Ministry in the Digital Age: Strategies and Best Practices for a Post-Website World by David T. Bourgeois. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2013. Paperback, 144 pages, list price $15.00.

As a “Millennial” who builds church websites and studies Reformed theology, I’ve often felt a tension between my theology and my occupation. Let me try to explain.

Reformed theology teaches me to base my life on the Bible, God’s Word. And the more I read the Bible, the more I find it pushes me to pursue relationships — personal, face-to-face relationships. Unlike every other book I’ve ever read, as the Bible draws me into its God-breathed story, it pushes me back out into God’s world, where I am called to the glorious duties and delights of loving my wife, shepherding our children, and worshiping the Triune God — whom to know is eternal life (John 17:3).

In other words, the more I study Reformed theology, the more I sense the need to limit the time I spend reading theology books so that I can enjoy the adventure of loving my neighbor unto God’s glory in the here and now. The deeper I get into God’s Word, the more I love being in God’s world with God’s people. The more I get to know my Creator, the more I love the sheer physicality and concreteness and contingency of being a creature in God’s creation.

To summarize: Reformed theology assumes the importance of personal, face-to-face presence in ministry and life (thank you, Greg Reynolds) and cautions us against the quest for the Next Big Thing (thank you, Carl Trueman).

Personal presence, the quest for the Next Big Thing, and the gnostic bias of the World Wide Web

Meanwhile, the economic realities of the website development business tug me in almost a completely opposite direction. Web developers make money by doing the things Trueman and Reynolds warn us about.

First, web developers seek the Next Big Thing. To compete in the web development marketplace, finding the Next Big Thing isn’t always just a pleasurable diversion: It is an economic necessity. Competitive advantage as a web developer is driven by whether or not I can adapt to new technology and changing consumer habits. This proves Carl Trueman’s point about the allure of the quest for the Next Big Thing.

Spiderweb photo by Josef F. Stuefer

Second, web developers help people and organizations transcend the need for personal presence. The impulse which led Tim Berners-Lee to invent the World Wide Web was a desire to minimize the need for personal, face-to-face presence among academic researchers. I don’t think it is an overstatement to propose that the Web taps into a gnostic impulse to shun the material world and embrace the immaterial. Thus the Web pulls us toward fragmentation and dislocation even as it promises to draw us together.

Insofar as the Web has a gnostic tendency, our relationship to the Web is like the relationship of insects to a spiderweb: The primary purpose of a spiderweb is to catch and ensnare the insect, so that the spider can consume it. And the Web can consume us, too, if it becomes an idol of our hearts. (By the way, did I mention that Tim Berners-Lee is a Unitarian Universalist and has publicly commented on the similarities between UUism and the Web?)

All this means that Greg Reynolds has a good point as well about the inherent liabilities of Web-based communication: These liabilities are baked into the system. “Disembodied life online [Reynolds wrote in Ordained Servant] can promote the tendency to avoid the messy business of life in a fallen world—of sinners, saved by grace, but with many remaining imperfections, learning to live together in truth, forgiveness, and love. This is why we have been careful as a denomination [the OPC] to not unwittingly draw people away from local face to face existence by centralizing church interaction, especially through the use of social media.”

To summarize, orthodox Christianity prioritizes the “personal” and the “old”; the spirit of the Web values the “new” and the “impersonal.”

Sorting out the difficulties and on to the book review

All of the above is background to the main topic: a new book called Ministry in the Digital Age by David T. Bourgeois. Bourgeois is Associate Professor of Information Systems at Biola University. I first learned about Ministry in the Digital Age from an ad in byFaith Magazine about forthcoming books from IVP Praxis. Instantly, I knew I had to learn more: “Can this book help me sort out the philosophical tensions and practical difficulties of using the Web in ministry?”

