In reading Jim Rice’s study on Digital Ecclesiology,  this line got me thinking about something I have often “preached” in thepast couple of years.

when people come to church they have found us on an Internet search looking for a progressive church

via New Media Project at Union Theological Seminary | Models of the Church and Social Media.

The question here is,  what meta data do we employ to make it easier for people “looking for a progressive church” to find our information?  The obvious is to employ “Progressive” as a key word in meta tags,  but that strategy is falling behind those that are being birthed by Facebook,  such as their Social Graph model.  Their data is constantly growing through associations between users, groups,  their status updates,  likes, shares,  etc.   I have been talking over the past few months (and blogging about it when a particular angle occurs to me)  about the importance of the Social Graph model,  and I employ the term “Theological Databases” to try to explain.  Using the “Progressive Church” concept,  how do we employ “markers” or meta data that would find our particular progressive community?  Some (in fact,  many)  Christians with “Progressive” interests and concerns don’t like to use  political language to describe their theology.  So what theological terms are often used in those “Progressive-friendly” churches?  “Justice”, “Ecology”, “Economy”, even “Occupy”, to use a particularly strong taxonomy for our particular time.  Linkage  to organizations that focus  on particular theological emphases will help us to become more strongly associated with those ministy foci.  The more “pages” of particular action oriented organizations around a particular issue we “Like” and “Join” (and in the case of Google Plus , “encircle”,  or on Twitter,  “follow”,  the more our community becomes a part  of the mix,  and therefore appearing as result on many different kinds of search.