially with non-Christian webloggers. Encouraging Christian webloggers to step outside their comfort circle of Christian weblogging may be uncomfortable for many, and they may not understand how to go about doing so.

I also endeavor, through this study, to encourage relationship building via weblogging. If weblogging indeed fosters community, then it also fosters relationships. Promoting healthy relationships between Christian and non-Christian bloggers is key, as it is offline amongst all Christians and non-Christians. "Friendship evangelism" is a big thing amongst the post-modern mindset, and should be important online as well.

Lastly, through what is learnt in this study, I hope to encourage incarnational ministry via weblogging. Incarnational ministry occurs when others see faith as a living reality in one's life, when a genuine faith is evident in the way a Christian lives their life. The evidence of Christ's changing work in you should be evident in a believer, and thus this should be especially evident in a personal journal. People want to read about real life, the good things and the bad, the successes and the failures. Sharing your faith through your writing should flow from within, whether done intentionally or unintentionally.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this study is twofold, firstly to discover how Christian webloggers are interacting online with themselves and non-Christians webloggers, and secondly, to encourage and facilitate online relational and incarnational ministry via weblogging, especially pointed towards adolescents.

The Research Question

How are Christian webloggers interacting online with themselves and with non-Christian webloggers, and how can relational and incarnational ministry be encouraged with Christian webloggers?

Assumptions

It is assumed that input given by those participating in this study's surveys is accurate. It is also assumed that studies previously done that are cited in this paper are accurate as well.

It will be assumed that incarnational ministry can happen through an electronic medium. It will also be assumed that relational ministry is a biblical concept modeled by Jesus and his disciples in the Bible, and that it is one we should in turn follow.

Limitations

The number of survey responses possible for the Christian Webloggers Survey undertaken as a part of this survey is limited to those seeing online requests promoting the survey and then deciding to participate.

The number of survey responses possible for the Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey is limited to those contacted personally by the researcher and then deciding to participate.

The term "Christian" as used in the survey titles is open to interpretation by the survey takers, and thus it was expected that participants would be from a wide variety of backgrounds, including but not limited to Evangelicals and Protestants.

Definition of Terms

Adolescents. Those junior high through college aged, approximately being between the ages of 12 and 22 years old.

Blogger. Short for "weblogger."

Blog. Short for "weblog."

Blogroll. A list of blogs usually located on the sidebar of a weblog or sometimes kept on another webpage linked from the main page of the weblog.

Comments. Enabled by the "commenting" feature of a weblog, readers can click on a link (usually at the end of a weblog entry/post) and leave comments for both the blogger and other readers to read. Usually a link like "Comments(2)" would indicate that two comments had been left by readers and/or the blogger, but the commenting link can be customized by the blogger to read something else.

Incarnational Ministry. Living a life deeply rooted in the life of Christ, before others.

Participant. Someone who participated in the surveys undertaken as part of this research.

Relational Ministry. Realizing that that long-term influence with lasting outcome comes from significant relationships and input and investment in the lives of others. Respondent. Same as participant.

Weblog. A online journal or diary, often including commented links. Formatted in a series of entries in reverse-chronological order, so the latest entry/post appears either at the top of the page or is the main page. For the purposes of this study, the terms "weblog" and "blog" include online journals (like those housed on LiveJournal), online diaries (like those housed on Diaryland), and blogs (like those created by Blogger and Movable Type users).

Weblogger. One who writes in a weblog.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Christianity and Christians Online

As more and more people gain web access and begin using the internet on a regular basis, more people, both Christian and non-Christian, young and old, are using the Internet in their quest for meaning.[11] In a study by the Barna Research group, more than two-thirds of Americans indicated that they were likely to engage in specific types of religious experience via the internet as the current decade progresses.[12] In a 2003 study by the same group, 5% of Americans “said they would definitely use the Internet for personal faith experience and expression, and another 18% indicated they would probably do so.”[13] The development of online communities of Christians has the potential to make the abstract idea of the universal church more real and current to participating believers, transcending the boundaries of time and geography online.[14] Christians, including adolescents, are meeting online in forums such as chat rooms to pray, discuss faith, seek spiritual guidance, and do Bible studies. However, some wonder if this meeting online make their experience less legitimate than an in-the-flesh church building encounter.[15]

For many, the world of the Internet is as real a meeting place as a church building.[16] Many Christians see the internet as a gateway to an online Christian community that keeps growing.[17] Thousands of seekers who feel alienated from traditional churches “are turning elsewhere to find relevance, meaning, and spiritual connections.”[18] In 2001, less than 1% of all American adults and just 2% of teenagers were using the Internet as a substitute for a physical-church, but George Barna hypothesized that in the United States “by the end of the decade we will have in excess of ten percent of our population who rely upon the Internet for their entire spiritual experience.”[19] Many teens however, known as the most adaptable of all believers, are not ready to abandon real church[20] but instead choose to supplement it with online interactions to strengthen their offline faith.[21]

Teenagers are pioneering online life, with over 70% of American teens regularly surfing the net.[22] Two-thirds of Canadian tweens (identified as ages 7-14) with computers at home had access to the internet in 2000[23] In fact, the internet has become the primary communication tool for teenagers, surpassing even the telephone among some groups, with 81% of teens using the internet for email, and 70% using it for instant messaging.[24] According to a study by researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion that surveyed teens and their parents, most American teenagers, ages 13 to 17 years old, have access to the internet and spend an average of nearly 7 hours a week online.[25] However, youth interviewed by author Andrew Careaga spent as much as 20 hours a week online discussing matters of faith, considerably more time than most devout Christians normally spend in traditional church activities.[26] And, 62% of teens feel freer to discuss their faith over the Internet than in face-to-face conversations.[27] According to Careaga, Christian teenagers see the Internet as a viable tool for evangelism, discipleship, and Christian fellowship, and some teens even claim to be more active in church since becoming involved in the Internet.[28]

Christianity has already begun to be shaped by the technology known as the Internet in ways that few in the traditional church would have ever imagined.[29] The Internet houses tens of thousands of online Christian webpages and resources, including various online communities.[30] However, despite encouraging statistics, few Christians recognize the potential of the Internet as a medium that can be used for outreach to those who would never step inside a church, or facilitate dialog between faiths and denominations, or help those in ministry develop a sense of unity within Christianity,[31] but this needs to change as the church needs to decide how to respond to the online mission field in order to have an effective witness there.[32] Two thousand years after the death of Christ, we have a new and powerful medium to share the gospel message.[33]

In order to reach online seekers for God, author Andrew Careaga says there are three things that the traditional church must do:

1. Enter the online world of cyber-seekers, learning about them and from them in order to understand how they respond to the workings of this new medium.

2. Endeavor to understand the Internet as a medium itself and its influence and place in our culture.

3. Consider how we as the church should respond to the Internet’s growing influence in our society.[34]

With the numbers going online today, debating whether or not “an online church is a true church" is not nearly as important as is formulating a response to the sweeping cultural changes that are diminishing the church’s influence. "The real issue for the church as we contemplate the virtual mission field of the Internet is how we will respond. Will the church be there for online seekers with a message of salvation and hope? Or will we choose instead to ignore the impact of this new medium and let other belief systems influence the hearts and minds of Net surfers?"[35] Today it is important to not only understand the Bible and the message it has, but that God has called us to be like the “men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” (1 Chronicles 12:32).[36]

The Blogosphere

As noted earlier, one of the swiftest growing realms on the internet in the past year or two has been in the area of personal weblogging. In October 2003 it was estimated that there were 4.12 million blogs that had been created on the eight most popular blog service providers[37] by the Perseus Weblog Survey.[38] It was also estimated that by the end of 2003 the number of hosted weblogs would exceed five million, and by the end of 2004 they would exceed ten million.[39]

According to the Perseus Weblog Survey, teenagers lead the weblogging pack. Those under 30 years of age have created 92.4% of all weblogs, 51.5% (2 120 000) of blogs were created by 13 to 19 year olds, and 1.3% (55 500) of blogs were created by 10-12 year olds.[40]

Although the number of blogs may exceed ten million by the end of this year, not all of these weblogs are active. The Perseus Corporation found in it's study that 66% of the blogs it surveyed had not been updated in two months, and 1.09 million blogs overall were one-day wonders.[41] Most weblog providers do not yet delete inactive blogs like email service providers delete inactive accounts. The NITLE Blog Census, an ongoing project that attempts to find as many active weblogs as possible across all languages, had found 1 705 102 sites it thought were likely weblogs as of February 2, 2004.[42] Technorati, a service that tracks who links to whom, also lists a similar number at 1 753 116 weblogs.[43]

The online presence of individual Christians is growing through the continual increasing numbers of webloggers. Currently Blogs4God, "a semi-definitive list of Christian blogs”, has 986 blogs listed. Of course not all Christian bloggers have registered with Blogs4God, however it is the largest Christian bloglist on the internet. [44]

Longing for Community

Being of the postmodern mindset, Generation Xers long for a place to belong and a place to call home, they are looking for community.[45] In light of this, postmodern evangelicalism moves people away from autonomous individualism and instead places individuals in community. This is because God created us to be in relationship with Him and each other.[46] Because we bear the image of God, we long to be placed in community.[47] “Christians should be at the forefront in this postmodern world, demonstrating what a loving community is like to a group of people crying for community.”[48] It is a part of our nature to build community out of the communication and reliance we have with one another, and that can happen both offline and online.[49]

In 1993, Howard Rheingold's landmark book, "The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier,” brought to light the communities that were forming online and opened the eyes of the world. In 1985 Rheingold had become involved in the WELL[50], one of the earliest Internet communities that formed, a precursor to many of today's internet communities."[51] As an early Internet user, Rheingold was able to see the growth of a full-scale subculture[52] that continues today. In his book, Rheingold stated what many who become involved in internet communities feel: "I care about these people I met through my computer... and I'm not alone in this emotional attachment."[53]

The Internet and the World Wide Web have created "a global meeting place where 'netizens' create new communities that are free from the confines of time and space,"[54] and "new ways to socialize and build communities of interest, independent of geography."[55] The online community that Rheingold was involved in was a type of pioneer settlement, and today, blogging is forming a new kind of community online. This community is being fed by weblog writers mutually linking to one another[56] and commenting[57] on each other's posts and entries.

