Every Church Online Blog

A Church is Not a Building

2008-08-06T21:22:00.004-05:00

So I bet you've been asking "Why don't he write?"

Simple reason. ECO took a back burner to finish grad school moving and getting a new job. But now I actually have a project. To continue making movie references I feel like the Ghostbusters when they finally get that first call and Janine yells "We Got One!"

The idea of this blog is to offer practical advice for churches, and without any church to give advice to, not much has been coming to mind. However, with this new project, I came across something I've seen many churches do that I think is a bad idea: use a picture of the church building as the focal point of the homepage.

Whenever I see this in a content guide I think back to Sunday School where we sang "The church is not a building..." The point of that song is to teach kids that the church is the group of people worshiping the Lord in that place, not the four walls and roof that shelter those people

I can understand being proud of your church building, butthink about it from the perspective of someone who has never been to your building before. Is a photo of your building the most impactful thing you can show them? Is that the image that is going to best show them the life of the church?

I think most congregations would answer that question "no." So if not the church building, then what?

Many churches who are more sermon centered use the branding of the current sermon or sermon series. This can make sense if that teaching is the primary offering of your church.

For many churches the primary offering is the community of believers, and what better way to communicate that community then to have pictures of that community on your homepage. Real, authentic, obviously not stock photography images of people worshiping.

The reality is that for your church it may be something else entirely, but unless your the Crystal Cathedral, I bet it's not your building.

Church of Incarnation

2007-07-12T08:33:00.001-05:00

I found the Church of the Incarnation website via Godbit. Overall I think it is a great website: good looking and easy to navigate.

There are two things I want to point out about the homepage. The first is an idea I've thrown around at work before, Doug can attest that I'm not stealing it from this site if we do it in the future. On the homepage there is a clear heading for the next service.

Doug and I got into a debate about just showing one service and whether or not it works. I think it makes it simple for someone thinking about attended and Doug pointed out the trade-off that it could look like the only way to connect with the church is that one service.

He's right that is a danger. Seeing it in practice, I feel highlighting the next time someone can be involved in the worship life of a faith community is a smart idea.

The other thing I love about the site is the big "three column" picture on the homepage. It is of the people worshiping, and you can tell these are real people! It also clearly communicates what this faith community is about.

What do you think of this site? Let me know in the comments.

Are you new here?

2007-07-03T08:21:00.001-05:00

Today Seth Godin has an idea I've been suggesting for churches for about three months. A big "First time here?" sign. I'm of the opinion that churches should have some sort of sign outside their worship center that draws new people in.

I would say you should go one better and connect that to your website. There should be a "First time here?" section of your homepage and the colors and fonts should match the banner.

The next step is that the "First time here?" section includes someone from the church taking about the church and then that's the person standing under the sign on Sunday mornings.

Imagine how welcoming to a visitor, they have already heard this person talk either in video or in their own words on the website, they recognize their face and know they have two kids and a dog.

That's the hospitality I think churches are called to.

Moveable Type Comes Home

2007-06-05T15:27:00.003-05:00

Back when I first heard of blogging engines Moveable Type was all the rage. When we were looking for Open Source platforms for use at Silas Partners, Moveable Type was out of the running because it's free version was not open source.

They recently announced a new version. Coverage comes from all over, but Read/Write web has a great overview.

This is a really good thing. Wordpress has sort of stood alone as the blog platform of choice, but not with Moveable Type moving back to Open Source it will give other platforms a run for their money. Competition is always good.

I'm especially interested to see the built in community features. These features are in high demand with churches. I'll be anxious to kick the tires on this when it is released later this year.

A Church with no Vision

2007-05-30T09:05:00.000-05:00

I get the usual quote: “Without a vision, the people perish.” I don’t believe it. via CMS

Separating church speak from real speak

2007-05-09T21:31:00.000-05:00

Confusing your ministries speech with normal everyday speech can be a big problem on the web. It can make a well designed website into a mess for an end user. We do a few things to make sure that doesn't happen.

Jared Spool at UIE Brain Sparks brings up a pet peeve of mine jargon on your website.

