GlennFrazier.com

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been reading The Long Tail and thinking about its implications for the church. Between going to bed and falling asleep, I decided to do a blog series on just that.

So what I'm going to do is blog through the book, chapter by chapter. I'll be posting a very short synopsis of each chapter, accompanied by my thoughts and reactions and questions and musings. In general, I'm looking to find answers—or at least have conversations around—the following questions:

• What implications does the Long Tail phenomenon have for religion and spirituality in general?
• What lessons can the individual church congregation take from all this?
• What about whole denominations? Entire religions?
• What can an individual do to take advantage of the lessons learned here on behalf of their church?
• What are the special implications for new/unusual/niche expressions of faith, such as New (Swedenborgian) Christianity?
• What does this all imply with regard to online ministry?
• How can we benefit as content providers?
• As content aggregators?
• As information "consumers"?
• How do we fit our new understanding of Long Tail distributions into the concept of Divine Providence?

I'm posting this now, but my plan is to wait a bit before putting up the first chapter post. I'd like to invite you to get a copy of the book to read or listen to so you can follow along and participate. Even if you aren't reading the book along with us, though, feel free to participate in the conversation, whether by posting comments here or writing in your own blog or emailing me privately or whatever.

I'm not doing this because I'm an expert in the topic, but because I want to tap other people's perspectives on this new and exciting way of looking at how people trade value and information with one another.

If you missed yesterday's post, go back and scroll to the bottom for a list of resources that will help you learn more about this book, where to get it, where it came from, and what it says.

UPDATE: I have decided to also offer this series as a podcast. I'm also hoping to include interviews with various knowledgeable people, but we'll see. Click here to hear this post's audio, and click here to subscribe to the special Church and the Long Tail podcast.