Ministry in the Digital Age, Part 1: Theory

The contents of Ministry in the Digital Age can be grouped into two parts:

• Theory (Chapters 1 – 3)
• Practice (Chapter 4 – 7)

In Chapter 1 (“What Hath God Wrought?”), Bourgeois provides a brief history of communication technologies from Roman roads of the 1st century AD to Gutenberg’s movable-type printing press of 1440 to the “digital era” which began in the 1960s with the invention of ARPAnet and email. He shows that the tension between the importance of face-to-face communication and the power of media is an old one. This chapter raised a question: “How do we balance the power of media to transcend time and space with the Biblical doctrine of the sacred concreteness of face-to-face, personal presence?” The church has faced this issue throughout her history. Bourgeois doesn’t provide a definitive answer to this question, but he at least helps us to see that we the church of the 21st century are not alone. Church history provides abundant resources for reflection on the use and abuse of technology in ministry.

Next, in Chapter 2 (“Getting in the Stream”), Bourgeois focuses on the continuing development of digital media. The rise of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube show that the emphasis of the web has shifted from information to relationships. Bourgeois exhorts his readers “to go where the people are” (pg. 25). He introduces the concept of “information streams.” Information streams are “the flow of digital content that our potential audience puts in front of themselves every day” (pg. 26). Effective communication in the digital age means going where the people are by identifying and entering the information streams they use. This is common sense, but it was a lightbulb moment for me. You cannot communicate with your audience online unless you know their online habits. By doing research to understand how people in your church like to get information, you can improve communication. Still, going back to Greg Reynolds’ insights about the priority of face-to-face personal presence, we must be careful to recognize the limitations of online relationships.

The disruptive innovations of the moment are mobile devices and social media. But if the history of communication technology teaches us anything, it teaches us that communication technology continues to change. In Chapter 3 (“Creating Change”), Bourgeois  summarizes and extends the “theology of change” set forth by father-son team Aubrey and Michael Malphurs in Church Next: Using the Internet to Maximize Your Ministry. Malphurs’ theology of change consists of three components: function, form, and freedom.

• Functions are “timeless, unchanging, nonnegotiable precepts based in scripture” (pg. 41).
• Forms are “temporal, changing, negotiable practices, based on an organization’s culture and methods, that we are free to choose in order to accomplish our functions” (pg. 43).
• Freedom is the freedom (and responsibility) to choose the forms which are best suited to perform the functions of Scripture.

Westminster Abbey 2011 by Marcin Bialek

This distinction between form and function was another eye-opener to me. It is a useful distinction. It also reminds me of the way the Westminster Confession of Faith explains the relationship between Scriptural precepts and Christian prudence:

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture… Nevertheless,… there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed (WCF 1.6, emphasis mine).

Nevertheless, Malphurs’ theology of change is undoubtedly something to which most Reformed churchmen would want to provide additional qualifications and boundaries. For example, the worship of God is the primary function of the local church. But this does not mean we are free to use whatever forms we like to perform this function. The Westminster Confession of Faith describes a regulative principle of worship which provides additional boundaries around the freedom we have to choose forms to accomplish the function of worship:

The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture (WCF 21.1, emphasis mine).

But Bourgeois’ avoidance or ignorance of Reformed confessional standards is just a quibble. I don’t at all get the impression that Bourgeois wants to dilute the authority of Scripture in liturgy or church polity. He is not a radical revisionist emerging church partisan. He limits his comments to the use of technology in communication, and his comments demonstrate an admirable attitude of caution and self-restraint:

• “Just because we can do something does not mean we should do something” (pg. 46).
• “The forms we choose must help us accomplish our biblical functions” (pg. 46).
• We should avoid adopting a technology if it is poor stewardship of time, money, and people (pg. 47).
• To the extent that “the medium is the message,” we should consider the effect the technology we select will have on the perception of our organization (pgs. 47-50).

Ministry in the Digital Age, Part 2: Practice

Chapters 4-7 of Ministry in the Digital Age provide practical application. In these chapters, Bourgeois guides church leaders through the process of developing a communications strategy. His advice is based on primary research he has been conducting since 2008, and buttressed throughout by statistics.

In Chapter 4, Bourgeois introduces the “Digital Ministry Framework.” The digital ministry framework is a conceptual model consisting of three parts:

1. People
2. Processes
3. Technology

“Technology is not the hard part” of developing a digital communications strategy, Bourgeois writes (pg. 51). “For most ministries, spending less time on technology and more on people and process will bring a better chance of success” (pg. 53). Making decisions about what technologies to use is important, but not nearly as important as considering the people and processes involved.