This is a problem almost every group that I have worked with has had to tackle. The groups website is full of words that are very meaningful to them, but not meaningful to their audience. It is an easy trap to fall into, since you look at your website and it makes sense. It also makes sense to your friends because they talk to you and they know your lingo.

This is especially prevelant in churches since they develop a language unique to that community. This common language isn't a bad thing, it is one of the things that binds us together.

However we have to remember the people visiting the website don't know our language and may not understand it if they here it out of context on a web page.

His suggestion to write down some words and get definitions from a group of people is a good one. We do something else around here that I think works very well.

A designer will write all the top level navigation up on a white-board and then call people into the conference room and read off some features of a website asking the person which category would they expect to find that feature.

You can duplicate this at home kids if you want. Take your website navigation and then some of the features on your website and try it with some friends and non-techy family.

See if their intuition matches up with how your site is structured.

Creating a Blog for your Church

2007-03-31T21:14:00.000-05:00

I recently created a screen cast for Youth Group Stuff on how to create a blog for your youth group using Blogger.

This demo will work for any ministry at your church, not just youth groups. A blog is a great way to keep people informed of what is going on at your church with minimal effort. It can also drive traffic to your main church website.

If your church doesn't have a website, you can create a blog in 3/4 of an hour, have it hosted for free. There really is no reason why every church shouldn't have a website with blogging tools that make it push-button simple.

If you create a blog following this tutorial, post it in the comments, you know you want to.

Connecting on the Web

2007-03-23T08:52:00.001-05:00

Mashups are all the rage now days. If you aren't a link follower, a mashup is the combining of two web applications to make a third one. I think they also give us a window on human behavior.

Alex from Read/WriteWeb dug a bit deeper and took a look at the popularity of various types of mashups. They found mapping mashups are the most popular. Then Alex post goes on to draw conclusions about why mashups are created and their rate of adoption, but I think there is another insight from this data.

Maps have meaning, we like to see things in proximity to each other. Somehow seeing dots on a map means more than seeing a list with radius information. Both forms communicate the same thing, but there is a feeling of closeness and familiarity when it's on a map.

Many people see the web as a force that stifles human interaction as people spend more time with their computers and less time with each other. You could have said the same thing about the telephone.

The way people interact changes, but the human desire for community does not. Praise God for that! I think the mapping mashups are scratching our itch to see who else is out there. When a person is not represented simply by a user name and headshot, but by a dot on a map, that person becomes connected to a physical location. I think something in our brain responds to that, it makes that person more real to us.

If you are serious about building community, then I say it's mapping time.

This post was orginally published on my work blog, Silas Notes.

Pastors as Bloggers

2007-03-17T06:13:00.000-05:00

I gave a talk this week at my wife Erin's intern cluster meeting. For those not familiar in the Lutheran Church seminarians who are out on internship (think of that like student teaching for pastors) meet once a month with other interns in their region. Brian Spahr and I split an hour, so neither of us had much time to present on our topic of "Technology in Ministry." Brian did a great job talking about some cool technologies pastors and churches can use to better do the work they are called to do. I might not remember all the links, so feel free to add them in the comments.

BackPack - online worship planning
Jott - quick way to take notes on the go
MyChurch - easy way for churches to go "Web 2.0"

I know there was a Podcasting network that Brian recommended but I can't remember it off the top of my head. I talked a bit about Pastors as Bloggers. My assertion was that Pastors are creating loads of content and most of it is not getting online. Then I suggested a blog is a great way for that content to get out there. From there we discussed why the pastors and not quite yet pastors there were not publishing their sermons and other teaching resources online. The discussion was honest and helpful. What keep coming up was a concern about the lack of control you have once you publish something on a blog. I was making the point that the conversations that would happen around a blog post are already happening just in the parking lot of the church, everyone agreed. However, many of the current pastors felt as if the fact that these conversations would be "written" down lends more weight and can create more of a problem. My goal with the talk was not to convert everyone into bloggers, but to get them thinking about how conversations about church are going to be moving online, and if they aren't contributing to that conversation then all that is there is what people say about them. I would encourage all pastors and leaders in the church to search for their names in their search engine of choice and see what comes up. If you don't like what you see, then maybe it's time to start putting your voice out there in the conversation.