There is some debate on whether or not weblogging can indeed be considered community or be building any type of community. Like others in community however, webloggers enjoy the healing effect the community they are involved with provides them.[58]

In response to the weblogging as community debate, one weblog writer wrote the following:

"Can one person's blog be a community? Yes if his readers partake in the community. For much of my blog, I kept comments off - I didn't want them. I tried to fight the community which blogs stand for. I tried to keep this a diary and not a blog. Over time I've come to the conclusion I was missing something without the community. I would look at all the (0)s and realize I was writing for myself still."[59]

Another writer stated "Blogging is also an expression of community, allowing individuals to communicate, or associations to share news, or families to swap photos."[60] Some bloggers even claim that the Internet, and specifically blogging, foster community better than the real world.[61]

The world of weblogging is a large community full of smaller suburbs, and even smaller tribes.[62] As author and weblog historian Rebecca Blood notes, it is "fascinating to see new bloggers position themselves in this community, referencing and reacting to those blogs they read most, their sidebar an affirmation of the tribe to which they wish to belong."[63] Frances Cairncross hypothesized in 1997 that the internet would create new ways of communicating, and these new ways of communicating would allow a new kind of social life.[64] Weblogging is one of these new ways of communicating, and a new type of social life that has been created on the Internet.

Relational and Incarnational Ministry

Being in relationship with youth has to be an intentional activity, because adults must choose to move outside of their normal friend groups in order to establish relationships with adolescents. Building relationships with youth involves crossing a natural social boundary to bring about intentional positive change in the lives of youth.[65]

The term "relational ministry" is the phrase used to describe the idea "that all matters of faith are, at their essence, matters of relationship."[66] This includes God the Father's relationship to the Son, the Son's relationship with us as Christians, our relationships with each other, and so forth. Because of the uniqueness of today's postmodern generations' yearning for meaningful relationships, this relational view of ministry communicates to them in a way that other more traditional ways of ministry have not done.[67] Many involved in ministry to younger generations today have realized that long-term influence with lasting outcome comes from significant relationships and input of and investment of role models. People, not programs, have positive, long-lasting influence of the lives of others.[68] Jesus changed peoples' lives through relationships, and youth today have a need for a friendship with adults, adults who can help lead them to relationship with Jesus Christ.[69] In relational and incarnational ministry, relationships are seen as a way by which youth may experience the presence of Jesus Christ.[70]

Believers who work with youth express their faith in Christ amongst those they minister to by being with them and getting involved in their lives.[71] Being with them and being involved in their lives is also an expression of the gospel. The youth minister will find that as they spend time those they minister to, they, as a minister, are a reflection of the love of God in the midst of the youth. The time spent getting to know them and the respect that is shown through this is a witness of the presence of Christ among them. Youth ministers are a means that Jesus uses to become incarnated among a group of adolescents. An "incarnational" youth minister is one who lives out a life deeply rooted in the life of Christ, before those whom they are ministering to. An incarnational youth minister is an imitator of Christ.[72]

Being incarnational and relational in ministry does not mean following the crowd. It does not mean one must be a dynamic speaker, be "cool," or the like, it means they need to love those whom they are ministering to, and it means they must being willing to spend time with them… it means they are willing to lend a listening ear and are willing to get to know those entrusted to their ministry.[73]

If we as youth ministers want to have a positive influence on those we minister to, we must not only build relationships with them, but also live our faith authentically in front of them. Youth can see through a façade, they know a genuine relationship when they see it. Having healthy relationships with them and with those we work with is of vital importance.[74]

Often, our largest influence is not in what we teach with words, but is instead through our actions and through our lifestyle. Modelling, or leading by example, is important for all who minister. And, a good relational minister is aware of the powerful influence they have in modeling their Christian faith.[75]

Good relational ministry, and thus good youth ministry, requires nurture. Nurture takes time. Relational ministers must help those they minister to move from reliance on the minister to dependence on God, but this does take time. Relational ministry requires a "sticking with them" attitude that involves a long-term commitment to helping them grow to where God wants them.[76]

Unconditional love is another important part of relational ministry. God's love is unconditional, and when we love unconditionally, we model the love of God. We must accept that youth will fail, and when they do, they need encouragement. Showing them the reality of God's grace and love is important for the solidification of their faith.[77]

Youth need adults in their lives who are willing to give them significantly of their time and attention. Relational ministry requires both quality and quantity time. Often, the most significant lessons about God will happen outside of a teaching environment. Quality time spent often communicates the gospel in a way that a Bible class could not. And, quality time often allows for conversations that otherwise would have never taken place.[78]

Standing still and waiting for youth to come to the church is not a particularly effective ministry strategy, but going out and meeting students on their own territory can be. Meeting students where they are at, in their environment, often breaks down the walls that hinder some from entering the church. By entering their world, the minister communicate to those whom they are attempting to ministering to that they are interested in them as persons, not just as church participants. Very importantly, the adult lets them know that they actually care. By entering their world, the minister then can be introduced to others in their world, and friendships often result. By meeting youth where they are at, by entering their environment and territory, the minister meet youth whom otherwise they would never have had any contact.[79]

Principles of Relational Ministry

In their book "Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry," Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst put forward the idea that in relational ministry, there are four principles that, when applied, "bring an individual and group to life."[80]

The first principle involves not teaching people about Christ, but instead discovering Him with people. This involves coming alongside people and showing them your life and struggles, showing people a common ground and something they can identify with in your life, this communicates to them the gospel is authentic.[81]

The second principle of relational ministry that Baugh and Hurst put forth is that people naturally support that which they have helped create. Involving people in the process of setting up a ministry makes them more likely to continue participating in that ministry. Relational ministry encourages group members to decide their own ministry direction. Relational ministry involves empowering people to create their own ministries. The role of a leader in relational ministry includes encouraging others to pursue the ministries God has intended for them.[82]

The third relational ministry principle involves helping people discover their calling, rather than simply giving them a ministry job. The role of leaders is not to motivate someone but instead create an environment where people can discover what God is calling them to do.[83]

The fourth and final principle of relational ministry is that church community is for everyone, all of us have an equal need for God. "We are called to community with others seeking a relationship with Jesus Christ,"[84] and through this, we are enabled to experience a relationship with God and with one another.[85] People today do not want to be told how to live, they want someone to live it with them, they want authenticity.[86]

Conclusion

The internet is, for many, a daily part of our lives. Christians, as a whole, if they endeavor to remain relevant, need to realize the powerful potential of the internet for ministry. With seekers going online for spiritual information, it is important that Christ is there through Christian content and Christians online.

Adolescents are hungry for adults who care. These same adolescents are online in high numbers, both Christian and non-Christian. And if they see the internet as a viable tool for evangelism, discipleship, and fellowship, we as Christian adults need to take note. It is important for us to understand the internet as a medium and the influence and place it has in today's culture.

And lastly, we need to respond to how the internet is influencing our society. We, as the Church, should not be sitting back, but instead should be engaging it as a medium and means of ministry. If the internet is where the people are, why are we not there with a Light?

Weblogging, as we have seen, is a new and swiftly growing part of the internet, especially amongst adolescents. Blogging promotes relationship building. Weblogging promotes community. Promoting relational and incarnational ministry is important if Christians are to grasp, grab a hold, and cling to a vision of ministry via weblogging. Helping people discover their calling in this area, and involving them in the creation of this ministry are an integral part of this promotion.

CHAPTER 3

PROJECT NARRATIVE

In order to address the purpose statement and research questions central to this study, I decided to use a research problem-solving methodology.

Making Contact

As stated in the introduction, the main research for this study was done through the administration of two online questionnaires, the first to Christian webloggers, and the second to Christian webloggers who work or volunteer in youth ministry.

In order to gain participants in my first survey of Christian webloggers, I first posted the following online plea on my personal weblog:

“Your Kind Assistance is Requested

Will you fill out a survey for me?

As you may or may not know, I am currently working on my MRRP (Ministry Related Research Project) to complete my Master of Arts in Christian Ministry with and emphasis in Youth and Family Ministry here (link to BBS), which is somewhat similar to a thesis.

And, as you may or may not know, my MRRP is on blogging. Not just blogging in general, but a more specific topic in regards to blogging. However, I can't really tell you my topic because I am hoping you will volunteer to complete a survey for me, and if you knew what my specific topic was, that might taint your answers.

I am looking for Christian bloggers to fill out this survey. It will be in two parts, one to be answered first and then the other one to be answered not too long later, but neither should take you too terribly much time.

The survey may now be taken directly online by clicking here (link to survey site).

And feel free to spread the word, I would appreciate as many responses as possible. It is my hope that this project will have a positive effect on the blogosphere.

Thank you!”[87]

My weblog received on average approximately 65 site visitors per day and had 35 other weblogs linking to it on their blogrolls before the start of the surveying, but I hoped to publicize the surveys to a wider audience. Therefore, I sent an email request to ten “big name” Christian webloggers, including some whose weblogs receive up to 1000 visitors per day and had anywhere from 100-350 other weblogs linking to them, according to data retrieved from www.technorati.com.[88] The email I sent included general information on my project, a link to my original post on the survey, a link to where they could take the survey online, and a mention to the fact that they could feel free to promote the survey on their weblog. I received completed surveys from four of the ten "big name bloggers," and another one emailed to let me know they were too busy to participate. Several of these bloggers linked to my original survey post and helped bring about more widespread exposure.

Over the next couple of weeks, approximately 35 weblogs linked to my original post about my survey on my weblog, spreading the word over the (Christian) blogosphere. Through this linking, interested Christian bloggers came to my weblog and either emailed or commented on my site if they wanted to participate. Originally I emailed part one to anyone who contacted me desiring to participate in the survey. After less than a week however, I placed the survey online on a free websurvey site called createsurvey.com[89] that allowed for an easier collection of data.

After people completed Part One of the Christian Weblogger Survey, I sent them an email thanking them for their participation, assured them of confidentiality, and included the link for completing Part Two online.[90]

After I had received approximately seventy-five responses to Part One of the Christian Webloggers Survey I conducted, I contacted nine youth pastors who maintain weblogs, whom I found via websearches, and asked them to complete my Blogging Youth Workers Survey.[91] I also emailed a request to every participant in the Christian Webloggers Survey who had identified themselves as working youth ministry (either professionally or as a volunteer) and asked them to complete this survey as well. One of the youth pastors I emailed also linked to the Blogging Youth Workers survey via their weblog.

In all, I received 121 complete Christian Weblogger Surveys (a complete survey included both parts one and two filled out), 11 incomplete Christian Weblogger Surveys (only part one was completed), and 20 Weblogging Youth Worker Surveys.

