Calling all PCA Bloggers - Denominational Blogrolls and Aggregators

I realize that we are getting a proliferation of new blogrolls and aggregators and I think that a day is coming when this will be overdone.  But I do want to propose one more type of blogroll/aggregator that I think has a big potential to expand the influence of evangelical blogging.  This would be denominational blogrolls and aggregators.

At this point all of our major blogrolls have done a great job of expanding the influence of bloggers within the blogosphere.  We've created, and are continuing to create networks amongst God bloggers all over the place and I do think our voice is being heard more and more in the blogosphere.

However, as we all know, most of us are members of churches and denominations where most people don't know that a blog is.  I believe I have already mentioned this, but I'll tell of my own experiences of talking to people in my church and denomination about blogging.  Most folks are puzzled, and even when you talk about blogging, they don't really get it.  I encouraged a group of fellow ministers to get blogs one time and they all looked at me like I was silly.

Now, with all the press that blogging is getting from Hugh's book and articles in Time and World and places like that we have an opportune moment to get the word out about blogging.  However, my guess is that, in most of our churches and denominations, that most people think that blogging is something that other people do.  It's something those tech-geeks and postmodern kids and people who like fads do.  But it's not something that "our people" do.

So, I suggest that several of us start denominational or associational blogrolls.  This way when we talk to people in our churches and others in our denominations and associations, we can refer them to a blogroll/aggregator like this.  We can say - "see, there are lots of our people blogging and writing some good stuff."  I see this as a way to penetrate our churches.  Churches in your area may not feel comfortable adding a "Blogdom of God," or "Evangelical Blogroll" to their web page because they may be afraid of what some of those folks are writing.  But they may be willing to link to a roll of bloggers from their own denomination.

I realize that blogs are broadening the scope of our interaction across groups and denominations and don't mean for this idea to be a means of hunkering back down into our own groups.  I see this as a way of opening the door to the blogosphere for our churches and denominations.  Instead of creating new networks in the blogosphere, this will help us penetrate existing networks outside of the blogosphere.

Following the example of Hugh Hewitt, I have gone ahead and purchased the domain "www.pcabglogs.com" that I will use to host a blogroll/aggregator for my own denomination - the Presbyterian Church in America.  I strongly encourage others of you to start blogrolls and get domains for your denominations.  It woudl be great to have SBCblogs, PCUSAblogs, UMCblogs, CRCblogs, Vineyardblogs, etc..  Someone in the Willow Creek association could start a blogroll called WCAblogs.  You get the idea!

So, allow me to get the ball rolling by inviting anyone who is a member of my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, to send me a comment and tell me of your interest in being a part of a PCA blogroll/aggregator.  And just so that I can exercise a modicum of quality control over this thing, please let me know the name and location of the PCA church you belong to and include a statement affirming that you are in accord with the doctrinal standards of the PCA as expressed in the Westminster Standards.

I won't tell anyone else how to set up their own blogroll/aggregator, but I would encourage anyone who does this to do what I just did and ask those who join your group to verify that they are actually a member of your denomination or association and are in agreement with what you believe.  None of us has time to do a real screening process, but this way, when a pastor, member or official asks you about the people on your list you can tell them that you have made at least some attempt to verify that these folks are truly on your team.

I'm working on a new server that I think will be able to take ATOM feeds.  If all goes well I'm going to switch the LORB Aggregator to that server eventually.  In the meantime, if you are a PCA blogger who uses "Blogger", you can send me your ATOM feed and I'll try to make it work.

Update - Dory at Wittenberg Gate just left a good comment.  If you don't want to reveal your location to the world, just send me a private e-mail confirming your church membership and all that, and that will be fine.

Comments

[Rey]

I wanted that sort of thing for the Plymouth Brethren. Can't find any. :(

[Anne]

Aloha,
Please count me in! I'm a member of Trinity Pres in Kailua, Hawaii. I am in accord with the doctrinal standards of the PCA as expressed in the Westminster Standards.

I've enjoyed your blog for awhile now. Thanks for what you do.
Anne

[rob]

Hey David, I'm a member of University Pres in Orlando, FL. You know the place! BTW, did you know your buddy Scott is planting another PCA church in Orlando?

Anyway, I've got two blogs:

http://orangejack.blogspot.com
http://eMinistryNotes.blogspot.com

Thanks.

[Jeff]

David,

More blogrolls and aggregators! Woohoo! Count me in. I am an ordained RE in the PCA (currently inactive)... I affirm the doctrinal standards of the WCF. My current church home is Westminster Presbyterian Church, PCA in Roanoke. Thanks for setting up the domain name. This will be quite useful as I try to locate RUF bloggers (for worldview teaching opps).

[Rong]

I just did a search for Assoicate Reformed Presbyterian Blog. At least I'm better off than Rey in that I actually found one other soul out there, but that doesn't acutally support the need for an aggregator.
I'll just have to what I've got.

[Megan]

Jeff - I've got an RUF blog for you: http://www.ouruf.org/ This guy is the RUF pastor at the University of Oklahoma. He also participates in a duo-blog with my husband on this site: http://www.twentysomeone.com/

There you go!

[Will]

Count me in David. I'm a member at Intown Community Church in Atlanta and heartily agree with the doctrinal standards of the PCA. Love your blog. Mine is lawnrangers.blogspot.com. My site feed is htttp://lawnrangers.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Will

[Steve]

Hi Jeff

Can I take this opportunity to point you to a new denomination aggregator I set up last week (with a little help from Adrian) for members of Vineyard Churches/chruch blogs. If in the spirit of promoting denomination aggregators you felt like mentioning it, I would be smiling. (link below)

http://www.deepcallstodeep.sonafide.com/vineyardblogs/

Interestingly, I'm not excercising any control, other than a self-declaration as a vineyarder, precisly because I want to see the varity in the Vineyard.

