Blogs for churches?  Whoda thunk?  And where is this “Christian web strategy blogosphere” you speak of?  I want to talk with those guys....they’re nuts. 

Anyhoo...we’re trying this basic approach for Manna @ http://www.mannais.org/ , but it certainly isn’t a poster child for a traditional church situation either.

Here’s (in my limited experience) where the challenge will be; as usual it’s not the technology.  The challenge will be finding someone, *anyone* in the church (pastor, staff, or attendee) who can use the technology to *say something*.

Blogs aren’t the magic bullet any more than static web sites.  What I see churches needing help with is first figuring out who their true audience is, then crafting a message to communicate to that audience.  We’re good at it if it involves a building on a Sunday morning, a 3-point sermon, and a postlude, but move outside of that communication channel and the the church is clueless.  Church “newsletters” have proven this for years before the web came out.

We need writers and storytellers first, then communicators, then technology folks.  See http://www.boyink.com/comments/578_0_1_0_C/

Now, I was certain that the “Christian web strategy blogosphere” had its headquarters smack dab in the middle of Holland, Michigan. Was I wrong?

Regarding finding people to “say something,” do you think allowing people to blog about their passions would help? In other words, are people hesitant to post because they think it’s a “church website” rather than a place where they can have their own arena of expression. I know that if I had a place to post my thoughts about baseball, I might be more ready than if it was a place to post my thoughts about the church. Well, in reality, I’d probably be ready to post about the church, but I might think better of it before doing so!

> We need writers and storytellers first, then
> communicators, then technology folks.

This definitely rings true to me, but how do we go about finding these people? Especially when the church doesn’t see this as a priority?

One thing that keeps rolling around in my mind, though, as I think about the challenge of communicating the potential of the internet for evangelism, is one of my favorite quotations (don’t know who said it, but I like it!): “Small dreams will never enflame the hearts of men.”

"do you think allowing people to blog about their passions would help? “

I think much of it is going to hinge on the existing culture in the church.  For example - take a look at Ridgepoint’s forums (not picking on them, just an examples from my experience):

http://www.ridgepoint.org/forum/index.php

Note how the Prayer Place forum is by far the most trafficked.  I think for RP (and by extension many existing churches, and probably moreso the more traditional the church) people just plain don’t (or won’t) think of the church website as a place to talk about anything non-church related.

The RP staff has encouraged this type of “must be more churchy” culture.  For example, at one point a person wanted to start a group that would knit prayer shawls - so they’d get together, knit, and pray for the women who would later receive the shawl.  The staff responded that with a little Bible study and learning time thrown in it would “be a great small group”.  I watched this with interest because I was considering starting an informal “garage time” thing where guys could get together and work on auto-related projects.  The message I got was any group of RP folks that came together for any reason wouldn’t be “recognized” by the Staff unless there was formal ("churchy") stuff going on. 

And from a user’s point of view, why should they go to the church site to talk about Jeeps or baseball?  Even in a large church, how many people am I going to be able to talk old Jeeps to, vs. just going to an old Jeep website?  The “cost of entry” is the same to the user.

And if a person wants to start blogging about a passion, why choose the church site over a free service like Blogger, where they don’t have to be concerned about their posts not sitting right with the church somehow?

On the other side of the coin, I’d expect church staff to be concerned about how the blog content, collectively, would reflect the church.  Read the comments here:

http://www.boyink.com/portfolio_comments/59_0_4_0_C9/

That issue of control is huge, with Churches thinking they’ll need to “monitor” content to not let “destructive and divisive talk in”.

I think you’ve hit the root issue - Churches don’t see storytelling/communicating as a priority.  If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter which tool we hand them.

I’ll be the first to admit my viewpoint is still skewed by my experiences over the last year, but I think the church is a round hole and the internet is a square peg.  The traditional management structure of the church just can’t cope with (much less recognize the value in) everyone having an open mic and being able to contribute equally and unmoderated.

I experienced this first-hand at one point during the whole RP debacle.  I had turned off one function of the site because the staff was going to use it in a way that was not right - it was going to put us in violation of our privacy policy, the internet service agreement, our hosting agreement, etc.  During the discussions that followed, I was asked by the Sr. Staff “who owns the site?” and I responded “the church”.  The staff agreeed with the words, but not the meaning.  To them “the church” was the staff, and not the collective group of folks who called RP home. 

They wanted to treat the website like the physical possesions of the church—owned by the church body collectively but still managed/controlled by the staff ("We don’t let just anyone come and play around with the sound board, why would we let openly comment on the website?”

They didn’t understand the difference.

Mike, there’s not much I can add to your diagnosis. You’ve nailed the root issue, I think. And it’s a much larger issue than just how a church website is handled - the issue of control permeates the traditional church structure.

I still believe that there is great potential for the approach you’re taking on the Manna site. The issue, as you’ve touched on here and in the post at boyink.com, is finding decision-makers who aren’t seeking control.

Sometimes I think that we should be addressing our thoughts to young Bible college and seminary students, future church leaders who aren’t yet in a position to seek after control. On the other hand, perhaps they are already on the road?

Reminds me of the joke my wife told me a while back...two rabbits are being chased by some foxes.  THey find a spot to hunker down and hide.  One rabbit asks the other - “should we keep running or wait until we outnumber them?”

It’ll be interesting to watch as today’s “immigrant” church leaders are replaced by younger “natives” (to use your metaphor).

What I wonder is to what degree will the church structure as we know it today change?  It’s same question I had about interest-based clubs here:
http://www.boyink.com/portfolio_more/334_0_4_0_M9/