Survey Results

Christian Webloggers Survey

Due to technical problems I was only able to use the responses from 115 participants in my Christian Webloggers Survey.

Study Population

Gender

Male	54%	62 of 115 respondents
Female	45%	52 of 115 respondents
Undisclosed	<1%	1 of 115 respondents

Figure 1: Gender of Respondents

The study population contained more males than females. Previous research has suggested two different conclusions in regards to gender population amongst webloggers. The Perseus Websurvey concluded that in general there are more female webloggers than male (56% female and 44% male)[92], and a Jupiter Research article claimed "blogging is split evenly among the genders.”[93] A NITLE Census News article supported the Jupiter Research, but also suggested that although the numbers of male and female bloggers are very similar, interests are different,[94] so my survey results would suggest that perhaps there are slightly more males than females who would identify themselves as Christian webloggers.

Age of Population Surveyed

Age Bracket	Number of Respondents	Percent of Respondents
11-15 years old	2	1%
16-20	7	6%
21-25	29	26%
26-30	23	20%
31-35	14	13%
36-40	14	13%
41-45	9	8%
46-50	6	5%
51-55	3	3%
56-60	5	4%
Undisclosed	2	1%

Figure 2: Ages of Survey Respondents

The average age of respondents for my Christian Webloggers Survey was 34 years old. The youngest respondent was 11 years old, the oldest was 60 years old.

As stated earlier in this paper, statistics suggest that the majority of weblogs are created by younger generations, the Perseus Websurvey concluded that 92.4% of blogs are created by those under the age of 30.[95] In my survey, only 53% of participants were bloggers aged 30 years and under. However, my survey was not promoted to teen webloggers, or on any teen targeted site, and thus only nine participants ended up being aged 20 years or younger. For the purposes of my research, I was primarily interested in adult respondents.

Blogging Tool/Service

When asked what blogging tool or service they used, here is how survey participants answered:

Blogging Tool or Service	Number of Respondents	% of Respondents
b2	3	2%
Blog Studio	1	<1%
Blog-City	1	<1%
Blogger	54	47%
Blogger Pro	1	<1%
Handcode the html by hand	4	3%
iBlog	1	<1%
LiveJournal	1	<1%
Movable Type	33	29%
Own PHP Creation	1	<1%
Pivot	1	<1%
Pmachine	2	>1%
Radio Userland	1	<1%
Typepad	5	4%
WordPress	4	3%

Figure 3: Blogging Tool or Service

A variety of blogging services represented was ideal because each is known for it's characteristic users (i.e. LiveJournal is known for being popular amongst teens,[96] Xanga is known for being popular amongst Asians,[97] Movable Type requires you to have your own website, etc.) and a broad population sampling in this area was more desirable to represent these characteristics. Blogger is the blogging tool/service provider leader for not only participants in this survey, but also overall in the blogosphere according to statistics elsewhere.[98]

Geographical Location

Country	Number of Respondents	Percent of Respondents
United States	79	70%
Canada	13	11%
Australia	7	6%
United Kingdom	5	4%
New Zealand	2	<2%
Malaysia	2	<2%
Bosnia	1	<1%
Brazil	1	<1%
Nicaragua	1	<1%
Philippines	1	<1%
South Korea	1	<1%
Sweden	1	<1%
Ukraine	1	<1%

Figure 4: Geographical Location

When surfing the blogosphere and visiting weblogs of English-speaking Christians, it does not take long to realize that the majority of them are created by those in the top three countries that are represented in my survey. There are also a growing number of weblogs created by Christians in Asian countries.

It should be noted that from what I was able to ascertain, the respondents living in Bosnia, Brazil, Nicaragua, and South Korea, and one UK respondent were all Americans doing missions work, teaching English, or on student exchange programs overseas.

Professions

There does not appear to be any research that has been done previously on the subject of the professions of webloggers, I was unable to find any statistics elsewhere. I was pleased to receive responses from a wide variety of respondents profession-wise, including many students and ministry professionals, as well as writers, parents, those working in computer-related fields, and various others.

Currently in Education
Middle School/High School Students	5 respondents
College Students	13
Graduate Students (Seminary)	3
Ph. D. Level Student	1
Educators
Teachers (Elementary, Middle School, and High School)	6
College/University Instructors/Professors	4
Ministry
Pastors	6
Missionaries	5
Youth Pastors	4
Other Fields
Web or Computer Technologies	18
Housemaker/Housewife/Stay-at-home Dad	13
Other Professions	11
Writer/Journalist/Reporter/Editor	8
Engineer	3
Arts Related Fields	3
Company Director	2
Retail Management	2
Disabled	2
Unemployed	2

Figure 5: Professions

Some respondents listed more than one profession, therefore numbers will not add up to 115.

Denominational Affiliation

When asked what denominational affiliation or church they currently attend, participants in the survey answered the following responses:

Denomination	#	Denomination	#
Baptist	10	Baptist (Reformed)	1
Non-Denominational	10	Baptist Union of Western Canada	1
Baptist (Southern)	8	Bible Church	1
Not Identified	8	Brethren	1
Presbyterian Church in America	7	Church of Christ	1
Roman Catholic	7	Church of God	1
Christian Reformed	5	Church Plant	1
Episcopal	5	Congregationalist	1
Presbyterian	4	Conservative Congregational Christian Conference	1
Anglican	3	Eastern Orthodox	1
Church of the Nazarene	3	Emergence-type church	1
Evangelical Protestant	3	Evangelical Covenant	1
Vineyard	3	Evangelical Free Church	1
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	2	Evangelical Friend ("Quaker")	1
Evangelical Presbyterian	2	Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada	1
Home Church	2	Indigenous Nicaraguan Evangelical Church	1
Interdenominational	2	Methodist (United)	1
Methodist (Free)	2	Orthodox Church	1
None	2	Orthodox Presbyterian	1
Pentecostal	2	Presbyterian (Liberal)	1
Alliance	1	Presbyterian (Orthodox)	1
Assembly of God	1	Seventh Day Adventist	1
Baptist (Fellowship)	1

Figure 6: Denominational Affiliation

All I required for people to qualify to participate in the survey was that they identify themselves as "Christian" and maintain a weblog. Because of this, the denominational affiliations of respondents was very mixed. The largest denominational group was 18% (21/115) of respondents identifying themselves as some sort of Baptist (including "Baptist," Southern Baptist, Fellowship Baptist, Reformed Baptist, and Baptist Union of Western Canada).

65% of respondents also indicated that they were currently involved in ministry, 13% professionally, and 52% indicated they volunteer in various ministries.

Reading Habits

When participants were asked how many blogs they read on a daily basis, this is how they answered:

Figure 7: Pie Chart of Daily Reading Habits

Blogs Read Daily	Number of Respondents
1-5	13
6-10	34
11-15	16
16-20	14
21-25	6
26-30	5
36-40	7
46-50	4
65-70	3
100	1
No Answer	12

Figure 8: Blogs Read Daily

74% of respondents who answered this question read between 1 and 20 weblogs daily, with 60% reading 15 or fewer weblogs per day. These numbers are great for relational ministry. When someone reads a larger number of weblogs, it is harder to remember details and have enough time to interact with the writers. Reading a smaller number of weblogs would seem to allow for better quality interaction and a better chance of deeper relationships.

When asked if their family was aware of their weblogging, 87% of survey respondents (100/115) said at least one family member was aware that they keep a weblog. 25% of respondents (29/115) said one or more family members read their blog on a "regular basis." Another 10% (12/115) said family members read it "sometimes." Many who said someone in their family was aware of their blog stated only one family member was, and that family member was often usually their spouse or mother. One respondent said her teenage daughter reads her blog and comments occasionally.

Some comments on the aspect of family members reading one's weblog include the following:

- "Blogging is the only way I can get my family to listen to anything about my faith. They think they know what Christianity is and they won't talk about it with me. They will read my blog. It's been wonderful to be able to communicate about my faith via the blog…"[99]

- "I've been pleasantly surprised that I've been able to communicate with my family this way when we haven't had any luck talking about it."

While not a large number of family members seem to read their blogs, some bloggers are having success dialoging on topics and sharing their faith that they have never been able to do so any other way.

23% of survey respondents stated that they interact with people from their church community through blogging. Of those who interact with members of their church community via blogging, they averaged interaction with 5 church members, but 61% of those who interact with church members this way interacted with less than four members. One youth director even stated that she had tried to get youth interested in weblogging, but that it had not caught on. Eight other participants said members of their church community do not blog but read their blog.

When asked, "Would you say you have a personal relationship with any non-Christian bloggers?" 29% (33/115) of those surveyed said yes, they do. About half of those (14% of all surveyed) stated that these were internet-based relationships, and 15% stated that these were bloggers whom they know outside of blogging. One respondent, who was of the 71% who did not have a personal relationship with any non-Christian bloggers stated it bluntly that no, they did not have any such relationships because "I haven't been able to build a relationship with a non-Christian blogger but that's because I don't leave comments on non-Christian blogs nor do they on mine." Two respondents specifically stated they would love to build relationships with non-Christian bloggers. Not many responded with the enthusiasm of this blogger: "Definitely. There are lots of non-Christian bloggers I talk to on a regular basis with and are friendly with."

I was curious if bloggers utilized other mediums of communication to communicate with their fellow bloggers, and felt it important to ask "Do you interact with other bloggers in ways besides blogging? (Blogging would include reading and commenting on blogs)." The survey respondents answered:

Way of Interacting	Number of Respondents	Percent of Respondents
None (only blogging)	15	13%
Email	81	70%
Instant Messenger	46	40%
Telephone	21	18%
Regular "Snail" Mail	15	13%
In Person	23	20%

Figure 11: Communication Outside of Blogging with Bloggers

27% (31/115) of respondents also stated they had met people in the flesh whom they had originally come to know through weblogging. Several stated that they were scheduled or planning to meet other bloggers in the next few weeks or months. These statistics again speak of the quality of relationships created through weblogging.

With 87% of participants interacting with webloggers in ways other than simply reading and commenting on blogs, the statistics tells us that webloggers are highly communicative and interactive people. They do not just maintain their weblogging relationships through the medium of weblogging, but instead branch out to other communication modes. They are willing to go beyond the given medium when developing and maintaining relationships they first found through weblogging.

