Participate in an Open Source Sermon
By Rob Brink, re-posted with permission from RevSmilez.com:
Greetings denizens of the Internet. My name is Rob, and I’m performing an experiment. Can the collective intelligence of the ‘Net produce a preachable sermon? Maybe the digital age is incompatible with such an ancient format. Then again, maybe the lurker will join hands with the hacker and usher in an age of peace and enlightenment. Maybe I’m just lazy and want some free content and editing.
Here’s the rundown:
- Project: Craft the world’s first open-source sermon.
- Deadline: September 28, 2008
- Principles: Biblically based, Christocentric (not that all contributors must be, only that the final product must be).
The Process:
- Select a topic: Sermon topics were suggested in the comments on my original post, and a winner was chosen on August 9. The topic of the sermon will be: the body of Christ in a digital age.
- Select a text: I posted some initial thoughts, and then opened up the comments for suggestions on choosing biblical and non-biblical texts that speak insightfully to the topic. On August 25, the following texts were chosen: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 (primary) and Hebrews 10:23-25 (secondary).
- Write and Edit: Now comes the really fun stuff. Go to the Open Source Sermon wiki and start writing! (What’s a wiki?) The first thing you’ll notice is that I’ve locked the sermon workspace and created a “start here” link asking us to define our purpose. No sense trying to collaborate if half of us want to build a hot rod and the other half want to build an eco-cruiser. Once the purpose is clear, we’ll crack the workspace and then it’s edit, edit, edit, straight through to the deadline, September 20.
The only promise I can make is that your edits will be edited again (by me and by others). If you want credit for your contribution, add your name (real names only, please) to the bottom of the document. Deadline is Saturday, September 20, when I will close the wiki to public edits at 12 p.m. CST. I will then present the final result to my senior minister (a former rhetoric and homiletics instructor). If he agrees the sermon is worthy of the pulpit, then the experiment is a success, and we move to the next step. If not, I’ve still got a week to write something from scratch.
- Final edit and polish: I’ll take the last week to add finishing touches, modify phrasing to fit my style, and of course practice. Deadline: Sunday, September 28, 9:45 a.m.
- Preach: All contributors will be recognized from the pulpit or in the church bulletin. Everyone is of course invited to come listen live on Sunday, September 28, at 10 a.m.
- Distribute: We’ll put the sermon text, audio, and video up on my personal blog under a non-commercial, share-alike Creative Commons license.
Can the net produce a preachable sermon? I seriously don’t know. But it’s going to be a blast finding out.
Thanks for participating in this open source sermon experiment!
Rev. Rob Brink is passionate about young people. An avid gamer, sci-fi nut, and music junkie, he is married and loving it, with two young boys of his own.
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Welcome to the Reader's Forum
ok, I’m a little wiki-illiterate – but how do I get permission to comment on the start page?
Cathy: Try this. https://opensourcesermon.pbwiki.com/request_access.php
Scott: According to my research, wikiletics allowed “multiple users to edit and contribute to existing sermons so they become group projects” There are a couple other sites out there now that do that as well, but so far I haven’t found evidence of a fully open source sermon, built from the ground up from scratch. There’s been a novel, which depending on who you ask was either really cool or a disastrous failure, but not a sermon. But as I said in my blog, I’d love to be proved wrong, if only to pick the brains of the people who pulled i off.
I think the idea of building a sermon collectively is good however, I think we should include authorship because the one who contribute should get their reward. It just creates incentive for the contributors to keep contributing and avoid abuse from people.
I would perfer to Google Knol than wiki.
Every contributor is welcome to add their name to the bottom of the document. Those names will be printed in the bulletin and included in the official copy on my blog. The digital signatures could even include a link to the author’s site.
What are the advantages of Google Knol? I’ve used plenty of wikis before so I chose that framework, but I’m interested in other options.
Check it out, it’s actually starting to look like a sermon!
http://opensourcesermon.pbwiki.com/SermonWorkspace
Rob – it’s a worthy venture, I must say. But I think you will experience a paradigm clash between the culture of the sermon and the culture of online communications.
Rather than contributing directly to your sermon, I have some high level observations.
1. A blog (with comments) is a collaboration viewed as a process. An Open Source Sermon is a collaboration viewed as a product.
2. The Blog exists chiefly in written online form, while the Sermon is spoken and offline.
3. Being online and literate, the blog will be experienced on demand indefinitely. The Sermon, which is orally presented, is experienced only once in final presentation, (although it as you say will have an online version too).
4. The traditional role of the sermon is religious discourse (from the Latin, discursus, “running to and from”). In many applications this traditional notion has been reduced to “one way broadcast”, although preachers may be open to discussion, even during their sermons. The role of the blog is anarchic and unrestricted in content.
“What does Jerusalem have to do with Silicon Valley?”, you ask. Well the Jewish culture as I understand it is 2 things: hyper-literate with emphasis on written inerrancy, and ultra-discursive with raging debate not necessarily needing closure, and often purposefully rhetorical. So that paradox will feed nicely into your question.
The main thing for me in your investigation is the question of medium and message, of form and content. This ties in directly to the question of the Incarnation. Incarnation asks the question, what will immutable truth look like in your ever-shifting context?
I look forward to your findings.
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Not to be a party pooper, but I think Leonard Sweet already tried this: www.wikiletics.com
(I thought it was a good idea and a useful site, but unfortunately it no longer exists.)