The blogosphere will be missing a couple of faithful bloggers over the next season.  Heather Whittaker (aka Whittakerwoman) and Crystal Renaud (aka PinkHairedGirl) both long-term bloggers are on blogging sabbaticals of indefinite length.

Heather, one of the sweetest gals ever and wife of well-known North Point – Buckhead Campus worship leader Carlos Whittaker, is going to focus on her family and take a break from the fishbowl she lives in.  Her public blog will likely resume in the fall following a summer break.  (If you’re a personal friend of Heather’s you can email her and she’ll give you access to a “private” site she’ll use for keeping those of us updated who will miss her public blog.)

Crystal Renaud, a Kansas City based gal who’s on staff at Westside Family Church, is taking a refreshment break and will devote any writing she does to the book she is working on.  I first learned of Crystal and her unique ministry through Anne Jackson and look forward to the many ways God will use her in the future.  Her departure from the blogosphere might seem abrupt but actually she’s been contemplating for awhile….

If you follow either of these ladies blogs, would you consider praying for them while they use their time off for rest, motivation and fresh inspiration.

I, too, am planning a blogging sabbatical and will take at least a month off during the summer for our relocation from SoCal to NorCal – more on that later.

Of course, none of us will stop tweeting (women have daily word quotas to meet ya know) so it’s easy enough to follow our lifestreams via microblogging on Twitter:

• http://twitter.com/whittakerwoman
• http://twitter.com/pinkhairedgirl
• http://twitter.com/cynthiaware

Recently there have been more examples popping up of church websites that display some of the emerging trends in interactive web presence.  Static web pages, those that provide service times, location & an uninteractive front page, are being transformed in response to the new values presented by the new media.  As has been talked about so often here, a couple of these values include interactivity and fresh content.  

The web site of Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Michigan is a good example because with out being overly flashy or polished it provides evidence that their church is responding to the changes in our culture, the way we communicate and the values we place on such communication. 

You can click into their landing page to see that it has:

1) streaming video

2) blogs

3) podcasts

4) fresh content 

These four simple (and free!) elements convey to visitors an important message: our church is active and engaging. 

Obviously, it isn't our goal to conform to cultural standards.  Our goal is to penetrate culture so we can transform people.  One of the best ways to do that is to speak in a language they will understand and engage them.

Yes, you'll also find many in the church micro-blogging on twitter – course that goes a long way in my book.

http://twitter.com/cynthiaware

Chris Brogan provides a great list of 50 online Applications & Sites to Consider, well-organized and concise, to use for handy reference. 

I'd add Tweetdeck and TwitPic to the Miscellaneous category and put in a category for good aggregators (i.e. - Alltop).  What would you add?

Blogging