Readership

I asked survey respondents whether or not they were aware if they had any regular non-Christian readers of their weblog, and if so, what percent of their readership was. 17% (20/115) said no, they do not have any non-Christian readers. 28% (32/115) said they did not know or have no idea as to whether or not any of their regular readers are Christian. Three out of the 115 respondents said the majority of their regular readers are non-Christians. Six out of the 115 respondents said half of their regular readers are non-Christians. Of the 55% of respondents who stated they have regular non-Christian readers, approximately 35% had only 1 or 2 non-Christian readers, and approximately 35% had less than one-quarter non-Christian readers. One respondent commented, " I do have one friend that is not a Christian that is reading my blog regularly that I hadn't seen for years and through my blog we have reconnected and building a new friendship. He's not blogging, but reading. I have no idea how many others, I know that through the Blogger Idol that Darren Rowse[103] has started I've had comments from people I've never met, some I don't think are Christian. So that's cool."

When asked how many hits or visitors per day their personal weblog received, here is how respondents answered:

Number of Hits or Visitors	Respondents*
20 or less	27%
21-40	22%
41-60	14%
61-80	12%
81-100	8%
101-200	11%
201+	6%

Figure 12: Hits/Visitors Daily

* It should be noted for this question that 5% of survey participants did not answer this question, and 17% of participants stated they did not know the number of visitors visiting their site, so percentages on this chart have been calculated using only 78% of total participants in the survey.

As we can see from the statistics, most of the webloggers participating in the survey have small audiences, 49% of those who knew the answer to this question received 40 or less site visitors per day.

While my site received about 65 unique hits, or visitors, per day before the surveying began (it has since gone up), I can only say I have at most 15 dedicated readers who visit my site regularly (either every day or every few days), the large majority of my visitors are one timers. We can probably assume the same of most of the weblogs that were surveyed, one of the major conclusions of the Perseus Weblog Survey was that blogs have nanoaudiences, the large majority of them are only interesting to a handful of individuals.[104]

Think of the nanoaudience like the small group… small groups are great for people getting to know each other. But blogs focus more on a certain individual (the writer) than a small group would, and are often more promoting of one-on-one interaction.

The nanoaudience factor, the one-on-one factor, and commenting systems available with blogging leads me to conclude that blogging is great for relationship building, and thus relational ministry. If I comment on the weblogs of those who read mine, interact with the comments left on my site, and perhaps email, instant message, or snail mail my nanoaudience, I am being relational. If I take the time to encourage, offer suggestions to, pray for, and dialog with my nanoaudience about situations and ideas in their lives and their weblog posts, I am doing relational ministry.

Writing Habits

Identity on the internet has been an issue for many years. For some bloggers, it is a big issue, but 59% (68/115) of respondents surveyed did give their first and last names. 22% (25/115) of respondents gave only their first name, and 19% (22/115) blog under a pseudonym.

25% of respondents said that they had had inappropriate comments left on their blog, including foul language, personal attacks, sexually explicit commentary, and other random comments. 8 % of respondents (9/115) said that they had had internet stalkers.

Some of the comments left on internet stalkers included:

- " I have had a few different people 'stalk' me after reading my blog. One time a guy told me that he knew I was the one he was going to marry just because he had been reading my blog and liked what I had written. He even went as far as to say he was going to move to where I lived."

- "A man emailed me all the time. I don't think he was dangerous, he was just really bossy."

- "A man got my telephone number because it was published and called a

lot. It was… odd. And it made me feel weird about having so many of my intimate thoughts online."

I asked those surveyed whether or not they have any fears about giving personal details on their weblog, and 30% of respondents (34/115) said that no, they did not have any fears. Fifteen respondents stated they have emotional boundaries when writing in their blogs, nine respondents stated they have "personal boundaries." 22% (25/115) said they are wary of giving their location or address. Six respondents stated they were cautious of giving personal details due to internet stalking that had happened to them previously. 20 respondents did not use names of family members and family details. Two respondents had been warned by their employers not to blog about work details. Seven respondents stated they keep work details private. Four respondents stated that they were wary about blogging about church details. One respondent said they had been asked by family members not to post "private details" and "family squabbles." Another respondent said information on their blog had led to a family disagreement.

Some interesting comments on the issue of personal details include:

- " I have tended to keep my blog as a place away from people I know personally to explore my thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or of hurting anyone."

- "Once in a while when I get weird comments I worry that I have given too much information."

- "I don't give away real deep feelings in my life like how lonely I get being single. I try to keep it lighthearted because i don't want anyone seeing all that kind of stuff .it's too personal if my family is reading it."

- "There are two guys that read my blog that have repeatedly tried to stir up trouble for me. One even has a background of doing that sort of thing to other youth pastors."

- " When I began roughly four years ago, I was naive. That has changed via experience. I have through mistake, misapprehension, and misapplication nearly lost my job, damaged irreparably a relationship with a potential spouse's parents, and been brought before the elders of a church where I was teaching a college-age study. In only the first case was there any merit to the problem, but blogs are necessarily free from context and so readers often apply their own imagined context to the text - resulting in conclusions far from those intended."

- "As for personal life stuff, yes, I do often times battle with whether I should share it or not. But, it's not because of strangers, but rather, because of my close friends and family. I just sometimes feel like I don't want to reveal to them some of the deeper day-to-day struggles that I have. But, I'm slowly coming out of that fear and I do share more now than I used to. I think the thing that turned that around for me was the first time I decided to share that I was having a hard time with something and I got a response I was not expecting. That response was that my friends also have those feelings. Who knew?!"

When asked "Do you intentionally include Christian topics in your blogging? Why or why not?" 15 % (17/115) of respondents said that no, they do not intentionally include Christian topics in their blogging. However, of the 98 respondents who said they do intentionally include Christian topics in their blogging, the large majority of them stated that it just comes through naturally, it is not something they think about. They intentionally include Christian topics because Christ is whom their life is centered around. Three respondents said sharing Christ intentionally is the purpose of their blog. Only one respondent said no, they do not include any Christian topics in their blogging as that is not the intent (a linguistics/teaching blog).

When asked if they try to intentionally "reach out" (minister) through their blog, 43% of respondents stated they did not. 28.5% said they intentionally reach out through their blog, and another 28.5% stated that they do not try to intentionally minister through their blog, it just happens that what they write ministers to others.

It seemed from the comments given to this question that most respondents did not have trouble with being naturally expressive about their faith. Some comments that would reflect this are "I include Christian topics in my blogging because my life is centered around Christ, so that just comes through," and "Absolutely (I include Christian topics)...it's who I am and is a natural flow of my thinking," and "Yes (I include Christian topics) because it is part of my life - it IS my life."

However, some respondents also stated that their inclusion of Christian topics was very intentional, such as this participant who stated: "Yes. I want to defend Christianity from objections. I want people to see Christian reflections on things Christians don't often enough reflect on. I want Christians themselves to be challenged in their thinking. Much of the reason is simply that I think about Christian topics because I'm a Christian, and I write about what I think about, since that's what I'm most likely to have something to say about."

A few respondents stated their caution on being "too Christian." One respondent answered as follows: "Yes, (my inclusion of Christian topics in my blogging) reflects my life. However, I don't want non-believers to feel very uncomfortable when reading my blog," and another stated simply "I mention my faith once in a while, but I don't make it a regular thing on the blog. It isn't something I talk about much."

Most respondents were very positive, saying their discussion of Christian issues and writing from a Christian perspective is a natural outpouring of their faith. "I do (write about Christian topics) because that is a part of my life, Christianity influences how I think and perceive the world, there would be no way for me not comment about those topics."

Another participant in the surveys gave this interesting perspective: "Christianity stands on its own merits; unless I'm debating a point of authority, or making a religious statement, I try to build my writing around an invisible structure. Something that has Christ in its bones, not on its shirt, if you know what I mean."

I asked those who intentionally try to minister through their blog (57% of those surveyed) if they felt they were reaching out to Christians or non-Christians. 17% of all respondents stated they feel they minister specifically to Christians through their blog. Only (5/115) of respondents stated they try to specifically reach or minister to non-Christians through their blog, but 20% (23/115) of respondents stated they feel they are reaching out or ministering to both Christians and non-Christians through their blogs. Some comments on this question included the following:

- "I try to be encouraging through my blogging which could help other Christian bloggers simply by sharing triumphs and tragedies. Non-Christians I hope would see my faith and possibly be encouraged to learn more."

- "I try to be a part of the non-Christian world (without, of course, compromising my own beliefs) so they may notice God through me."

- "Christians may find the things I write to be more of a help to them than non-Christians, but I don't set out to write a post with the intention of 'Hey, this is really going to bless someone.' I don't sit down to post with the intention of ministering to someone. I pray that God will use me through my blog to draw people to himself, but I don't see the blog as a ministry per se. I guess in a way my pastors do see it as an evangelism tool -- but they see evangelistic gifts in me that I just think of as my way of talking about my faith."

- "(I reach out to) non-Christians. I hope to get across the point that intelligent, thinking people can also be Christians and that there are some Christian, like myself, who don't claim to know all the answers."

- "(I reach out to both) Christians--reminding them of their vocation to love and to serve. Non-Christians--reminding them that they are beloved of God and desired by Him from before time began."

- "(I reach out to) both. I've had some very heartfelt conversations with both Christians and non-Christians because of my Blog."

- "I would like to reach out to non-Christians by showing them a different view of a believer than many of them seem to have. By that, I mean a more tolerant, warm, and less hypocritical individual."

- "(I reach out to) Christians. Since they are my brothers and sisters they are the main people I am to be in fellowship with, and they are the people, outside of my immediate family, that I should be encouraging."

- "People have seemed to connect to what I write and I've been contacted by many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, who have said that I've encouraged them or they've enjoyed some particular piece of writing. I don't intentionally try to witness to or admonish people through my blog, but it sometimes just happens."

- "I guess that I do try to write things that are helpful for other Christians both in their thinking and in their living. I do not write with non-Christians in mind because I do not think that they read my blog."

- "I feel I am reaching out more to Catholic Christians. The way I see it, a non-believer won't be very moved by reading my blog. But if I can encourage a fellow Catholic to truly live out their faith then they will touch many more people in their personal lives- whether a family member or the guy bagging their groceries."

The large majority of survey participants seemed to be positive about incarnational ministry, they gave the impression that they truly desired to reflect Christ in their lives and write from that viewpoint. Although many were wary of and not in agreement with intentional preaching from a blog, most stated they believe themselves to be reflecting Christ in their blogging.

