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It's a good idea to begin early to look at your long term Internet strategy. If you are serious about reaching and serving your community, consider a proactive role with your web presence. The use of "Magnet Pages" to provide good content and meet needs outside the bounds of your main site is one of many good strategies you can adopt .
These strategies provide many roads that lead back to the life of the church, opportunities offered through online communities of interest, moderated by members.
To create a Magnet System, consider these steps...
1. Challenge your people to think creatively about what areas God may be calling them to use their gifts and interests to get involved in the community.
2. Build support teams for empowering their ideas for ministry and community involvement:
For instance...
- a group that can facilitate the organizing process
(many online resources for this)
- a creative tech group to edit and update web pages
- communication team to assist in editing, resourcing,
promotions and community relations
- spiritual mentors (mature people that can guide without hindering)
[We can back you up in technical and creative areas where you need assistance]
3. First create energetic online communities among your members along various interest areas (MOPS, youth, seniors, business people, Bible study, prayer focus, community issues, parenting at different ages, empty nesters, dreams and aspirations, etc.)
4. Through your support teams help your community ministry teams launch into serving the community. There are many resources available on the best steps for engaging the community based on actual field experience (we're working on several strategic plans right now).
5. Look for natural, acceptable ways to link these "Magnet Ministries" back to the church online communities, which by now should be a beehive of member activity. The environment they experience there should offer many ways for an individual to participate without feeling like they are invading the space of "insiders."
This approach releasing ministry out into the community may bring some fear to the surface for those who prefer control over chaos. But I'm convinced that a spirit of giving and releasing (which is true servant leadership) is the only path to health and growth for the church. The Internet is the most promising emerging communication environment for outreach, providing an enormous opportunity to reach and serve the community.
Total Community Solutions embraces a ministry paradigm where the perspective takes a 180-degreee turn from a preoccupation with church building to an intentional strategy for community transformation. The Internet represents a powerful way to reach that goal.
Recommended Reading: The Community Of The Future (Drucker Foundation/Josey-Bass Publisher), Cluetrain Manifesto (Perseus), The Fifth Discipline (Peter Senge/Doubleday), Church Without Walls (Jim Peterson/NavPress), and Honor: What Love Looks Like (Fawn Parish/Renew)
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