Experimenting Methodists
OK, as this is an experiment, and it involves the United Methodist Church and Wesleyan theology, I’m going to play along. I have serious doubts about the validity of the results. The question is this: If some agency of the UM church put out a video and it wasn’t an experiment, would I be on board to publicize it? The answer would be “maybe.” It would depend on whether I thought the message deserved sharing, and origin in a Methodist agency is no guarantee of value.
Kevin Watson at deeplycommitted has started an experiment to see how much social capital Methodist bloggers have. This experiment was prompted by the feeling among some Methodist bloggers that United Methodism does not always do as good of a job as it could at getting the Wesleyan message out there, particularly on-line. So, he wants to see how many views a YouTube video can get if Methodist bloggers work together to promote it. The experiment is to see how many hits the video will receive in two weeks.
If you want to participate you can: First, watch the video below. Second, copy and paste this entire post into a new post on your blog and post it. Third, remind people about this experiment in one week.
Based on the results of the experiment, Kevin will get in touch with the folks at Discipleship Resources and let them know the ways in which Methodist bloggers are often an underused resource.
Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISKTrScpzQ
Hi Henry – First, thanks for participating in this, despite your reservations.
Second, thank you for adding your thoughts to the post. You raise some questions I have been chewing on over the last day or so. The idea was raised out of a desire to demonstrate that institutionally, Methodism often could do a better job connecting with folks, that there is a critical mass out there that has the potential to raise awareness and get the word out. So, first I wanted to try to get a sense of whether there is any unity within that group and if so, how large is it. What kind of leverage does it have? But you nicely put your finger on some deeper questions: If there is a sufficient critical mass, is there sufficient unity of purpose to lead to anything meaningful happening? And I have also wondered how to communicate this to Discipleship Resources, if it yields noteworthy results… because you are right… the point is not to say to them “Hey, Methodist bloggers will plug your books for you if you just tell them to.”
Sorry to be long winded… I think this was a two step process for me. First, thinking it might be a good idea if a UM group goes to the trouble to make a promotion for something, to let people that would be interested in it know about it. Then, this led me to begin thinking about whether their are deeper things that Methodist bloggers can hope to accomplish through the momentum that seems to be building through our blogging.
Again, thanks for participating and raising important questions.
Peace, Kevin
Kevin – note that while I’m feeling cynical right now, I’m not entirely negative on the idea. The problem will be to get Methodist bloggers on board with whatever message there is, or at least that is the case for me. I would probably plug the particular item advertised in the video, because I have been appalled at the lack of knowledge of Wesleyan theology I found in the UM church since first joining. I got more Wesleyan theology by far from my Seventh-day Adventist upbringing.
So I’ll be interested in what happens and will try to limit my cynicism just a bit!
I would hope the real “plugs” would be of higher quality than this test one. To me, that is an unpleasant little video. It seems critical and condescending, talking down to people. I hope the book has a different tone, but the video doesn’t do anything that encourages me to read the book and find out.
Personally, I’d be much more likely to be interested in the book if Henry had simply said that he had read it and recommends it, giving his reasons. Otherwise, the video is just adding to the blog advertising, with all the negative baggage of that term, paid or not, church connected or not.