Blogging as a Means of Ministry

When I asked "What is your opinion of the concept of blogging as a means of ministry, as a way to reach out/minister to other Christians and/or non-Christians?", the opinions on this topic were greatly varied. A few were vehemently opposed to the idea of blogging being used as a form of ministry. Some were concerned that the medium is too impersonal. Some were concerned that it would be done without any tact. One respondent was opposed to the idea of any sort of computer-based ministry because it is not "God ordained." Some stated that blogging should not be used as a form of ministry because it does not create real-life flesh-and-blood relationships.

But, the majority of respondents thought that blogging as a form of ministry is a great idea, "if you can make it work." Many stated that blogging is a great way to come into contact with others whom you would never have any other way of being in contact with.

Many stated they believed the community aspect of weblogging is great for Christians to interact with and minister to other Christians.

"Real Live Preacher"[105] was named by three respondents as a good ministry model online, and "Catholic and Enjoying It"[106] was mentioned twice. Several respondents identified blogging as a valuable medium for discussing apologetics and theology with other believers. A few respondents also stated that "the emerging church" has been using blogging as a valuable communication and discussion tool.

Many also stated they were unsure how well a ministry tool blogging would work when trying to reach non-Christians.

There were many comments on blogging being a good lifestyle ministry, but not a good evangelistic tool. Respondents commented on the fact that it would be hard to have a successful "preaching" weblog to non-Christians, however a well-written weblog about life as a Christian would be more apt to be well-received by non-Christian readers.

Some of the comments on blogging as a means of ministry include:

- "I think that it is a great way to reach a sector of the population who might not be affected by Christianity any other way. As for Christians it offers the chance for a broad community of believers and thinkers to exchange thoughts."

- "In the fact that bloggers tends to be a little more open and honest, I think it's a good way to set up lifestyle ministry. As a purely evangelistic tool, I think it's pretty lacking in scope. You have to be interesting enough to get people (Christian or non) to want to read your site, and you're not going to get much non-Christian readership by preaching."

- "I think there is potential. I know I often read something which speaks to me at the moment. While I do believe that there is a sense of community among many Christian bloggers, it is the personal face to face contact which would be missing. Nevertheless, I know God has used me many times to speak to other bloggers in need, although this is usually by email from a blog rather than an entry. I have also emailed other bloggers on the spur of the moment and found that my words were used as ministry. Again, these were people with whom I had a relationship, even if only email."

- "I think blogging can be and is a ministry. It encourages relationships and allows Christians to reach out to non-Christians in a medium which is friendly and accessible. One of my non-Christian friends reads my blog sometimes and I hope that through what I have written, she will see what God means to me and what He has done. It's a non-confrontation arena and it's an opportunity to invite people into your life this way."

- "I think for some it will go well but I believe that face to face contact is extremely important. I don't think it should be a stand alone ministry if possible."

- "It can help build bridges when you can't physically meet."

- "Real ministry happens in the context of relationships."

- "My concept is to just put myself, my thoughts and feelings, out there, unedited and authentic, and transparency begets transparency, so that people may see Christ in me, as well as other parts of me too."

- "If you include a commenting system… then you have a forum for discussion, which I guess could be used for ministry .... I think that if you tell people about your faith in an active attempt to spread the gospel, they should be allowed to react to that, ask questions and think it through - otherwise you are hitting them over their heads with the gospel…"

- "It could be a great way t o find hurting people."

- "Blogging as a ministry can be done, but I think in order to be successful you have to build a rapport with your readers. Just telling people what to do isn't usually enough, you have to gain their trust and guide them to discover the truth (make that The Truth) for themselves. You can't argue people into accepting Christ."

- "If you are able to do it great. Christ said to go our into the whole world and preach the Gospel. Blogging can be a means to this end."

- "The concept of blogging is much like journaling in public. We often keep our spiritual beliefs hidden and private, and a blog gives an opportunity to say openly those things we don't often say. It is also somewhat bi-directional and interactive, so a blog can create something like a discussion in a living room among a group of acquaintances. So I think it has a lot of potential. It's fairly anonymous, so people can feel safe about responding to what you have written. That said, the internet is so vast that it is difficult for people who might be inclined to join in such a discussion to find out about you, so I'm not sure just how effective blogs are in the long run. Time will tell."

- "Blogging, at its finest, is a form of communication. It's slower and both more and less precise than other forms, but if you are diligent, you can use your blog as both a tool of debate and an agent of change. That lets you do two things, speak and connect with people, and if you're lucky, provide help or solace. I try to approach blogging as a conduit of love, and of putting my care for humans into a more-or-less concrete form."

- "I see blogging as an extension of who I am and how I live. I 'reach' out to those around me (both Christians and non Christians) in real life when the opportunity arises - I take this same approach with blogging. Its not something I intentionally make a ministry but opportunities have arisen at times to play a part in what God is doing in others lives."

- "It is VERY MUCH useful to encourage those who feel isolated (like stay-at-home moms and particularly those who homeschool) because there just aren't too many of us out there and the likelihood that we live in each others' neighborhoods is remote. The internet makes the world so much smaller and makes it easier to find likeminded individuals so as to feel less isolated and alone, like you're the only one in the world doing what you're doing."

- "It is a great way to minister. I am able to share the things that God is doing in my life to encourage and build up others in their faith. It also helps introduce people who aren't believers to the reality of what Christianity is about. Community blogging allows us to keep in touch with the other people in our church and lets us encourage them when they are going through a tough time. Also a great way for teachers to be able to pass on the things that God is saying so that they can teach others. I could go on for ever on this topic, but it's tough to write in this little box. :)"

- "I think it's great, a new approach so to say. As more and more people engage in blogging, I think it's a whole new place for e-vangelism."

- "Blogging is God-sent. For some of us, elderly or disabled or living in very rural places, it is one of the only ways available to reach out, to serve. In urban areas among the able-bodied it may not be so much so, but for me, it still lets me teach even now."

- Any form of communication can be an avenue of ministry. But blogging for me is a particularly personal kind, more like 1-to-1 conversation.

Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey

One of the original goals of my project was to connect with weblogging Christian youth workers to determine if and how their approach to weblogging is different than the "mainstream Christian weblogger." It was my hope to discover blogging youth workers who were connecting with youth via this medium.

Population

Gender

Of the 20 persons surveyed for the Christian Blogging Youth Workers Survey, 70% were male and 30% were female (14 males and 6 females).

Geographical Location

Survey participants were located in the United States (15 participants), Canada (3 participants), the United Kingdom (1 participant), and Malaysia (1 participant), once again very reflective of popular Christian weblogging countries.

Church Affiliations

Participants in this survey attend churches of the following denominations and types:

- Assemblies of God

- Air Base Chapel service

- Christian and Missionary Alliance

- Church of God

- Evangelical Missionary

- Free Will Baptist

- International Church of the Foursquare Gospel

- Non-denominational (4 participants)

- Presbyterian (3 participants)

- Reformed Church in America

- Southern Baptist (2 participants)

- United Methodist

- Vineyard

- Wesleyan

Ministry Position

Figure 13: Ministry Position of Youth Workers

"Youth Pastor" in this chart includes those who identified themselves as being the youth pastor, an associate pastor with duties primarily as youth pastor and young adults pastor, a youth and family pastor, and a junior and senior high pastor. The category of "Youth Director" includes one "interim youth director." "Caregroup Leader" includes a Life Group leader and a Carecell leader.

Half (10) of the participants in this survey were paid professional youth workers and half were volunteers.

Church Statistics of Youth Workers

Church Size

Church size varied greatly with those participating in this survey.

Figure 14: Church Size of Youth Workers

Those with churches over 400 participants included ones with 700, 1500, and 4500 in attendance.

Youth Group Size

66% of those participating in this survey worked with youth groups of less than 40 adolescents.

Figure 15: Youth Group Size

Age Groups Worked With

90% of those surveyed work with 11-18 year olds, who, as we saw earlier, are the main blogging age group.

Age	Number of Respondents
Birth-10	5
11-18	18
18-23	6
24-30	5

Figure 16: Age Groups Worked With

Numbers do not add up to 20 as some youth workers stated they work with more than one age group.

Reading Habits

14 of the 20 respondents (70%) stated that they read other youth ministry blogs on a regular basis. Of those who read youth ministry blogs, the average read 9 on a regular basis. Some only read 1-3 youth ministry weblogs, while several read up to 20.

When asked whether or not blogging had "encouraged or facilitated them in youth ministry," 80% of respondents stated that it had. Some comments to this question included the following:

- "I have learned from others in ministry through blogging."

- "I have been encouraged that some of the youth workers are like me."

- "I have picked up some good ideas (from other blogging youth workers) and the prayers and support have been wonderful when I have needed them."

- "In reading other people's blogs, I find that I'm better able to notice trends

- I think it helps me recognize where the young adults I come into contact with are coming from ideologically."

- "Great support network!"

- "I have found inspiration and ideas from reading others thoughts and ideas."

- "It has given me ideas how to teach on particular topics, and has been a

place to bounce situations off other believers as I seek wisdom."

- "It is a great place to have to hear about what others are doing, to process those thoughts on my own blog and to have some dialogue around those ideas."

- "It is good to hear the ideas and experiences of others."

Relationships

Blog Audience

I asked respondents who their weblog's main audience was. 60% of the paid professional youth workers identified their blog's main audience as other youth workers. Overall, 35% of those surveyed identified their blog's main audience as other youth workers. Only two survey respondents (10%) identified "teen bloggers" or "youth" as being among their main audience.

Adolescents Online

When asked "Are the youth you work with aware that you blog?", this is how respondents answered:

Figure 17: Are Your Youth Aware of Your Blog?

Of the 10 respondents who stated youth are aware of their blog, 70% said only 1-4 youth were aware of the blog and/or read it. One respondent (5%) said all of the church was aware of their blog, it is linked through the church webpage. One respondent said their blog is a total secret.

The majority of those surveyed worked with youth groups of under 40 youth, and therefore were less likely to know of any youth who blogged themselves, as compared to those with larger youth groups who would have a higher chance of coming across such youth. I also asked whether respondents were aware of any youth that they work with who also blog and 40% answered yes, 60% answered no. Those who responded "Yes" to this question (8 respondents) stated that they were aware of "some," 1, 5, 6, and 15 of their youth who also blogged. Of those who are aware of their youth who blog, only 2 youth workers regularly visited their youths' blogs. 2 others visited their youths' blogs "sometimes" or "occasionally," and one stated they did not ever read their youths' blogs.

