This morning,  as I am doing a search on Google for anything David Siegel might have said, written, done since the publishing of Futurize Your Enterprise,  which was the first book I read which forwarded the idea that was made famous by The Cluetrain Manifesto:  that “markets are conversations”,  and that we “capture customers” as people and not eyeballs or consumers,  and that we do so by “engaging them” with things in which they have passionate interest. 

I have always thought that this was the direction in which the Church needs to invest in order to leverage the Web for ministry.  It is an area in which the Church has ,  in my view,  failed miserably.  I have seen it in Churches where I have been involved,  (though not 100% so– but on the order or 99%),  and I have seen it in denominational agaencies charged with helping the Church fulfill its mission. 

This is not a “forget the Church” call.  This is a “wake up” call.  There are doubtless many out there in the Church who are also captured by this vision of utilizing the Web to enable Churches and Church organizations to tell their stories,  and provide COMMUNITY,  yes,  ONLINE COMMUNITY which functions as a servant dimension to COMMUNITY of any kind,  which INCLUDES and ENCOURAGES face to face community.  I often hate to focus on comparisons of different aspects of community such as “face to face” and “online”,  because each of these are multifaceted,  and can function as mutually beneficial for each other.     More in “Growing Community Everywhere”