1 Blog, 2 Blog, Red Blog, Blue Blog

I'm going to drive to Mt. Pleasant tomorrow to meet with Shawn & Karen, talking about a direction for blogging in the context of church, ministries, vision for communication. Seacoast is a multi-site church, with nine campuse around South Carolina and Georgia, and blogs might be one way to interact at the local and then also at the wider-spread community.

It makes me think about why I do this, why I blog and journal and share whatever's on my mind with the world. I've kept a notebook since high school - something college-ruled, wire-bound, constantly keeping up with my schedule and to-do lists with pen and paper. The online thing was a natural extension of that - I still have a notebook for keeping lists at work, and I still keep a small notebook for the stuff that doesn't make it to "public". Where I stay pretty open and loose with my private and public life, there's still some stuff that I just need to process without anyone else's interference, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, writing here is a release for me - a place to share my heart and mind, a place for some feedback and interaction with anyone else paying attention, a place to be goofy and be serious, often in the same post. It's a wonderful way to just write - writers write; practice practice practice - and find my voice as a writer and as a reader. One of the questions I'm asking in light of all this is how formal does a church/ministry blog need to be, as opposed to a personal website? Does every ministry need one, and does there need to be a central design/site/purpose behind what's posted? What parameters or guidelines can be put into place that still allow a freedom to be creative? Is it a place to cast vision only, or a place for finding vision together somehow through the interaction of comments? Is it a brochure of upcoming events, an archive of events past, or a mix of both with a touch of personal group history thrown in to keep it interesting?

How can something that, for me at least, is fairly intimate and vulnerable become a viable tool for others on a more practical and public communications scale?