When asked "Do you include any of your youth and/or other adolescents on your blogroll? If yes, how many?", 17 respondents (85%) said "No." Of the three respondents who said yes, one had 5 adolescents on their blogroll (not from their youth group), one had 7 adolescents and 8 college students on their blogroll, and one had a link to their youth group's group blog.

When asked "Do you regularly visit the blogs of any adolescents, whether you work with them or not?" 16 respondents (80%) said "No." 2 respondents said they regularly visit the blogs of adolescents they do not work with. 1 respondent regularly visits the blogs of her 2 daughters and the blogs of 3 friends' children. The respondent stated "They are all Christians , and I love reading their blogs – the evidence of God's faithfulness in rising up the next generation is very encouraging!"

1 respondent regularly reads the blogs of adolescents to "see where they are." 1 respondent said when they get a chance they like to read the blogs of adolescents to "get a glimpse of their world and see what they are concerned about and writing up."

Instant Messenger

I asked respondents "Do you communicate with any youth via instant messenger?" as it is very popular with adolescents. 67% said yes and 33% said no. Those who responded "yes" to this question had anywhere from 2-100 youth on their buddy list (7 respondents had under 15 youth on their buddy list, one had 50, and one had 100). Most communicated with youth via instant messenger several times a week, although a few stated they seldom communicated that way.

Conclusions on the Blogging Christian Youth Workers Surveys

It would appear from the statistics gleaned from this survey that blogging Christian youth workers, especially those who are paid professionals in the field, are encouraged in ministry by their weblogging. They network and dialog with other youth workers via blogging.

However, the large majority of them are not connecting with their youth, or any youth for that matter, through weblogging. They are, for the most part, not utilizing blogging as a tool to reach out and minister to adolescents online, whether they know them or not.

I was encouraged to find that one youth worker surveyed had linked to a group blog contributed to by members of his youth group. With the large numbers of adolescents who go online regularly, I feel it is important to attempt to connect with them via the medium of the internet. Although blogging is only one way of connecting online, it does not seem to be being grasped by youth workers as of yet. I hope this will change.

We know youth want adult involvement in their lives and adult friendships, they need support from people who have been where they are at and people who are willing to encourage them in developing their relationship with Christ. If youth are online blogging, how can we encourage youth workers to connect with them there?

CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION

The Christian Weblogging Bubble

The following major factors lead me to believe that Christian webloggers are indeed creating a type of Christian weblogging bubble: 69% of those surveyed stated that between 90-100% of the bloggers on their blogrolls are other Christians; only 54% of those surveyed link to non-Christian bloggers; 29% of participants regularly read the blogs of non-Christians but do not link to them, the large majority of those who "regularly read the blogs of non-Christians" stated they read only 1 or 2 of such blogs, and 45% of respondents said they either do not have any regular non-Christian readers or are unaware that they have any.

Christian webloggers appear to be creating a unique weblogging ring where they only link to others of like kind creating an enclosed circular community of linking. They are wary of linking to non-Christian bloggers and "promoting" their blogs.

But linking in the weblogging world usually also implies relationship. By not linking to non-Christians, especially those whose weblogs they regularly read, they are creating or perhaps encouraging somewhat of a rifted relationship. Reciprocal linking (linking back to someone who has linked you) is considered courteous by many. With popular blogs, reciprocal linking is almost impossible, because a long blogroll is not seen as of value to many, but the majority of bloggers participating in this survey,[107] and in general,[108] do not have that large of an audience.

Comments on my survey like " I was really surprised to find that a Muslim lady that I read regularly linked to me. I do not link to her" and "two Mormon ladies read my blog regularly but I do not link to them" saddened me because instead of encouraging relationship, the Christian blogger seems to be somewhat unsupportive of it. You do not invite your non-Christian friend to the potluck and then seat them in the corner away from the Christians, instead you invite them in and seat them in the midst of your church family. Why then, is this happening with the Christian weblogging community?

Communication and Relationships

I liked what one survey respondent said: "I have a friend who's agnostic. It's interesting to read what he has to say sometimes. I link to him because he's my friend. It's weird but sometimes I think some of my greatest witnesses to him have come through my blog. I know it sounds weird but not out of place among computer science people." It does not sound weird to me, but then I believe the medium of the internet promotes dialog and relationships that would not occur anywhere else. I have seen it personally, the best faith discussions I have ever had with family members have been over the internet, discussions they would have never been open to face-to-face. Other participants in this surveyed concurred with my personal experience and shared that they had had similar experiences.

One survey respondent said this "I've seen (my blogging ministering to non-Christians) in my oldest brother. My relationship with him has become so much more open and I've even seen him showing signs of a budding belief, faith, and trust in God… I also used to write with the hope that my Dad, who has never been a regular part of my life, might be reading it. I think and hope that he at least saw it a few times after I e-mailed him and told him about it. My dad passed away last year and I took comfort in the fact that maybe he knew a bit about me and about God from my blog."

Promoting Relational and Incarnational Ministry Through Weblogging

I did not reveal the topic of my surveys intentionally, partly so answers would be untainted by presuppositions, and secondly, so that participants would think about the questions and the answers introspectively. I was encouraged by many who stated they had never thought about weblogging as a ministry, or how they had never noticed everyone on their blogroll were Christians. My favourite response of all was from one respondent, who after responding that his entire blogroll contained blogs of Christian bloggers, suddenly "Is this like CCM? Because I don't know if I can be associated with that."

I received encouraging emails from survey participants who were excited to find out what answers the survey generated. A few bloggers contacted me directing me to other research done on "God-Blogging" and weblogging in general. Many expressed interest in reading a copy of my paper once I had completed it. This of course, was part of my intention.

Going back to Baugh and Hurst's book and their principles of relational ministry, it is important to help people discover their calling.[109] Part of my intention with my surveys was to facilitate Christian bloggers thinking about blogging being ministry, about the potential for incarnational and relational ministry in this medium.

I also understand that people naturally support that which they have helped create. As stated earlier, involving people in the process of setting up a ministry makes them more likely to continue participating in that ministry.[110] The fact that people were not only interested in but were also excited about the survey results told me that people were thinking. I could even tell, a few of the bloggers I regularly read were thinking about how they portrayed their faith and their life with Christ in their blogging.

Through the surveys, thank you links that I posted for those who participated and gave their okay to be linked, and emails that were exchanged, I hope that I encouraged the participants on to thinking about relational and incarnational ministry in their blogging.

Final Encouragement

The final part of my project was the creation of a new weblog. Dialog: Breaking the Bubble[111] was revealed on March 26, 2004. I emailed all survey participants thanking them once again for their participation in the surveys and their interest in the project. I included a link to my new weblog and encouraged them to visit.

Dialog contains some background on my project, and I am currently releasing statistics gleaned from the surveys I conducted. I encourage comments and discussion on the weblog to keep people interactive and thinking about weblogging and ministry and how they fit together. I have also included links to other weblogging surveys and studies and information elsewhere on the internet. I let survey participants know as well that later in April I plan to post a link to where the whole text of this paper is available online.

I hope to continue posting on this new weblog and facilitating conversation about weblogging ministry. I pray that weblogging Christians as a whole will begin to more seriously think about being relational and incarnational in their blogging. I hope somehow the bubble of Christian weblogging becomes more welcoming to those from the outside.

As the blogosphere continues to grow, I pray that youth workers and Christians in general will seize the opportunity to get involved in the lives of adolescents online. I hope to stumble across the blogs of youth workers linking to youth and being in obvious dialog with them about their faith.

That is my dream. I pray that somehow this project encourages it to become reality.

Appendice 1

A Short Introduction to Weblogging

One of the swiftest growing realms on the internet in the past year has been in the area of personal weblogging, especially amongst youth. According to the Perseus Weblog Survey, teenagers have created the majority of blogs, 92.4% of all weblogs have been created by people under the age of 30, with 51.5% (2 120 000 blogs) created by 13-19 year olds, and 1.3% (55 500 blogs) created by 10-12 year olds.[112]

Blogs are "a cross between an online journal and a list of commented links."[113] The writer, also known as a "blogger" of a "blog" uses a weblog program (Blogger, Moveable Type, Xanga, and LiveJournal seem to be the most popular ones) to write and edit their blog entries. A blog is either stored online on the weblog program's server, or on the blogger's own personal webspace. Weblogs are most often run by one writer, but there are also blogs written by a collective group of bloggers as well.

A blog usually consists of daily or very frequent entries, and a sidebar of links that the blogger has chosen. The links list, often called a "blogroll," usually reveals the community the blogger interacts in. The blogroll may include the blogs of friends, blogs of people the blogger does not know in real life, music sites, game sites, and various other internet sites the author finds of interest.

The entries, or posts, contained within a blog can either be wide-ranging or narrowly focused, usually whatever interests the author.[114] Weblogs often consist of personal entries of the daily activities of the author, daily thoughts and musings, quotations, and the like. They also usually contain links of interest to the blogger within the text of the entries.

A weblog generally takes the form of a long page for a week or month, with new entries added to the top of the page.[115] Thus, the blog is presented in reverse-chronological order. This is designed so that a frequent visitor to the blog will see the most recent entry first, at the top of the page. Some blogs only have one entry per page, so whenever the blog visitor visits the weblog address they only see the most current entry, but can follow links to see older entries.

Entries in a weblog are commonly archived and are available through a link on the side or at the bottom of the webpage. Thus, it is possible to read somewhat of a complete diary of the author up until the current day starting at the date they started their blog.

Rebecca Blood, in her essay "Weblogs: A History and Perspective," identifies two types of weblogs. The first original type of weblog was focused primarily on linking via html to other places on the world wide web. The weblog writer would present links or excerpts from articles found on the web and provide a commentary of sorts. However, the introduction of Blogger in 1999, today one of the world's most popular online blogging webspace tools and blogspace providers, changed the face of weblogging. While "original" blogs still exist, original blogs being ones that provide weblinks and comments on news or websites, this original type of weblog has been eclipsed by the daily personal journal weblog.[116]

The daily personal journal weblog is less of a commentary on news and websites with links and more of a record of a blogger's thoughts and reflections. These newer journal blogs are as varied in content as the individual authors are. Entries can talk about anything from how the blogger's day went, commentary on the movies or tv shows he or she has recently watched, writing directed at a specific person, poetry, lyric quotes from favourite songs, to talk about relationships or family and beyond.