Chapters 5 and 6 provide a 13-step process for planning, implementing, and running your digital ministry:

1. Define the purpose and objectives for the use of the digital tools by your ministry.
2. Describe the target group(s) for your digital presence.
3. Research your target group(s)’ use of digital technologies.
4. Determine the resources available.
5. Analyze possible digital technologies for use.
6. Select the tools you will use.
7. Plan for the implementation and operation of your digital ministry.
8. Forecast results.
9. Assign roles and responsibilities.
10. Write it up!
11. Carry out the plan.
12. Evaluate results.
13. Do it again!

This section of the book alone is worth the price of the book. It takes the mystery out of developing a digital communication strategy, providing a practical roadmap.

Finally, in Chapter 7, Bourgeois provides “some basic guidelines for developing a digital ministry that respects the privacy of its constituents and protects its information” (pg. 114). Due to the subject matter, this is a rather dull chapter, but it is an important one. I have dealt firsthand with two of the common privacy concerns he mentions: Photographs and news about missionaries.

• On photographs: “Provide a method for those who do not want their images posted online to let you know. You should also provide a way for people to easily notify you if you posted something that they want taken down” (pg. 106).
• On news about missionaries: “I would suggest getting specific permission from each missionary before posting their information digitally. Missionaries frequently have specific policies about what information can be made public and what information cannot” (pg. 106).

Conclusions and Next Steps

Photo of Roman road in Israel, by Ori

Look at church history. Look at the God-breathed Scriptures themselves. There has always been a need for the people of God to strike a balance between the sacredness of physical presence and the transcending power of communications media — be they Roman roads, printing presses, or social media. Communications media can never fully capture or fulfill the mission of Christ’s church. But neither can Christ’s church fulfill her mission without availing herself of the media technologies of the day. A substantial part of the apostle Paul’s ministry was carried out through the written word. Likewise, the printing press was helpful in spreading the ideas of the Protestant Reformation.

Ministry in the Digital Age fills an important gap by providing church leaders with level-headed counsel and a practical road-map for developing a communication strategy for their church. As noted above, I have reservations about some aspects of the “theology of change” — more what it doesn’t say than what it does say. Nor did this book resolve the philosophical angst I mentioned at the beginning of this review. But overall, I highly recommend this book to church leaders. Every church which is serious about using the Web as part of its outreach should get this book and read it. Go listen to the interview with David Bourgeois at ReformedCast if you haven’t done so already.

What are the next steps? I have already begun to revise our church website design process here at Five More Talents based on the Digital Ministry Framework set forth in Ministry in the Digital Age. This framework (people, processes, technology) provides a helpful model for understanding your church website, email newsletter, or Facebook page in the context of your local church as an organization. It is helping me to serve local churches as they think through the purpose and function of their church websites.

My goal is to see more and more churches using communication technology efficiently, effectively — and with notable self-restraint – rather than simply “freaking out” at the breakneck pace of technological and societal change and grabbing for the nearest shiny object. In Ministry in the Digital Age, David Bourgeois provides the context and “big picture” churches need to be good stewards of emerging communications media.

Update: You can also visit David Bourgeois’ Ministry in the Digital Age website to learn more about the book, including three free preview chapters. And if you are really an over-achiever, you can check out the biola.digital conference website for extra credit.

There’s a huge cyber-war happening on the Internet.  You may not see it, but the battles are very real.

Last September, Bank of America was hit by a massive cyber attack, which Fox News described as originating from a radical  Islamic group.

Largest Battle in Internet History?

Last week, one of the largest attacks in Internet history erupted into all out war – “causing widespread congestion and jamming crucial infrastructure around the world”.

Several church websites, hosted by Five More Talents were caught in the cross-fire last Thursday – after a huge DDoS battle  erupted on March 18.

Patrick Gilmore, chief architect at Akamai Networks, said the attacks, which are generated by swarms of computers called bot-nets,  concentrate data streams that are larger than the Internet connections of entire countries. He likened the technique, to using a machine gun to spray an entire crowd when the intent is to kill one person.

“It was the largest publicly announced DDoS attack in the history of the Internet,” according to Gilmore.

“These things are like nuclear bombs,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare.

