Give it on up for Blogville

I spent a few years being "against" internet communities, chat rooms, blogs, and especially message boards (that's another story for another day) only because I felt like it was a cheap substitute for real community. Maybe I was a community snob. Congratulations blog gods, you win! I still don't feel like the internet is where I will have my accountability, my sharpening relationships, my in-depth community, but I am seeing the value of helpful conversations, different view points and the widening of communication that is possible. All of a sudden in saying all of that, I feel like I am in my parents' generation resisting the change of that loud rap music. Oh well.

One of my frustrations with internet communication in the past was that people tended to say things slightly harsher or more inappropriately because there was no face to face accountability. The comfortable thing with anonymity is that you are never really held responsible for what you say or do. That gets me on a whole other tangent on people who actually choose to go to particular churches so that they can be anonymous which I see none of in the early church - anyway that is another soap box for another blog day.

So, my rule for this blog is to not overstate things, but rather to say things that I could say face to face in front of anyone. So hopefully my criticisms will be humble and tempered as if I was saying it in person. Keep me accountable to that because I know it will be easy to slip back into the comfort of anonymity. I don't think God has called us into anonymity without accountability; that seems like the opposite of community. Instead He has pursued us so that we can have a relationship with Him in the context of relationships with His people. And that I have found, though messy and sometimes difficult, to be much richer and fuller than comfortable anonymity.