Weblogs often incorporate commenting systems such as those provided by Haloscan and Enetation into their posts, at the end of an entry a blogging program automatically provides a link for readers to leave their comments. Commenting systems facilitate and allow conversations to take place. Through these commenting systems and cross-linked blogs of fellow webloggers, bloggers meet each other and dialog. Bloggers find other blogs that they like to read, and converse with the authors. They link. They comment. They even sometimes email and instant message each other. Community forms. As author and weblog historian Rebecca Blood notes, it is "fascinating to see new bloggers position themselves in this community, referencing and reacting to those blogs they read most, their sidebar an affirmation of the tribe to which they wish to belong."[117]

The online virtual community that has been formed via weblogging has come to be called the "blogosphere."[118] Weblogs, and the blogosphere as a whole, foster the exchange of ideas, critical thought, the sharing of personal lives, and, importantly, cultivate relationships. The online presence of individual Christians is growing through the continual increasing numbers of webloggers, and through this, the opportunity for relational ministry is growing. Currently Blogs4God, "a semi-definitive list of Christian blogs”, has 986 blogs listed.[119] 986 is not a large number, but not all Christian bloggers have registered with Blogs4God, however it is the largest Christian bloglist on the internet.

In October 2003 it was estimated that there were 4.12 million blogs that had been created on the eight most popular blog service providers[120] by the Perseus Weblog Survey.[121] The survey also estimated that by the end of 2003 the number of hosted weblogs would exceed five million, and by the end of 2004 they would exceed ten million.[122]

Although the number of blogs may exceed ten million by the end of this year, not all of these weblogs are active. The Perseus Corporation found in it's study that 66% of the blogs it surveyed had not been updated in two months, and 1.09 million blogs were one day wonders.[123] Most weblog providers do not yet delete inactive blogs like email service providers delete inactive accounts. The NITLE Blog Census, an ongoing project that attempts to find as many active weblogs as possible across all languages, had found 1 705 102 sites it thought were likely weblogs as of February 2, 2004.[124] Technorati, a service that tracks who links to whom, also lists a similar number at 1 753 116 weblogs.[125]

Appendice 2

Christian Webloggers Survey Part One

Name (your full name, or a pseudonym you use in the blogging world)
Gender
Age
Email Address
Location (Province/State and Country)
Occupation
Name of your blog:
Address of your blog:

When did you first become aware of blogging? (date)

10. When did you first start blogging? (date)

11. How often do you update your blog?

12. What blogging tool do you use?

13. How many visitors ("hits") do you average per day (if you know)?

14. How many other blogs do you read on average per day?

15. How many blogs are on your blogroll?

16. Of those on your blogroll, how many do you know in real life?

17. Of those on your blogroll, how many have you met in person?

18. Are there bloggers who link to you whom you do not link back to? If so, why not?

19. How many of those on your blogroll would you consider to be Christian bloggers?

20. Do you regularly read any blogs that you do not include on your blogroll? If so, why are they not included on your blogroll?

21. How often do you surf to other blogs from other people's blogrolls?

22. How do you choose what blogs to include on your blogroll?

23. Are there blogs on your blogroll that you do not read on a regular basis? If so, why?

24. Do you interact with other bloggers in ways besides blogging (blogging would include reading and commenting), and if so, how (i.e. in person, through instant messenger, on the phone, via email, etc)?

25. How many of those on your blogroll have you met in person after coming in contact with on the internet?

26. How many comments does a post on your blog average?

27. Do you regularly leave comments after reading a blog?

28. How do you choose when and if you leave comments when reading a blog?

29. Do you respond to comments left on your blog on a regular basis? Why or why not?

30. Do you usually check back on blogs where you have left comments to see if further responses have been left?

31. How did you first become aware of blogs and blogging?

32. What/who first introduced you to blogs and blogging?

33. How long after you read your first blog did you begin blogging?

34. Why do you keep a blog?

35. What is the main content of your blog?

36. What would you say are the recurring themes of your blogging?

37. Who would you say is your intended audience?

38. Who would you say your audience is?

39. Do you intentionally include Christian topics in your blogging? Why or why not?

40. What kind of church do you attend?

41. Would you consider yourself to be part of a Christian circle of blogging? Why or why not?

42. Comment briefly on your favourite aspects of blogging and/or the blogosphere (blogging world or blogging community):

Appendice 3

Christian Webloggers Survey, Part Two

1. Name
2. Blogname
3. Blog Address
4. Email Address

5. Are you currently involved in any ministries, whether professional or volunteer? If yes, please elaborate.

6. Do you interact with people from your church community through blogging? If yes, how many from your church community blog?

7. Have you ever taken a break from blogging (a blogging hiatus)? If yes, for how long, and was it intentional? What were your reasons for taking a hiatus?

8. Does your family know about and read your blog?

9. Do you have any fears about giving personal details on your blog? If yes, please elaborate.

10. Are those close to you aware that you blog?

11. Have you ever had any problems with an “internet stalker,” or have you ever had inappropriate comments left on your site? If yes, please elaborate.

12. Are you listed on any Christian blog listing services (i.e. Blogs4God.com)?

13. Do you regularly read any non-Christian blogs? If yes, approximately how many? Do you link to them?

14. Would you say that you have a personal relationship with any non-Christian bloggers?

15. Do you have any regular readers of your own blog who you know are non-Christian? If yes, how many or what percent do you think are non-Christian, to the best of your knowledge?

16. Do you in any way try to intentionally reach out through your blog? If yes, how so?

17. If your answer to the previous question is yes, do you feel you are reaching out to Christians or non-Christians? How so?

18. What is your opinion of the concept of blogging as a means of ministry, as a way to reach out/minister to other Christians and/or non-Christians?

19. Would you say that blogging is a spiritual growth tool for yourself? If yes, how has it helped you grow spiritually?

20. Do you find your spiritual walk encouraged/strengthened through blogging in general? If yes, how so?

21. Any additional comments you would like to leave may be left here:

22. Would you like a thank you link posted on my site for your taking part in this survey?

Appendice 4

Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey

1. Name (full name or a pseudonym you use in the blogging world)

2. Gender

3. Blogname

4. Blogaddress

5. Email Address

6. Location (State/Province and Country)

7. Type of Church (Denomination) or other youth/young adults organization you are involved with:

8. What is your position title (i.e. Youth Pastor, Youth Director, Youth Sponsor, Volunteer Leader, etc)?

9. If you work with a church group, how many attend the church as a whole and how many attend youth group? If you work for another organization, how many youth do you work with?

10. What do your duties include?

11. What are the ages you work with?

12. For how long have you been doing youthwork? Please indicate years as a volunteer and years professionally, whichever applies:

13. When did you begin blogging (date)?

14. Who would you say your blog's audience is?

15. Why do you blog?

16. Do you dialog with other youth/young adult workers on a regular basis via blogging? If yes, do you also use other internet methods (i.e. instant messenger, email, etc) to communicate with them? If so, how?

17. Do you regularly read the blogs of any other youth workers? If so, approximately how many?

18. Has blogging encouraged you or facilitated you in youth ministry, and if so, how?

19. Are you aware of whether or not any of the youth/young adults you work with also blog? If some do, approximately how many are you aware of? Do you visit their blogs regularly?

20. Are any of the youth you work with aware that you blog? Do any frequent your blog on a regular basis? If so, approximately how many?

21. Do you communicate with any youth via instant messenger? If yes, how many and approximately how often?

22. Do you include any of your youth and/or other adolescents on your blogroll? If yes, how many?

23. Do you regularly visit the blogs of any adolescents, whether you work with them or not? If yes, please elaborate.

24. Any other thoughts on blogging and youth ministry, adolescents online, or general comments you have may be left here:

25. May I link you on my site as a thank you for participating in this survey?

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Zuiker, Anton. Blog Together: How Personal Publishing Software Fosters Online Family. Chapel Hill, NC: School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [document on-line]. Available from http://www.unc.edu/~zuiker/MTZC/. Internet. Accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[1] Frances Cairncross, The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997), 90.

[2] see William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York, NY: Ace Books, 1984).

[3] Jeff Zaleski, The Soul of Cyberspace: How New Technology is Changing Our Spiritual Lives. (San Francisco: CA: HarperEdge, 1997), 103.

[4] Ralph Moore, Friends: The Key to Reaching Generation X (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2001), back cover.

[5] Dictionary, [document on-line]; available from http://www.clienthelpdesk.com/dictionary/weblog.html. Internet. Accessed 2 February 2004.

[6] Martin Roth, blogs4God: A Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs, sidebar [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogs4god.com/linker/index.php. Internet. Accessed 30 Mar. 2004.

[7] William Quick, “I Propose A Name,” Daily Pundit: Rationales for an Irrational World, 1 Jan 2002 [document on-line]; available from http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/2001_12_30_dailypundit_archive.php#8315120. Internet. Accessed 30 March, 2004.

[8] Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

[9] See Pete Ward, God at the Mall: Youth Ministry That Meets Kids Where They're At (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999).

[11] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 17.

[12] Barna Research Group, More Americans are Seeking Net-Based Faith Experiences. Ventura, CA: Barna Research Group, 21 May, 2001 [document on-line]; available from http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=90&Reference=B; Internet; accessed 16 Mar, 2004.

[13] Barna Research Group, Americans Embrace Technologies that Bring Control to Their Lives. Ventura, CA: Barna Research Group, 1 Apr. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=136; Internet; accessed 16 Mar, 2004.

[14] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 19.

[17] Andrew Careaga, E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace (Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press, 1999), 12.

[18] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 22.

[19] [19] Barna Research Group, More Americans are Seeking Net-Based Faith Experiences. Ventura, CA: Barna Research Group, 21 May 2001[document on-line]; available from http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=90&Reference=B; Internet; accessed 16 Mar, 2004.

[20] Barna Research Group, The Cyberchurch is Coming: National Survey of Teenagers Shows Expectation of Subsituting Internet for Corner Church. Oxnard, CA: Barna Research Group, 1998 [document on-line]; available from http://www.barna.org, 1998.

[21] Andrew Careaga, "The Internet’s Impact on Kids’ Faith," Group Magazine. September-October 2000, 94.

[22] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 20.

[23] YTV Kid and Tween Report: Statistics, Internet, Children’s Internet Use (Canada) 2000 [document on-line]; available from http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/research_documents/statistics/internet/childrens_internet_use.cfm; Internet; accessed 9 Dec. , 2003.