Having said that, the Vineyard has a very detailed statement of belief, and perhaps I should link to it. Useful to thinkk about. I hope the aggregator goes well, for what it's worth, I'll link to it.

Cheers

Steve

[Steve]

Correction (one of many needed) - variety in the Vineyard...

Having said that, I reserve all rights etc, for anything I term abuse.

[Diane R]

I think I'm going to have to take the adverse view. One of the biggest problems IMO in Aemrican Chrisitanity is the polarization. While I whole heartedly believe in the safety factor of denominations and therefore are in favor of them, I do see this segregation. Rarely do church members hear anyone outside of their own denomination or theological group. And that is stunting their growth.

One of the best features of the Internet for Christians is the diversity of theology, thought and even opinion. Up until now, this was mostly confined to Christian forums and email discussion groups. But now blogs are opening up another dimension. So why in the world would we wish to keep Chrisitans in the "ghetto" of our particular church group?

Perhaps I didn't read your post well enough so will reread it to see if I have missed something...:)

Diane

[Discoshaman]

Hi pal!

Count in http://www.postmodernclog.com Le Sabot and http://www.tulipgirl.com Tulip Girl. It's a GREAT idea to do a PCA aggregator. . .

[Discoshaman]

BTW, we're members of Christ the King PCA in St. Pete, FL and attend Zavet Blagodati Evangelical Pres Church in Kiev, Ukraine.

We adhere to the Westminster Standards with the usual exceptions on aspects of the Sabbath. Oh, and I think they should have left that whole "Pope as anti-Christ" thing in the Confession. ;-)

[Dory]

Sign me up! I'd rather not give my exact location online out of safety considerations, but I told you my church name in an email recently. I am in agreement with the Westminster Standards with no exceptions. David, you ought to consider asking the PCA to add a link to your aggregator from the denominational web site.

For a relatively small denomination, I have noticed a lot of PCA bloggers. I guess it's that Presbyterian penchant for systematizing everything and getting it down on paper! (Which has its drawbacks, but is generally a good thing, I think.)

[Adrian Warnock]

Hey jollyblogger! I better check the time of my post on a similar subject. I sure hope it wasnt like the last time when we posted on the same subject within a minute!!!

I was inspired by the hunt for plymouth brethern
and the blogger I was helping said "So Adrian is helping me out on my search for Plymouth Brethren blogs and at the same time he’s making a public call for New Frontier bloggers. Strangely, his near twin (Jollyblogger) came up with a similar idea. That weird symbiotic relationship is sometimes kinda freaky."

I think its time we pulled some areas of disagreement out of the bag quick before people think that really we are the same person (no one would ever know if we were of course.......)

I think all this denominational idea is a great one for one simple reason, people can be part of more than one aggregator and other people can read more than one aggregator. I have visited the vineyard one a few times to get a feel for it even tho I have never been to a vineyard church in my life.

I am sure I will read this one and even from time to time the apostolic one.

Go for it- any help am only too happy to obligue.

If new aggregators would be so kind to include a link back to the BofG then hopefully this will allow people to broaden their search for new blogs or narrow it down. I will link to any christian aggregator from the BofG page.

[David Wayne]

Adrian - I could start referring to you as that flaming charismatic Brit, and you could refer to me as a frozen chosen yank - what do you think?

Diane - do go back and re-read the post. I don't mean to be pushing people back into any ghettos. The point was that we all have networks outside of the blogosphere that we could tap into. My PCA friends all think that blogging is silly, but if I can show them that respected people like Le-Sabot, Marvin Olasky, Tim Bayly and others are bloggers, they might start reading blogs. Plus, if I can point to a high number of bloggers in my own denomination it will add to the respect for blogging.

[Terry]

Cool. Count me in.

[Paul Baxter]

Howdy.

I'm a deacon (not actively serving) at Church of the Good Shepherd (PCA) in Durham, NC.

I can think of at least three other bloggers at my church as well, so I'll pass this along.

[Christina]

Hi! I go to McLean Pres. in McLean, VA, but am a communing member of First Pres. down in Augusta, GA (the reason for this difference in membership and attendance is that I'm a grad student at Georgetown, in DC, but my family is in GA, where I may well be returning in a short while). Yes, I ascribe fully to the Westminster confession, etc. But you might want to check out my blog before you add it to the roll, as it is often not specifically about faith, but regarding the problems I'm faced with and joys I experience on a daily basis, my interests in Eastern Europe, and so forth. I do hope I "make the cut" though!
God bless you!

[Brian Ellison]

Greetings from a Ruling Elder (and blogger newbie) from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Durham, NC.

Great stuff...keep it up!

Blessings

[Paul Baxter]

hmm,

I'm a dummy when it comes to the syndication stuff, but Blogger Help showed me how to turn Atom on. My feed should be here:

http://deaconpaul.blogspot.com/atom.xml

[Megan]

Here is the info for ours:

TwentySomeone: http://www.gospelcom.net/navs/twentysomeone/latest/wp-rss2.php

Half Pint House:
http://megan.navstaff.com/

Members of Village 7 Presbyterian in Colorado Springs, soon to move to St. Louis, MO to begin classes at Covenant Seminary.

Thanks!

[kristen]

My husband and I blog together, and are members of All Saints Reformed PCA in Richmond, VA.

[kristen]

We're members of All Saints Reformed PCA in Richmond. Count us in!

[kristen]

oops! I am so used to comments being listed with the newest at the bottom...

[Chris Sicks]

Awesome idea! Thanks for the time you've put into this. I have GOT to start blogging, but I'm terrified of another drain on my insufficient time... For now, I'll read and be inspired.