We have been making a lot of changes to our website www.wesleyan.org/adult There are a lot of resources and articles under each of the Adult Ministries, but something is still nagging at me. The website for Adult Min is very one-dimensional. There is a lot if 'information-sharing' going out from here, but there really is no forum for interaction, real time idea sharing and networking. Yeah, I get some surveys and emails sent back to me, but that isn't really the level of networking that I would love to see.
Last week I really got dreaming to find a way to create some type of quasi blog-chat environment for Adult Ministries where the Wesleyan Church can interact and discuss what is really going on in ministry today. A place where I can share the resources and ideas that I think might help and people can respond and dialogue with others about what is working or not working in their area. I'd also love to be able to capture short video clips ( training and resource sharing ) and post them in a way that people could view them and share them with others.
I'd love to hear your ideas on this, especially if you know of something similar to a blog where we can chat and discuss and everyone can see the posts and I can upload video.
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I think it's a stellar idea Tim. I'll participate. Sounds like a Wesleyan Spiritual Formation "My Space" community... or a community blog like the Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank (http://www.generousorthodoxy.net/) Or even a bit like our Bible Forum online (http://www.bibleforum.blogspot.com/)
Cool idea.
Three key decisions I would see coming for you:
1) What is the scope of participation? - would it be a "Wesleyans Primarily" kind of thing... if so it would be good to put that even in the subtitle or something... to connect Wesleyans on the issues and resources related to adult ministry/spiritual formation stuff.
2) Is it official or non-official? sometimes non-official web-community develops faster and with more vibrancy for some reason. However, people are also more skeptical of non-offical forums. Maybe it could "feel" non-official but be officially condoned/facilitated? The Holy Next site being "off-site" is a good example of feeling both/and for me. Maybe that's the place to do it?
3) Who is in charge? I think it's important for a good size group to contribute to something in an "Open Source Leadership" model online... but in the long run (after the initial surge of participation) one person has to be spinning the flywheel. Someone (like you) would need to drag participation out of others (recruit people to come post, or reply or submit). The EmergentWesleyan thing is an example of this. For a while there was a lot of involvment, but without someone in charge of it it faded quickly from relevance and now is just an online coffin to store two-year old ideas. :-) I'm as emergent as the next fella, but I still think someone has to make the decisions and own it.
Have a good week in Mecca.
-DD
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