Forum ministry… not for the faint of heart.
Seriously, from my years at the exwitch forum I will tell you that it can be both rewarding and absolutely maddening. There are people you will get to meet and talk to that you would never see any other way.
Yes, the people…. some of them come to talk to you, some of them come to ask questions…. some of them come to scream at you in text form… and some… some of the people just come to watch the show as it happens. At Exwitch we got it from all sides. There were the Neo-pagans who came to fight and distract our efforts. There were the church folks who came to argue with us and those ‘evil’ witches. Then there were people from other faiths and religions that came to fuss at us.
The more heated the arguments the greater the web traffic. I admit it was easy to get caught in the trap of trying to argue people into Heaven. After all, I had to have answers for them and had walked the magik paths myself which led many to question me from both the church and the pagan side .But there is a difference between answering questions and getting engaged in roiling arguments. To the point that I’m fairly convinced these days that there is not much value in full-contact theology.
I have to admit that I had much more patience for the witches than the supposed Christians at times. After all, I could hardly expect someone who didn’t know Jesus to act like they’d been saved for years. But when church folks got out of line it had to be dealt with in short order.
A word of warning for any who would like to get involved with online ministry, it can burn you out very quickly. Don’t let it take over your life. Set ‘office hours’ if need be, otherwise you won’t be allowed any time at all to do anything else.
Oh yeah…. I forgot to mention…. I’ve been drafted to help out with my daughter’s forum… prayers are appreciated.
Mark
Thank you for sharing what truly are words of wisdom.