Interesting Trends

I've been looking at a number of blogs recently (other than just the ones I list here that I check almost daily), and I'm noticing some trends among ecclesiastical anarchist bloggers, what have caused me to wonder, "has pomo/emergent blogging hit the wall"? Here (not in order of importance) are some observations in blogdom:

1. Less articles and thought about postmodern ministry, and more on social/political activism (Nothing wrong with that, but it makes me wonder if we are becoming an army of arm-chair critics with blogs? Or now that the "rush" of self-righteous anger at "McChurch" has worn off, the only way to keep the buzz & adrenaline going is by turning to political ranting instead?)
   
2. An increase in church-bashing and "Modern" bashing
   
3. A mystifying worldview assumption (A) that the "Modernistic" church has hopelessly compromised the purity of the Gospel (that's called "pomo-centrism"), but that (B) postmodernist Christians somehow have rescued the Gospel in their house churches and coffeehouses (that's called a "blind spot")
   
4. If anyone comments something that doesn't agree with the blogger's opinion, they get slammed and ridiculed, or simply ignored, and they stop commenting after awhile
   
5. If someone posts something encouraging and postive, a few people comment
   
6. If someone posts something harsh (against "McChurch"), then they get lots of "give 'em hell, Harry!" kinds of comments from approving "insert-pet-peeve-here"-bashers
   
7. If someone tries to find a middle ground between the extemes, hoping to spark some serious thinking about reaching our society with the Gospel, people stop visiting their site because, like all else in life, controversy gets attention (just ask Janet Jackson) and a conversation about proactive restructuring doesn't allow people to rant and complain, so they go to blogs where they can rant and rave to their hearts' content (except that ranting and raving never makes you "content")
   
8. A growing tendency for bloggers to simply cut and paste other bloggers' work into their sites, instead of creating original content; it used to be done as an intro to the blogger's thoughts (and I've used some this way myself), but now it seems to be done mostly to give the appearance of consistent blogging without the blogger having to interact even with the post they've pasted from somewhere else
   
9. "Dialogue" and "conversation" have really diminished in recent months -- it seems to be everyone just ranting their own opinions and not interacting with the other commentators -- more like a collection of monologues
   
10. I keep reading (and occassionally getting an email) on how to "increase traffic to your blog", and hearing about "getting on the 'A' list of bloggers" -- why are we blogging anyway? For notoriety? Hoping for invitations to Pomo-Emergent conferences where we can be the new Illuminati? To take pride in how many people link to our blogs?

Either I need some more sleep (which I think is totally true), more coffee, or maybe blogging is starting to lose its appeal for me.

I feel like God is allowing me to make a difference in the lives of the college house group that I co-lead. I believe God is going to use me in the Celtic Rock band that I play in, to perhaps see some of the band members and the extended Celtic community in Winnipeg come to follow Jesus.

I enjoy playing on one of the worship teams at our local church, and believe I am making a positive contribution to the Body there. I have a great family that I love and enjoy spending time with. I have good friends that I go out for pints with, and we sharpen each other spiritually. And working towards my doctorate, as intense as it's proving to be, is also rewarding and sharpens me in other areas.

I don't know anymore if this blog is making a difference as it once did. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful and humbled/honoured to have had some honest, real conversations with a very diverse group of friends here about being postmodern missionaries in our Canadian and American contexts. And 99.99% of the visitors here have been honest, respectful, and commented in ways that were gracious and without rancor. It's been a blessing in the truest sense of the word to have "met" and conversed with all of you. But if the pillar of cloud & fire is moving on, I don't want to keep slogging away at the blog if it's no longer being useful.