[24] Michael Pastore, Internet Key to Communication Among Youth 25 Jan 2002 [document on-line]; available from http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_ picture/demographics/article/0,,5901_961881,00.html; Internet; accessed 4 Dec. 2003.

[25] National Study of Youth and Religion, The Internet: More Popular Than God? 12 Nov. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www. youthandreligion.org/news/2003-1112.html; Internet; accessed 4 December 2004.

[26] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 32.

[27] Andrew Careaga, "The Internet’s Impact on Kids’ Faith," Group Magazine. September-October 2000, 94.

[29] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 21.

[33] Andrew Careaga, E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace (Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press, 1999), 9.

Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 23, 24.

[35] Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation ( Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 35.

[36] Jimmy Long, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 75; quoted in Andrew Careaga, eMinistry: Connecting With the Net Generation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 36.

[37] The blog services cited by Perseus as most popular were Blog-City, BlogSpot (Blogger), Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger, and Xanga.

[38] Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

40 Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

[42] National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, NITLE Blog Census, [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogcensus.net/?page=Home; Internet; accessed 2 Feb. 2004.

[43] Technorati, [document on-line], available from http://www.technorati.com; Internet; accessed 24 Feb. 2004.

[44] Martin Roth, blogs4God: A Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs, sidebar [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogs4god.com/linker/index.php. Internet. Accessed 29 Mar. 2004.

[45] Jimmy Long, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation (Downers Grover, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 83.

[46] Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 6.

⁴⁷Jimmy Long, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation (Downers Grover, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 84.

[49] Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Moths to the Flame: The Seductions of Computer Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 87.

[50] WELL stands for "Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link."

[51] Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1993), 1.

[53] Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1993), 1.

[54] Andrew Careaga, E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace (Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press, 1999), 11.

[55] Frances Cairncross, The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives. (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997), 40.

[56] Eric Richardson, “Can Corporations and Blogging Co-Exist?” eWorld: Eric Richardson Meets the Web, not dated [document on-line] ; available from http://ericrichardson.com/verbal/blogs_vs_corps/; Internet; accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[57] Peter Wood, “Comments on ‘Call Me Old Fashioned’”, Mikao’s World Comments, 16 Mar. 2004 [document on-line]; available from http://www.haloscan.com/comments.php?user=mikao&comment=107946400554314545#82965; Internet; accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[58] M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace, as quoted in Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1993), i.

[59] Ron, “Blogging Community”, ronincyberpunk.com, 7 Nov. 2002 [document on-line]; available from http://www.ronincyberpunk.com/archives/001215.html; Internet; accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[60] Anton Zuiker, Blog Together: How Personal Publishing Software Fosters Online Family. Chapel Hill, NC: School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [document on-line]; available from http://www.unc.edu/~zuiker/MTZC/; Internet; accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[61] Nazz, “Archived Entry: ‘RIAA,’” Gabriola., 24 Jan. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.imparte.com/archives/00000136.html; Internet; accessed 17 Mar. 2004.

[62] Rebecca Blood, Weblogs: A History and Perspective, Feb. 2000 [document on-line]; available from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html; Internet; accessed 1 Feb. 2004.

[64] Frances Cairncross, The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives. (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997), 241.

[65] Pete Ward, God at the Mall: Youth Ministry That Meets Kids Where They're At (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 52.

[66]Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 46.

[68] Jim Burns, The Youth Builder: Today's Resource for Relational Youth Ministry (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), 15.

[69] Pete Ward, God at the Mall: Youth Ministry That Meets Kids Where They're At (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 2.

[73] Jim Burns, The Youth Builder: Today's Resource for Relational Youth Ministry (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), 16.

[74] Jim Burns, The Youth Builder: Today's Resource for Relational Youth Ministry (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), 17.

[78] Jim Burns, The Youth Builder: Today's Resource for Relational Youth Ministry (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), 20-21.

[80] Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 46.

[81]Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 46.

[85] Bruce Larson, No Longer Strangers (Waco, TX: Word, 1971), 27; quoted in Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 49.

[86] Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 49.

[87] Michelle Johnston, “Your Kind Assistance is Requested,” Mikao’s World, 25 Feb. 2004 [document on-line]; available from http://mikao.blogspot.com/ 2004_02_01_mikao_archive.html#107773162108854037; Internet; accessed 15 Mar. 2004.

[88] www.technorati.com is a website popularity indexing tool that tells you who is linking to whom on the “World Live Web,” and who and what is currently being talked about most on weblogs.

[89] Part One of my Christian Webloggers Survey was available at http://www.createsurvey.com/c/15989-yln1KE/.

[90] Part Two of my Christian Webloggers Survey was available exclusively online at http://www.createsurvey.com/c/15943-DI4HHA .

[91] My Blogging Christian Youth Workers survey was available exclusively online at http://www.createsurvey.com/c/16327-eIx67f/.

[92] Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

[94] National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education, NITLE Census News: Equal Numbers, Different Interests,14 Aug. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogcensus.net/weblog; accessed 25 Feb. 2004.

⁹⁵Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

[96] see LiveJournal.com Statistics, http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml.

[97] see Hat Nim Choi, Psychology of Adolescence Lab 314 Project: Live Journal and Xanga Study, not dated, [document on-line]; available from http://www.students.Haverford.edu/hchoi/final%20project.htm; accessed 25 Feb. 2004.

[98] see Phil Wolfe, The Blogcount Estimate: 2.4 to 2.9 Million Weblogs, 23 Jun. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://dijest.com/bc/2003_06_23_bc.html#105638688729256217; accessed 25 Feb. 2004, which states that there were 1 500 000 registered Blogger weblogs as of June 9, 2003.

[99] All unreferenced quotations from this point on are from answers given by survey respondents.

[100] St. Blogs Parish is a Catholic weblogging ring available online at http://home.earthlink.net/~mklively/stblogs.html, existing to “link together the many weblogs maintained by Catholics.”

[101] The Blogdom of God, located at http://server.com/WebApps/NewsApp/news-read.cgi?profile=2459, is a Christian blog aggregator and a blogrolling service that webloggers can join. Members can add code to their site which adds a Blogdom of God blogroll to their sidebar (in otherwords, they link to others in the Blogdom of God Alliance but do not have control over who is on their Blogdom of God blogroll).

[102] The largest Christian bloglisting on the internet, available at http://www.blogs4god.com. Bloggers must submit their site to be listed on it.

[103] Blogger Idol is a blogging meme (an activity meant to be duplicated and spread on the blogosphere, usually answering questions). Darren Rowse, a popular Christian weblogger, started Blogger Idol, and it is available at http://www.livingroom.org.au/blog/archives/cat_blogger_idol.php.

[104] Jeffrey Henning, The Blogging Iceberg – Of 4.12 Million Hosted Weblogs, Most Little Seen, Quickly Abandoned; Fall 2003 [document on-line]; available at http://www.perseus.com/blogsurvey; Internet; accessed 13 Nov. 2003.

[105] Real Live Preacher is available online at http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/.

[106] "Catholic and Enjoying It" is available online at http://www.markshea.blogspot.com.

[107] Discussed further in the section on "Readership."

[108] see Henning, Jeffrey. The Blogging Iceberg – Of 4.12 Million Hosted Weblogs, Most Little Seen, Quickly Abandoned. http://www.perseus.com/blogsurvey, accessed November 13, 2003.

[109] Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 48.

[110]Ken Baugh and Rich Hurst, Getting Real: An Interactive Guide to Relational Ministry (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 46-48.

[111] Dialog: Breaking the Bubble is accessible online at http://exchanging.blogspot.com .

1 Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [docuent on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003.

[116] Rebecca Blood, Weblogs: A History and Perspective, Feb. 2000 [document on-line]; available from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html; Internet; accessed 1 Feb. 2004.

[118] William Quick, “I Propose A Name,” Daily Pundit: Rationales for an Irrational World, 1 Jan 2002 [document on-line]; available from http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/2001_12_30_dailypundit_archive.php#8315120. Internet. Accessed 30 March, 2004.

[119] Martin Roth, blogs4God: A Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs, sidebar [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogs4god.com/linker/index.php. Internet. Accessed 29 Mar. 2004.

[120] The blog services cited by Perseus as most popular were Blog-City, BlogSpot (Blogger), Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger, and Zanga.

[121] 1 Martha Popoloski, Perseus Press Release: The Blogging Iceberg: Of 4.12 Million Weblogs, Most Little Seen and Quickly Abandoned, October 4, 2003 [docuent on-line]; available from http://www.perseus.com/corporate/news_shell.php?record=51; Internet; accessed 4 Dec 2003

[124] National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education. NITLE Blog Census, 25 Feb. 2003 [document on-line]; available from http://www.blogcensus.net/?page=Home, accessed 25 Feb. 2004.

[125] Technorati. http://www.technorati.com. Accessed February 24, 2004.

Number of Blogs on Blogroll	Number of Respondents	Percent of Respondents
0	3	2%
1-9	15	13%
10-19	29	25%
20-30	24	21%
31-40	10	9%
41-50	11	10%
51-60	5	4%
61-70	2	1%
71-80	2	1%
81-90	2	1%
91-100	7	6%
>100	4	3%

Percent Christians	Number of Respondents
None	2
10%	4
25%	6
30%	2
40%	3
50%	7
65%	5
75%	9
85%	2
90-99%	21
100%	48
No Answer or "No Idea"	5

A. Christianity and Christians Online

B. The Blogosphere

Nature of the Problem

Significance of the Study

Purpose Statement

The Research Question

Assumptions

Limitations

Definition of Terms

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Christianity and Christians Online

The Blogosphere

Longing for Community

Survey Results

Christian Webloggers Survey

Study Population

Gender

Male

Female

Undisclosed

Age of Population Surveyed

Age

Bracket

Professions

Educators

Other Fields

Denominational Affiliation

Reading Habits

Blogrolling

Percent Christians

Population

Gender

Geographical Location

Church Affiliations

Ministry Position

Church Statistics of Youth Workers

Church Size

Youth Group Size

Age Groups Worked With

Age

Reading Habits

Relationships

Blog Audience

Adolescents Online

Instant Messenger

Conclusions on the Blogging Christian Youth Workers Surveys

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

The Christian Weblogging Bubble

Promoting Relational and Incarnational Ministry Through Weblogging

Blogging Christian Youth Workers Survey