Saturday 12 May 2012

The Campaign for Redundant Church Blogs

England has a great history of Church blogs. And many of them remain in use - reminders that, at heart, we are still a Christian Blogging country.

But times change, online communitiies move away. Or formerly keen Church Bloggers discover other things to do with their time - washing their car, perhaps, or taking the kids to football. Or even engaging in an alternative hobby, like Real Life.

In surveys, we find that although fundamental beliefs in Church Blogging remain, it is patterns of behaviour that change. The Church of England now counts as "Church Bloggers" those who may only have visited a blog once in the last twelve months - whereas traditionally the expectation was that there should be, ideally, a Morning Blog and an Evening Blog - or, more typically, a blog on Sunday mornings at 9.30.

So today we have the situation where many Church Blogs have fallen out of use. Some have completely vanished, with no traces remaining. Others are used for occasional postings.

But mostly they just stand, alone in the electromagnetic fields of our beautiful English internet, a memorial to the blogging faith of previous generations. The anathemas and special pleading, the carefully constructed arguments and appeals to Scripture, the unbridled and often embarrassing introspection of previous times are still there, but the new posts are no longer being written. This is where the Campaign for Redundant Church Blogs can come in.

Can you help us maintain our Church Blogging heritage? Just one hour would be enough to bring a blogroll up to date. If you have some design skills you could give the top image a bit of repointing (we do not redesign old blogs, as we respect their heritage - no matter how dated the colour scheme). A couple of hours going through the comments archive could weed out the links to dodgy pharmaceuticals. Or perhaps you could join a team preserving a Times New Roman font?

Or just send a cheque for £20, to "The Campaign for Redundant Church Blogs", c/o Archdruid Eileen, The Great House, Husborne Crawley. I'll make sure it's well spent. Obviously, we encourage you to gift-aid, but if you're seriously loaded we'll find a nice efficient way to make sure George Osborne doesn't get his hands on the dosh.

5 comments :

  1. Will....try.....harder.....(honest)

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  2. It makes you appreciate the benefits of being redundant. The knowledge that there is such a loving, caring charity out there, in the hands of an Arch Druid no less, that will continue to keep us occupied.

    As for the trifling matter of fiscal arrangements, why not just use electronic transfers to my bank account, which demonstrates your authenticity, money transfer arrangements supplied on request. It cuts out the ugly use of cheques and the audit trail used by HMRC to catch you out. You can plead that the money just vanished from your account.

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  3. http://kneewax.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/the-trouble-with-regular-blogging-a-response-to-the-beaker-folk-5/

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  4. I haven't attempted electronic banking yet. Until they provide me with a slot on my computer for pushing the cheques and coins I receive piecemeal from my piano pupils, I can't really see the point.

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  5. I have taken to heart what you said about improving your blogs. I have installed a fish tank.

    ReplyDelete

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