Hi folks,

Ben van der Merwe, coordinator of our intercessors in Hobsons Bay, sent me to the website of St. Marks Lutheran Church, Melton, http://home.iprimus.com.au/klausb/index.html to discover that their website email contact is a webservant, not a webmaster. This set me thinking again about postmodernity, metanarratives, totalitarian language, and such. It would be interesting to see how many people who construct and maintain websites, many of whom would consider themselves to be postmodern, still use this terminology of power and control. I did, until today.

I did a quick search and found that there may be quite a few who have come to this realisation. The first one I found was Calvary Chapel in Motherwell, Scotland http://calvarychapel.com/motherwell/email_feedback.htm

I soon found that this is a deliberate Calvary Chapel policy: http://calvarychapel.com/webservants

The Christian Music Web http://christianmusicweb.com/jims_page.html was the next I found. There are many more.

Interestingly, Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncansville, Texas, manages to hold to both positions simultaneously: http://www.holyspiritcatholic.com/webmaster/siteinfo.htm

We have an opportunity here to begin or join a new and healthy trend on the Internet. It might seem a small thing, but I’m sure people, especially the younger ones, pick up on these things pretty quickly. As the webhost provider and administrator/controller (there we go again) for a dozen or so sites I’m in a position to actually change the email addresses, which is better than simply bolting the concept on as an afterthought.

Hmm… the thought of being able to change other peoples’ email addresses… doesn’t that give you a buzz… I have the POWER!!!

Mal Dow

——————————————————————- Beth Tephillah Ministry Centre and Williamstown Baptist Church. Pastors Malcolm & Diana Dow http://www.bethtephillah.com