National Church IT Association?

I know I've talked about this to other church IT folks, posted on it briefly a time or 2 and even mentioned it in the last Church IT Podcast ... does it make sense to have some sort of a National Church IT Association?

There's a National Association of Church Business Administration ... why not one for IT?

I'm still amazed at how little impact all our blogs have on getting more church IT staff/volunteers connected.  This is backed up every time I talk to or hear about a church (yes, even large churches) that have been looking to network with other church IT folks ... it happens more often than you think.

How do we get everyone better connected?

That was my main goal for getting the Church IT Roundtable off the ground.  While it's had a great start and the upcoming spring event is perhaps doubling the number that can attend, it still has many limitations on how many can actually participate.

So let's get rid of the physical space and travel limitations of the roundtable ... thus the interactive Church IT Discussions Podcast was born.  It appears to be reaching a larger audience ... over 300 downloads of the 3 shows to date!  That's certainly a start, but I'm still thinking bigger.

On my way down the road long range to-do list is pursue some sort of National Church IT Association.  On my 2007 to-do list is to get many of us at least thinking about it ... talking about it ... brainstorming ... pondering ... perhaps laying out some next steps ... etc.  For sure I'd like to find some time at the upcoming roundtable to dialog this with others ... hopefully Tony can find us a time slot.

Imagine the possibilities if even 1/4 of all the church IT staff/vols out there were connected ... talk about some serious Kingdom action taking place!

I really feel that this is worth pursuing.  So I'd like to encourage all of you to begin pondering this as well.  This will be one of those reoccurring threads as time progresses.

So let's start with step 1 - Do you think this is worth pursuing?  Would you join and encourage others to join such an association assuming it's done well?  Give me some feedback.