What Would Google Do? - Post Two

Hello again! I am continuing to peruse this book and will share more thoughts on it. I would recommend checking out the following other blogs that have some great posts about the work. Go read what Wes and Jon have to say.

Working my way through part one of the book, which gives the rules of Google, I was reminded when reading the section "Think Distributed" (36-39) of this SinFest strip. The speaker clearly expected everyone to come to him and that's why it didn't work. It is a similar situation in the church today - we must go out to the people; we no longer live in a world (we probably never did) where it's expected that everyone goes to church on a Sunday. In my youth group there are plenty of kids whose families are "busy on Sundays." I wonder how many of those parents know that the church has a podcast and if they did, would they listen to it? Jarvis speaks about removing advertising as a business and relying on the word of month of the consumer. I think that this will be a challenge for most mainline churches because many parishioners are uncomfortable with evangelism even as small as inviting someone to come to church with them. So, some advertising is necessary. I am pretty sure that's why every church has the board outside that says what the sermon title is for the week. I know I once when to a Lutheran service because I liked the billboard. Would it cheapen a church board to say "Follow us on Twitter?"

I think the other statement made by Jarvis that is important for the church is related and found on page 35 "...ask yourself: How can you act as a platform?" I am thinking about this in terms of religious education (which I what I want to do). So many books on the subject offer a section on how to evaluate a curriculum to see if it is right for you. Is there a review site or a forum for this issue? I found one but it's not fully comprehensive. I would love to see a mashup of RE curriculums that would show me which ones use the same information/techniques, etc so that I could make my own mash up from the selected options. Maybe I'll make that website for my final project =) Frankly, I am also curious to know how many other curriculums rip off an SNL Chris Farley monologue to talk about the Holy Spirit. Forums would be part of this site as well, or a highly detailed review section to talk about the effectiveness, etc of these selections. I think this would make a world of difference for Religious Educators.

The final part of section one spoke to my understanding of my role as an educator: "Make something useful. Help people use it. And then... Get out of the way" (118). That's what I want when I teach; to provide tools that the other learners can utilize themselves and then step out and let them use it. I think it's crucial to the church today. I would not mind an empty church if I knew that people had taken what they had learned and were using it to make themselves and the world a better place. I think WWGD has a lot of insights that the church could benefit from and I am also seeing ways many churches are already on the bandwagon. Churches with comprehensible, easy to find websites are thinking appropriately for the new technological age. The Vatican recently told its priests to start blogging. The experience of church (community gathering for worship, etc) was never confined to one hour on  Sunday morning and but I think it behooves us to be using new technology to our advantage.

More Later