AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Technology for Congregations Part Two

In yesterday’s post and the comments that hang thereon (again in response to interlocutory friend Danya), I ventured toward a description of what congregations ought to be doing online. Before I get to that stage, though, I should add a note or two about the “why” part of the enterprise.

Namely: almost every congregation already has a web presence of some kind or another. The phone number is probably available online. A denominational center lists the address, phone number, and leaders’ names. Congregants may refer to their congregation online. News reports mention congregations. A parish that decides to disregard the Web isn’t therefore absent from the Web — it’s ceding the Web to what others say about the congregation. Moreover, it’s practically putting a “We’re clueless and uninterested” sign out to potential congregants who use the Web to sound out spiritual homes. “Please go away and don’t bother us” doesn’t communicate a congregational ethos I’d commend to anybody.

Although the community’s relation to any given congregation usually begins and ends with the facade and signposts, that same congregation can offer a sense of its identity and ethos that radiates through the walls by constructing a web site that reflects those characteristics. Resist the temptation to devise an illusory ideal identity! That’s not only not conversational, it’s manipulative and self-defeating. Anybody who spends a few days in the bosom of Congregation Simchat Torah or St. Willibrord’s Church will find out, without much effort, what the congregation’s priorities and sentiments are like. It’s the on-way, broadcast model of communication: since no one’s likely to buy air time to run commercials that say, “Don’t believe what Congregation Simchat Torah says about itself!” boradcast advertisements tend toward a sales pitch rather than mutual learning.

The more candor you can turn loose on a congregational web site, the better people will know the congregation, for better or worse; that exercise alone may make it worth building a conversational web site. If it turns out that the conversation turns acrimonious, if it engages nobody’s attention, the congregation benefits from knowing that. I don’ suppose that a congregational web site only serves its function if it’s a dainty, pretty, happy representation of the community. Indeed, (again), I hope that no congregation would devise such a site unless they turn out to be a dainty, pretty, happy community. Starting a congregational conversation online opens up a tremendous means for collective self-discovery.

If the site includes writings from congregational leaders, they’l benefit from feedback from both congregants and community. At the same time, visitors will have the opportunity to learn what the leaders of St. Willibrord’s have to say; maybe it would be worth coming to the synagogue to meet them, or ask them about the spiritual dilemma you’ve been wrestling with.

That all entails standing out in public, with all our charms and deficiencies, and taking the accolades and brickbats that come from letting the world know what we’re really about. That may be risky — and I’ve talked about that already, and will revisit the topic — but this is not a new risk, it’ a risk the roots of which have been hidden by the relative difficulty of finding out in person about our congregations. I think that would make a good Part Three.

Posted by AKMA at July 15, 2003 01:06 PM | TrackBack