When our church consulting teams hire “spies” to visit churches, we usually give them only the name and address of the church. We want them to see if the church has a website and if the website is actually attractive and helpful. Here are several problems our “spies” have found with websites. Read More
I first posted a link to this article when it was originally posted on Chuck Lawless' own website. I believe that the article is even more important today than it was then. As other writers have emphasized, a church's website is now its front door. If the front page of the church's website does not grab and hold the attention of visitors to the website in the first sixty seconds of visiting the site, they are not going to take the time to read the other pages, listen to recordings of the pastor's sermons, or view any videos of the services that the church has been streaming online. One click and they will be gone. It is one of the unpleasant realities of today's world. I am in the habit of visiting church websites to see what churches are doing with their websites in hopes that I can learn from what they are doing. The websites that grab and hold my attention are those which do not have a static front page but which have a full screen video of the life and worship of the church. They provide visitors with a foretaste of what it might be like if they were to become involved in the church. The websites that quickly turn me off are those that show very little imagination or creativity. Among such websites are what may be described as "cookie cutter" websites. They all look a like as if they have been stamped from the same dough with a cookie cutter. They lack personality. Whether or not we realize it, every church has a personality of its own. It may be a good personality or an awful one. Even the greatest website in the world is not going to remedy the latter.
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