In Tony Morgan’s The New Traditional Church: Web Strategy he fairly characterizes how most church web sites are formulated: as bull horns. He then states that churches that are influencing are assuming people are online. I’m not sure about your church, but in my church only half the people are “online” and less than that are active internet users.
It has been eleven months since I turned on commenting on the church web site. It was part of an effort to open up the church site to enable a broader community and to start to engage the church in interactive activities. At around the same time I took over the church’s stale Facebook group ultimately changing it to a Facebook page to allow updates to be directly in people’s news feeds.
Generally, this effort of facilitating interaction has been unsuccessful, with one exception. There have been zero comments on the web site and four interactions on the Facebook page. This is not a function of the lack of opportunity for the church to interact (though we do need to generate better and more interesting content) as much as it is that they don’t interact online right now. Simply put, a large portion of my church community is not online right now and those who are do not significantly engage in social media activities. Our web site is being used primarily for its event calendar, pick up missed sermon or bulletin, and to allow newcomers to learn the basics of our church.
But our church is sending missionaries and support around the world (e.g. Amazon River Churches). And we’re growing. We are “influencing”. So, for us (for now), our “traditional” web site is suiting our purposes and is ready for when people (on both sides) start to use online technologies in a more meaningful way.
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This entry was posted on January 3, 2010 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Struggles, Web Ministry Changes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Our “Traditional” Church Web Site
by Daniel PedersenIn Tony Morgan’s The New Traditional Church: Web Strategy he fairly characterizes how most church web sites are formulated: as bull horns. He then states that churches that are influencing are assuming people are online. I’m not sure about your church, but in my church only half the people are “online” and less than that are active internet users.
It has been eleven months since I turned on commenting on the church web site. It was part of an effort to open up the church site to enable a broader community and to start to engage the church in interactive activities. At around the same time I took over the church’s stale Facebook group ultimately changing it to a Facebook page to allow updates to be directly in people’s news feeds.
Generally, this effort of facilitating interaction has been unsuccessful, with one exception. There have been zero comments on the web site and four interactions on the Facebook page. This is not a function of the lack of opportunity for the church to interact (though we do need to generate better and more interesting content) as much as it is that they don’t interact online right now. Simply put, a large portion of my church community is not online right now and those who are do not significantly engage in social media activities. Our web site is being used primarily for its event calendar, pick up missed sermon or bulletin, and to allow newcomers to learn the basics of our church.
But our church is sending missionaries and support around the world (e.g. Amazon River Churches). And we’re growing. We are “influencing”. So, for us (for now), our “traditional” web site is suiting our purposes and is ready for when people (on both sides) start to use online technologies in a more meaningful way.
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Tags: comments, community, facebook, social media
This entry was posted on January 3, 2010 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Struggles, Web Ministry Changes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.