Does a congregation know more than the pastor?

"My congregants know more than I do" - Pastor Jeff Wenke, pastor of The Journey in Silicon Valley

MediaShift has an interesting look at the new way of doing church in Silicon Valley.

It was indeed a radical notion for a church to change its traditional structure, as its roots clearly lie in a very top-down, minister-knows-all hierarchy. For a pastor to say, “My congregants know more than I do” — in an echo of Dan Gillmor’s “My readers know more than I do” — is a near heresy, because the truth and power has always come down through the hierarchy of the church. Even though the rise of Protestants helped decentralize power of the priests in Catholicism, there’s still a top-down power structure inherent in most organized religions.
But times are changing, and attendance in organized religious services is on the downward trend. So one day, Andy Gridley (pictured here), the former Worship Pastor at The Journey, came upon the Newsweek story about Web 2.0 companies, The New Wisdom of the Web. He brought it to The Journey staff’s attention, and a plan was hatched to add more interactivity to the church services.

Thanks to Andrew for the link.