Zack Exley

Preacher/Pastor/Podcaster/Blogger 16 June, 2007

A new dimension is creeping into the role of religious leadership in America: blogging.

For hundreds of years, this country has been packed at any given time with thousands upon thousands of local religious leaders—mostly Christian preacher/pastors. These leaders play a vital role in serving their communities in many ways. As preachers they provide spiritual, moral and intellectual guidance to close to half of America. As pastors, they minister directly to millions of church members in need. Through history, these leaders played a central role in the American Revolution, Abolition, the Peace Movement and the Civil Rights Movement.

In other words, this is a very important sector of our population to keep an eye on. But until recently, it was impossible to get a birds eye view of what these folks were up to short of launching an expensive research program.

Now that’s all changed. Just go to iTunes and search the podcast directory for sermons. Thousands of churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious congregations are posting their weekly teachings online for free. They’re posting these for their own members to re-listen or to catch if they couldn’t make it to services. This creates an amazing opportunity to be able to listen in on entire national communities of worshipers.

But podcasting sermons doesn’t require a change in the way religious leaders lead. They’re just recording the sermons they’re already giving.

Blogging, on the other hand, requires a whole new kind of voice. And link-ability makes blogging a lot more risky for pastors. I can link to a podcast where something controversial was said, but you’re not going to go listen to it, are you? But if I link to something controversial on a pastor’s blog, not only can you go read it in seconds, but you can link to it yourself from your own blog.

Therefore, only a relative handful of pastors have taken up blogging. But keep an eye on the rise of the preacher/pastor/podcaster/blogger. Eric Stillman is one I’d highly recommend reading. There are a few nationally famous preacher-bloggers. But Stillman is the pastor at a small evangelical church in Connecticut. Check out the way he’s wrestling openly with really tough theological and political issues right out in the open. If you listen to his recent sermons, you’ll see that his blogging is an extension of what he’s talking about at church. The blog seems to give him a chance to go deeper and sometimes carry on a conversation with church members in the comments.

Finally, it may be that church blogs (and podcasts) will help exciting churches grow. I found Eric Stillman’s blog when my wife and I thought we were moving back to Connecticut and were looking for a church. In the course of looking, we came across many other blogs (especially a lot of young people’s on MySpace) where relocated friends were helping each other with their own church searches. The only thing these seekers had to go on was church blogs and audio sermons.