Blogging the Resolutions: Website and Social Media Challenge

Does every church need a web site or a Facebook page? The General Convention certainly seemed to think so, and a mirror resolution, the Website and Social Media Challenge, has made its way to the diocesan convention. There's not a lot of substance to this resolution beyond its name: it "challenge[s] every congregation or other ministry in the diocese to have an effective, dynamic, and current website [and]... to actively engage social media in its current and future manifestations", and that's pretty much it.

Let's score this, then discuss:

• Is the resolution likely to pass unanimously? Yes. There's nothing about this that's a bad idea, and it doesn't commit anyone to any really hard work (though maintaining an effective, dynamic, and current websits is harder than it sounds). -1
• Does the resolution call for someone in the church to do something concrete? Yes. These are concrete actions. +1
• Might the resolution call for the person who proposed it to do something concrete? Probably not. This was put forth by the General Convention Deputation. I believe most if not all of the members of the deputation come from parishes that have already done this. -1
• Does the resolution contain an escape hatch? Oh, yes. But I think this is as it should be, for reasons I'll get to below. Nonetheless the scoring system calls for me to give this a -1
• If the resolution calls for an allocation from the diocesan budget, is it clear how the funding would happen? Creating a website doesn't necessarily cost money, but creating an "effective, dynamic. and current" website? That's a tall order to do on the cheap. But for the escape hatches above, this could be viewed as an unfunded mandate. Still, we've got the escape hatches and this doesn't call for anything from the diocesan budget, so it gets +1

In sum, we've got a -1 resolution here.

In general: every diocesan ministry should have a decent website, and a social media presence is also a good thing. But I do wonder a bit about where this should fall in the order of priorities for any given ministry. As I observed in my earlier post on the Diocese of East Carolina, the three parishes that account for the most growth in that diocese are markedly lacking on the digital front.

What is most important, I think, is the various ministries and bodies of the church being attentive to the best ways to communicate with the communities around them, and for the diocese to offer guidance, where required, to identify those ways. In most cases, that will include, but not be limited to, the web and social media. But we focus too much on these tools at our peril, as they offer only the beginning phases of relationship. As we engage or improve our use of these tools, our communities would do well to consider what kind of welcome people who walk in the doors will receive.