I know you're there.....

It looks like about 20 different people visited this blog last week, to put that into perspective, Boris Johnson's blog gets between 100 and 300 comments per blog entry, but then he hosts Have I Got News For You and I don't. It has been suggested that the blog is the new vicars letter. The trouble is that there is such an overload of information in cyberspace that it's very difficult to sift. For the record, the blogs I visit most often (at least once a week, some once a day - 'so that's what he does with his time' they say) are:

Cartoon Church (Dave Walker, Church Times cartoonist)
Mustard Seed Shavings (Steve Tilley, missioner in Nailsea area)
Thinking Anglicans (Simon Sarmiento, a liberal perspective, mainly on the politicking over sexuality and who's in communion with who in the international CofE, but also provides a helpful summary of links to good religious stories in the online press every weekend)
Thoughts from the Wonderwall, run by Nigel Coke-Woods of Yeovil Methodists

More occasionally, though all useful, I've found:
http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/ Jonny Baker, alternative worship pioneer, the site is a great resource for creative worship ideas, visuals, and stimulating thoughts. Also shows you what a good blog looks like!
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/ Ruth Gledhills online column for the Times, useful for stories about the Bishop of Southwark, etc.
http://u2sermons.blogspot.com/ if like me you're a U2 fan, and fascinated by deep but very subtle Christian message in their songs, this website is a great resource, including attempts by churches to base sermon series on U2 songs. I personally hope U2 are the worship leaders in heaven, and if the angels are even better, then count me in...

There are lots of blogs in the area of 'emerging church'/fresh expressions, whatever you want to call it - as an area where thinking is being tested out all the time, blogs are a great way to throw ideas around and see where they land. Rather than list some, if you're interested just do a search.

One of the main benefits I get from blogs is that they expose me to debates and points of view from outside my comfort zone. It's very easy to only have in-depth discussions with people of a similar point of view, and keep a polite silence in places (e.g. clergy chapters?) where we don't know each other well enough, or know enough to guess that others see things very differently from ourselves.

There aren't the same inhibitions on the internet, with the result that it can get quite heated (you can't read facial expressions in cyberspace, so it's harder to communicate well, and easy to read the wrong thing into a posting if you're in the wrong mood), but you can also pitch straight into the middle of an argument, and then jump straight out again. The Monty Python character who wanted to buy an argument would be in paradise.