Some years ago, I heard Keith Drury speak. It was at a singles group meeting in Marion, Ind., and I've been married since 1989, so this goes back a ways. But I absolutely loved hearing the guy speak. Over the years, I've come across articles by him, and he always has insightful stuff to share.

I recently stumbled upon Keith's website, and a wonderful piece called "15 Current Trends in Spiritual Formation." Two of the trends dealt with the internet. I quote:

"The Internet Spirituality Trend. With so many innovatively produced web-sites out there, many Christians are now going online for their primary spiritual formation journey. Many of these are very individualistic efforts with a few exceptions that actually attempt to “create community” online. Some web-sites are even advertising themselves as more than just supplemental to church. One Christian web-site here in West Michigan is advertising on the radio that they provide people with information and learning from the Bible that they just can’t get at Church. For examples: Google the word “spiritual growth online.

"The Spiritual Walk Blog Trend. In a similar vein to the internet spiritual formation trend, many people are using their online web-logs or “blogs” as a personal spiritual formation instrument. There are two primary ways this is happening: 1) some treat their blog as a public form of spiritual journaling. These personalized accounts turn what has been a long held private discipline into a very public confession. Also, some use their blog to 2) ask deeper spiritual questions and invite others to comment on them, thereby creating a spiritual growth community with one person submitting the “articles” and moderating the discussion. Blogs are such a recent phenomenon that there is a lot of uncharted territory here. Community blogs have taken off in just the last 6 months, for instance, where multiple people join together to create a topical blog on spiritual growth issues."

You can read the whole piece here.