Faith and Web

Once upon a time (around 2000), I quit as the webmaster for my church. For a while the site was fine, but then the new webmaster began to neglect things. About a year later, the minister and a couple of other people more or less begged me to return. I said yes mostly because I had to clench my teeth before I could stomach looking at the site.

As soon as I’d tidied it up, I immediately found someone to replace me. We worked together for about a year, with me ostensibly training him. Then one day it dawned on me that I didn’t want to quit again – that it was a whole different experience than it had been in the past.

Same church, same website – so what changed?

The big difference, from my worms-eye perspective, was that I was happy. This morning I asked myself, why? What makes it so I enjoy it now? Here, as best I can tell, in priority order are the reasons it’s now a good experience.

1. Appreciation. Both the website and its web mistresses are valued. We are often told thank you and, unlike before, a critical mass of the leadership understands that the site is important. The minister asking me to do this work was a clear indication of how much this perception had changed. The website was no longer taken for granted.
2. A wonderful church. I love my church. I’m lucky and I know it. It wasn’t always so, and this I don’t take for granted. We aren’t perfect, but we are generally kind to each other. And almost every time I go to church, I come away knowing that it helps me to be a better person.
3. Shared responsibility. I’m not alone. The person I asked to be my replacement has evolved into my co-webmistress, plus we have a crack programmer who is glad to pitch in. We work well together, and the pressure is never exclusively on any one of us.
4. Great editors. Content is king. Our fabulous editors not only watch the site’s content to be sure it’s okay, they also provide critical information, such as upcoming sermon topics.
5. A strong connection to the larger community. The Communication Committee oversees the site. It meets monthly, and we have a great time together, covering business and eating copious amounts of chocolate. We also have a Board representative, who regularly updates the leadership and can help us vet major decisions. For example, this year a new non-profit wanted to use us as a web host. We talked about it as a committee, and made a recommendation to the Board, which they approved.
6. Laughter. It’s a rare meeting that we don’t dissolve over the latest. The big joke right now is that one of our editors emails dead people. But there’s always something.
7. Clear boundaries, especially over content. One of the most pernicious issues for webmasters is a vague loosey-goosey sense that we are responsible for the content. For example, Board members have been known to say, “You need better information for newcomers on the site.” Our stock response has become: “We’re just the plumbers. Y’all provide the water that goes through the pipes. Can you send us this information and promise that you will maintain it in the future?” Actually, the Communication Committee shoulders this responsibility more than the webmasters. It works better when the chair, who isn’t a webmaster, says something like this to the person inquiring.
8. Adequate policies. We have a fairly simple publications policy, which includes the website. When the going gets tough and nerves start to fray, we haul out the policy. It almost always helps.
9. The work itself. I love creating websites. I’m hard pressed to say why (maybe that heady, almost magical, mixture of code and graphics?), though I know I’m not alone in this. At times, over drinks, my webmaster pals will marvel that the web is here at all and how we adore it. We can’t not do this work.

I wonder. Is this the way it is for other church webmasters? And when congregations provide a great environment for their webmasters, is it more likely you will have good sites? Or will you just have fatcat webmasters?