The story of 'Living Room' an emerging Melbourne church & other Miscellaneous rants
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Have you ever wondered what impact blogging might be having on your life?
Scenario 1 - You are at a party where you see a friend you haven’t seen for a few weeks. You engage them in conversation. You ask the 'what have you been up to?' question. They tell you their latest news and do the polite thing and ask you, 'what about you, what have you been doing?' You try to list off your latest news only to be cut off mid sentence each time you tell a story with the words....'Yeah, I read about that on your blog.' They jokingly say 'I don't need to catch up with you in person any more, I'll just read your blog!' You both chuckle but know deep down that in some respects they may be right.
Scenario 2 - You and your wife are catching up with friends together. Mid way through the conversation it becomes obvious that the one of your friends that reads your blog knows more about some of the things you've been thinking about during the day than your wife does.
Scenario 3 - You meet an old ministry associate at a conference. He seems slightly more 'distant' than normal and less willing to engage in conversation than he has been on previous encounters. You think he might just be having a bad day until you later hear he thinks you've joined the 'liberal faction' of the denomination after someone forwarded him your blog address and he read a one off post out of the context of an ongoing conversation with a group of other bloggers.
Scenario 4 - You are the guest speaker at a church. After your sermon you are approached by someone who you've never met before who procedes to tell you your life story and interact with you as if they're life long and intimate friends because they feel like they know you so well after having read your inner thoughts on the net.
Posted by Darren at May 6, 2003 03:36 PMRe: Scenario two - about time your wife read your blog daily :)
Posted by: phil at May 6, 2003 05:25 PMWhen are we going to see V's blog?
Posted by: John at May 6, 2003 05:37 PMAnd you wonder, 'why didn't any of these people leave comments?'
Funny post Darren!
Posted by: Laura at May 6, 2003 11:05 PMY'know, it's funny (both funny-ha-ha and funny-strange) that I've had the experience of scenario #1. And I have to say that it's a little eery. One things for certain, experiences like those give you pause to be alittle more careful in what is said on a medium that is probably much more public then many of us are willing to realize.
That being said, we live our lives in public view every day, so blogging is really just extension of that. Granted, the guy sitting in the cubicle next to me at work probably wouldn't know quite as much as my blog tells....unless he's got Sherlock Holmes's powers of observation or something. Ah, but I digress.
Posted by: Rich at May 7, 2003 01:13 AMI had kind of a Scenerio 4 experience last week at a conference. After one of the sessions this guy comes up to me and says "So this is what a Mike Todd looks like!" He'd been reading my blog. He asked how we were settling in, how my wife's trip to Bulgaria went, etc.
It threw me a little for a second, but it was cool too. After all, those are questions that people in the blogosphere have asked me, so why should it be strange when it happens in person?!
The first time is probably the strangest. The funny thing was Jordon Cooper was sitting in the same room. He probably gets it all the time.
Posted by: Mike at May 7, 2003 03:28 AMglad I'm not the only one! Its amusing stuff!
V doenst read my blog very regularly cause her work only allows her to get onto a very limited number of sites.... and there is NO way she'll ever start her own blog John....shes more of a face to face kind of person....and I love her for it, although I'd love to see what she'd write. Maybe I should get her to do some guest blogging appearances here!
Blog on people!
Posted by: Darren at May 7, 2003 09:02 AMLOL Darren. I assume that most of my friends don't read my blog, but I'm not sure how true that is!
It's amazing, all sorts of people could be reading the blog and we'll have no idea who they are, unless they choose to leave a comment or email us. Recently I quite nearly freaked out when a pastor who lectures in a seminary over here left a comment at my blog! He said my URL was sent to him by another friend from a local church - and I don't know anyone in that particular church. Really brought home to me the fact that total strangers now know quite a lot about my life - that was scary!!! Feel somehow "watched". If readers interact with the blogger then we forge a relationship, but if they just read and never say anything... eek!!!
Posted by: irene at May 7, 2003 02:07 PMSpooky huh. Imagine when you get to meet fellow bloggers you've never met before but have been interacting with for ages via cyberspace.....now that can be rich, but then it could also be...that's the 'edgy' fun of it....
Posted by: Paul at May 7, 2003 08:19 PMhey, I've been having the scenario 3 happening to me recently.
Posted by: e3liacin at May 8, 2003 05:54 AMHa! That's really funny, I've had number one happen to me on several occasions. It's also really fun to meet someone that you've been talking to online for a while. It helps put a face to a blog.
Side story: I've recently been involved with the worshipfreehouse and while at the gathering, we started introducing people to others like this: theheresy.com, this is kimfehr.blogspot.com
it can be pretty interesting and fun... good times
Posted by: Jeremy Olson at June 6, 2003 07:26 AM