oh, us church people. we’re especially adept at creating red-tape, aren’t we? a truly congregational church (not the denomination, but the structure) can sure make it obvoius why so few socialist governments can really make a go of it.
a loyal ysmarko reader sent this to me today. he and another pastor on staff had asked their church leadership if it would be possible to link to their blogs from the church website. this is the written response they received:
Hi [name] and [name],
The “task force” considered your requests to provide links to your blogs on the Church web site at our last meeting. The following conveys the committee’s thinking on the subject at this point.
Whereas blogs are typically personal and should not be controlled, censored, or managed by anyone other than the owner of the blog; and
Whereas links and/or sub-links which may be placed on a blog could have content inappropriate to the purpose and audience of the church web site;
Therefore, the “Information Policy Task Force” of our church states that unless and until the IPTF is able to produce standards to which blogs must conform in order to be consistent with the purpose of the church web site, no blog references will be identified on the church web site.
If you need any further information, please call me.
i’m not arguing for church websites linking to every youth pastor’s blog. but: an IPTF? and, two “whereas’s” and a “therefore”? i bet they used Roberts Rules of Order (more sacred than leviticus in most protestant churches) to make this decision. and i bet the IPTF have cool matching logo shirts.
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I kinda wanna be on an Information Policy Task Force. Imaging the havoc one could wreak!
Comment by Dan Roth 10.28.05 @ 11:46 pmThis is flippn’ HILARIOUS! You think these folks squeek when they walk? Like my grandad used to say, those folks are tighter than a bull’ butt at fly time.
-Pat
Comment by Pat Callahan 10.30.05 @ 9:52 pmThis is too funny. I wonder if the IPTF has censorship rights over the pastors’ emails to the kids. Man, we would be so in trouble!
Comment by Carl Fuglein 10.31.05 @ 12:23 pmdid you tell them that this kind of red flag should make them run for the hills??? sigh. i bet the temple courtyard had an IPTF of some kind back in jesus’ day. he would have kicked over their table too.
Comment by bobbie 10.31.05 @ 8:19 pmI would never want my blog to be linked from my church website. Scary!!!
Comment by Eric Wakeling 11.01.05 @ 1:48 amChurch Web Sites Linking to Pastor’s Blogs
More from Mark Oestreicher, this time around the Church Bureaucracy Award of the Month. I know Mark doesn’t actually produce these items (like Worst Church Idea of the Month) on a monthly basis, but it must seem that way when you’re in a position to …
Trackback by Church Marketing Sucks 11.03.05 @ 12:19 pmLove to know if this church website has links to any outside websites at all…
Comment by ko 11.03.05 @ 11:13 pmDoes anyone know if official decisions must be written like this in order to be legal under state and federal law? There is the scene in the movie The Apostle in which the pastor’s estranged wife and the youth pastor led a coalition to vote the pastor out of the church he founded, and she referred to secular law to back her up.
Comment by Michael Rew 11.04.05 @ 2:13 pmAmazing.
I’d be scared to link to a pastor’s blog too. Find out what they’re really like. The brutal, honest, transparent truth.. that’d be frightening.. wait maybe that’s just my church!
Comment by Adam 11.07.05 @ 4:41 pm[…] to Mark’s blog to catch up on my reading. And that is when I discovered this entry Blogs and the Church. It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything because I would have spit my coke o […]
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and kakhi’s to boot…
Comment by Grant 10.28.05 @ 11:20 pm