Although I'm supposed to be on a personal
sabbatical year, I have a hard time resisting joining committees, especially
if they join two of my favorite things: the church and the web. On Sunday evening,
I attended the first meeting of the Web Advisory Board (WAB) for my church,
the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
(FPCB), rationalizing my attendance as an opportunity to advise without having
to do any work (a great thing for dreamers like me).

Fortunately for the WAB, the nitty-gritty of the church's new website seems
to be well-in-hand, leaving us with some freedom to contemplate a strategic
view of the church's web presence. That's when I got excited. Anyone who walks
by the physical plant of FPCB will see the beginnings of a major building project.
It is a huge undertaking that will lay the literal and figurative foundation
for the church's ministry for decades to come. The upshot of the project should
be much more physical space in whcih the community can come together to reach
out to others.

However, as someone who believes the Web and the internet (generally) have
only begun to makes their impact on society felt, I don't think that
my church has made similar strides to build for ministry in a Web-immersed world.
The resources the church devotes to the building our web presence is miniscule
compared to the millions of dollars that will be spent on physical buildings.
Now, I'm not complaining about the fine work that has already been done. For
instance, the online sermons
is already an excellent resource to the many out there who want to follow the
sermons from FPCB without having now to buy tapes. Personally, though I have
yet to write about the sermons, they have been speaking deeply to me -- and
it won't be long until I weblog about the sermons. (I've already written copious
notes from the last several weeks.)

And it's this possibility of publicly engaging the sermons in ways that haven't
been happening very often that is one of the many ways that the Web might change
FPCB. At my church, it is not customary to have a Q&A after the sermon.
However, it is not uncommon for the preacher to receive much email in response
to a sermon. However, we as a congregation do not usually get to hear about
the details of the email. Obviously, there are many cases in which that is appropriate;
pastors often deal with very person, private matters. On the other hand, if
the reaction does not need to be private, why not enable the wealth of insight
and experience of an entire community be available to the entire community --
and the larger world? I have a lot of reactions to the sermons, some of which
I care to share with others. I'd love to hear what others in my community have
to say too.

Now I know that web-geeks like me care about the Web than most people in the
society, including other people at my church. And yes, the case for how resources
at the church should be allocated to build a proper integration of the Web into
the ministry of FPCB remains to be made. (Remember the irrational exuberance
behind the dot-com boom might be living in some of my thoughts....)

As I write this post, I have an odd feeling about what I'm doing, as though
I'm exercising a voice and a platform that have so far liitle used in my community.
Congregants speak at public meetings. Ordained leadership (both lay and clergy)
weigh in at meetings of elders and deacons. (I had such a voice until just stepping
down from a three-year term as a member of the "Session" (i.e., board)
of FPCB.) I have the image of posting on my blog as scribbling something and
taping it to the church santuary windows. Granted, it is a small piece of paper
right now; a google search onf First Presbyterian Church Berkeley will not easily
turn up my posts -- yet. But if I continue to write consistently about FPCB
in this forum, I suspect that my blog commentary will become an increasingly
prominent cyber-presence with respect to my church, at least on google, much
out of proportion to my individual role at the church. Let's see what happens.
If what I predict here does happen, what of it? Maybe nothing. Maybe something.
At any rate, FPCB should look into the matter.