Mashable posted “8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist.” The second one was “Programmer.”

The post said that news organizations, wanting to make the transition to online journalism, are looking for journalists who also have skills with HTML, CSS, PHP, Flash, and other technologies.

“This means being able to report and present a quality story using multimedia, and having the skills to build and manage the platforms that present the stories.”

I could make the same argument regarding pastors. Ministers are primarily trained to speak–to stand at the pulpit and deliver a sermon. But our culture has gone beyond that. We value visuals and storytelling. Multimedia, and the platforms for presenting visual information, need to be part of the message. A PowerPoint presentation to accompany the sermon is the most basic example. But you can extend it to developing and using video, and to transferring sermons, announcements, and other information to the web.

Now, a lot of people will protest, “A pastor shouldn’t spend his time doing that. He should delegate it to someone on staff.” That works for the minority of pastors who actually have a staff, but who totally dominate the conversation. Since nearly everyone who is asked to present material to other ministers is from a multiple-staff church (because solo pastors, obviously, have no worthwhile ideas to contribute to world Christianity, so says our evangelical culture), that’s the idea that prevails. Don’t get me started.

But yet, the vast majority of senior pastors are solo pastors, without someone on staff who can do their graphics and web work. So wouldn’t the work of the Church be greatly enhanced if all of these pastors knew how to do some of that stuff?

For instance, basic familiarity with HTML would go a long way. If a small church has a website, chances are it’s the senior pastor who maintains it. The church website is now a basic, expected form of communication, yet most small-church websites look horrible and certainly wouldn’t attract people

It would be great if solo pastors understood how to create a web page, how to get video in a usable format, how to create graphics for use on the internet, how to create and post a podcast of their sermon.

Yes, it’s nice if a staffperson with deep expertise in these areas can handle such chores. But for the other 80% of pastors, a little knowledge could go a long way. Just as it does with journalists.