Church as InfoOrg...

As part of my research, I will be gathering and analyzing church produced information. I would imagine that most people would not consider churches as information organizations. The activities of worship and social outreach would predominate in people's minds. Yet two of the key activities of churches are preaching and teaching; both information intense activities. As a former pastor I know that a significant time investment goes into sermon preparation and presentation. What about preservation? Is that sermon a "one shot deal" or is that information preserved, stored and indexed in a way that it can be accessed by the congregation for future reference. I have benefited from reading some collected sermons from preachers of by gone years (here is one of my favourites). What about our teaching; if we use purchased curriculum, do we have a library where past materials used are archived? Are original class materials preserved? Or do those classes simply disappear as if they were never taught? What about communication, another information intense activity? I travel from time to time and it is my practice to always attend church on Sunday morning. The phone book tells me who is in my neighbourhood and the web tells me who they are. I am amazed sometimes that many church websites are so uninformative (here are one or two I like from smaller churches.) When I do arrive, I spend time looking at bulletin boards and information tables. Sometimes these are a lot like their websites. :-(

Churches produce a lot of information. I wonder how much time congregations spend thinking about how they manage all that information. This is not a new idea. Preserving important information has had a long history in the church: "since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught." The Gospel of Luke chapter 1.

I guess someone thought that information was important. ;-)