End Notes - Church 2.0
What does the shift to Web 2.0 mean for churches?
As published in Worship Facilities, Nov/Dec 2008
There is a lot of conversation about Web 2.0. The thought is that Web 1.0 is primarily a one-way conversation. Web pages function like print media but on a screen. Web 2.0 is dynamic. People contribute. They customize. It is a two-way conversation.
Don Tapscott, in his best-selling book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything makes the point that "2006 was the year when the programmable Web eclipsed the static Web every time: flickr beat webshots; Wikipedia beat Britannica; Blogger beat CNN; Epinions beat Consumer-Reports.... " He goes on to explain that "The losers launched Web sites. The winners launched vibrant communities. The losers built walled gardens. The winners built public squares. The losers innovated internally. The winners innovated with their users. The losers jealously guarded their data and software interfaces. The winners shared them with everyone."
Web 2.0 is by nature participatory, customizable, and creates community. It is both reflecting and creating a shift in culture. However, current worship facilities primarily support a one-way conversation … from the platform out to the congregation. Essentially, Church 1.0. If we were to move to Church 2.0—an experience that is participatory, customizable, and creates community—how would our Sunday morning programming change? How would our church facilities change?
While the ideas above may seem cutting edge, the reality is that the Net generation is already there. Web communities are forming around things as transient as favorite TV shows and as substantive as global warming. Content production—which used to be the domain of publishers, graphic artists, programmers, and television studios—is now being taken on by the masses equipped with Blogger, PhotoShop, Virtual Basic, and Final Cut Pro, and at surprising quality. Yet very few churches have frameworks for this kind of mass collaboration.
It is possible that some of the framework will be Web enabled. Companies such as 360Hubs and Fellowship Technologies are offering products to facilitate connection, automation, and collaboration. But perhaps the bigger challenges are going to be cultural ones.
"We need to recognize the tools for this shift are already sitting in most of our faith communities," says Ron Martoia—author of Static. "When we start to grant permission for our communities to dream how to use their gifts, how they want to express their experience, how they can share what God is doing in their lives, then we are beginning to find out how our own unique local expression of church can be a part of this exciting time."
As churches begin to grapple with the issues surrounding mass collaboration (let’s face it, mass collaboration requires a certain release of control), the opportunities to connect and engage their congregations become exponential. The challenge is going to be figuring out how to facilitate it.
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