So, last night, as Asher was keeping us up due to his voracious appetite, I started thinking how I can better transfer the church planting information that my father and I have obtained after doing this for (him – 35 years, me – 10 years) a while now. I can’ t believe that I am in my 10th year of planting collegiate churches.
And then it came to me. I realized that I spent about 8 hours on the phone this week alone talking shop with fellow church planters, pastors, or soon to be church planters. I get quite a few calls or e-mails each week to get advice or to just talk strategy. It is very hard to stay connected with everyone due to the fact I am starting a church from scratch myself again and am up to my ears with everything that comes with that…
So, I think what I’m going to do is begin to use this technological medium to begin to transfer information, insight, principles, and strategic ideas via my blog to the outside world so that more of a mass audience can learn from my/our experiences. Not sure exactly what it’s going to look like but I’m thinking every few days I’m going to throw something up, whether it’s a theological, practical, or relevant church planting concept. I am probably going to get some of the other Aletheia pastors to guest blog every now and then, especially the godfather himself, Pastor Dave Proffitt.
Let me know what you guys think. It’s going to be an online coaching church planting know-how blog. How does that sound? We’ll see where it goes…
Well… having been one of those people calling you for advice this week… you know my idea! Love it bro…thanks for always being there for us… we love you guys!
love the idea homie. everyone needs this help and insight.
That’s great! We definitely need more college ministers blogging for our field – and interacting with the other blogs out there. Blogging is an incredible opportunity for collaboration; sadly, way too few college ministers devote their time to reading what’s already out there.
In your branch of college ministry – collegiate churches – there are lots of people who have been serving for years and decades. But I don’t know of any blog that specifically addresses the methods / philosophy / strategy of that branch.
Also, though you didn’t mention it, blogging is a great chance for the blogger to learn, too. That’s one of the neat opportunities of blogging – you create opportunities for dialogue and debate that provide “teachable moments” not just for the readers but for the bloggers themselves!
If I can ever help you think through how to maximize your blog, let me know. And I can point you to some others who can help, too. Blogging (in the way you’re talking about) can be a tricky proposition! But my first suggestion may be the most important: You’ll want to make sure your Methods blog is a separate blog from your Updates blog. That’s one of the biggest mistakes people make!
[...] use our input for an upcoming talk on the matter. And collegiate church planter Aaron Proffitt is pondering starting a blog about his branch of our field. Encouragement and suggestions would be [...]
Thanks Benson. I appreciate the feedback. What is your story? What is your part in collegiate ministry? I got on your site and checked it out. I’m looking forward to hearing more of what you are about. Also, why would I need to separate my update blog from my collegiate church planting coaching blog?
Hey Aaron – under the “About” on my site, it’s got more details on my journey. But basically, I served in college ministry directly for 8 years, followed by spending the last 3-ish researching Evangelical college ministry around the U.S. It’s been neat – I’ve gotten to visit about 300 campuses in that time, and I’ve sat down with 4 or 500 college ministers of all varieties.
So now I share what I learn and otherwise get to serve those in our field – mostly through my book and blogging, but via some other fun stuff, too.
As for your blog question… as you might have seen on other blogs, there certainly are people who combine their teaching with their updates. But that tends to hinder the readability of the blog for the wide majority of readers – who are only truly concerned with one of those two purposes.
Your aunt’s co-worker probably isn’t TOO interested in how to plant a collegiate church – though she may get a kick out of praying for and supporting your ministry. Meanwhile, those outside your acquaintance circle who might want to learn from you (like the dozens of collegiate church planters outside Aletheia) may not be extremely interested in the day-to-day updates (especially if, like me, they’re trying to keep up with multiple college ministry blogs), but they would be delighted to learn from you.
So really it’s about Hospitality, although it would bring more readers in the end, too.
The blog format makes “wading through” especially tedious. If, on the other hand, you’ve got two blogs, you’ll build a readership faster (and they’ll stick around longer). And it’s VERY easy for anybody who does care about both sides to read both blogs – they’ll be reading no more than they would have otherwise. And you can cross-post (and use the blogs to point to each other) as needed!
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find your own best setup. Hopefully you’re already reading some of the college ministry blogs – while there aren’t a million of ‘em, there’s some great wisdom (and great blogging-methodology) out there! I’ve been uber-benefited by the multitude of counselors it offers.
Thank you very much for that great article
I think that’s a great idea. As part of a collegiate church plant myself, I would love to learn more about the principles and experiences behind it.