The so-called distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks have reached previously unknown magnitudes, growing to a data stream of 300 billion bits per second,  according to the New York Times.

It Gets Worse

A cyber attack yesterday (March 29) – disrupted service for American Express customers for several hours. According to blogger J. G. Sandom, the attacks have changed from espionage to destruction.   “We are engaged in a cyber war with Iran – and their programmers are getting better and better every day.”

“With their campaign against American financial institutions, the Iranian hackers  have taken these attacks to the next level.  Instead of using individual personal computers to fire Web traffic at each bank, they infected powerful, commercial data centers with sophisticated malware and directed them to simultaneously fire at each bank, giving them the horsepower to inflict a huge attack.”

David’s Slingshot

With all these Philistine cyber threats sounding more scary than a Frank Peretti novel, what’s a little church to do? With hackers from China, North Korea, and Iran taking down mega-corporations, how is your little church website going to withstand the onslaught if attacked (or caught in the cross-fire)?  When sophisticated hackers utilizing the best resources of rogue nations have moved from controlling PC bot-nets to commandeering whole data centers, how will anyone survive?

This is the part of the movie where the scary music starts … very softly at first …

When a pastor from one of the churches we support emailed to say he could not access his website last week – we knew something was up.  Down might be a better way of saying it.  Then one of our technicians called to report a similar incident.  It turns out that three of the church websites we support were not accessible via the AT&T network. People could access these websites via Comcast, Cox, and other internet service providers (ISPs) – but people using AT&T complained that the “website was down” for several days.  We could access the website (and we tested it – using diagnostic tools –  from 50 cities around the globe). But a few people (including the pastor) said the website was still … wait for it … inaccessible.  What was going on?

This was all happening during the largest DDoS attacks in the history of the internet.

Some tenacious technicians at the AT&T Network Operations Center (NOC) were working night and day – fighting unseen but powerful spirits – changing routes, chasing daemons, running from zombies, battling botnets,  slamming doors, and ultimately stopping intruders with a black hole.

When David faced Goliath, he chose five smooth stones (sound familiar?) and put them in his shepherd’s pouch.  Scripture records he only used one.  Yet he prepared for battle knowing “the battle is the Lord’s”.

Five More Talents uses  five (no kidding) different data centers and a variety of web servers.  Does that surprise you? Since many church websites are “low traffic” – some people people have suggested that it would simplify our operation (and save money) if we combined all the websites on to one big shared server. But what if that big server went down? What if the whole data center was infected, black-holed, or destroyed?

• That’s why our web servers are scattered across five different data centers.
• That’s why we keep your website security patches and plugins updated to the latest version.
• That’s why we scan and monitor your website with Sucuri  – looking for malware and vulnerabilities.
• That’s why we keep full offsite backups  (secure copies) – in a totally different data center.
• That’s also why we don’t offer the cheapest web hosting plan on the planet.

Praise the Lord and Change Your Password

You know what you need to do.  Make sure it’s a strong one.  This might help.

Related Notes

…  and sheet music – in case you want to sing along:

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition is a song written by Frank Loesser in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor that marked United States involvement in World War II.  The song describes a chaplain and soldiers who are under attack from an enemy.  The chaplain (“sky pilot”) is asked to say a prayer for the men who were engaged in firing at the oncoming planes.  In the song, the chaplain puts down his Bible,  grabs one of the ship’s gun turrets and begins firing back, saying, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”.

“Technology is not the hard part,” said Dr. David Bourgeois in a recent interview on ReformedCast. “People and processes are the hard part.”

Dr. Bourgeois is Associate Professor of Information Systems at BIOLA University and author of a forthcoming book entitled Ministry in the Digital Age: Strategies and Best Practices for a Post-Website World. 

In his interview with ReformedCast, Dr. Bourgeois summarized his 144-page book. Ministry in the Digital Age, he said, grew out of his professional experience and academic training in information systems, and his deep love for the Church. This episode of ReformedCast should be required listening for every church leader who cares about the flourishing and outreach of his local church or ministry.

One of Dr. Bourgeois’ disruptive insights is that the Internet is now “post-website world.” It is important for us as church website developers and church leaders to understand that people are not so much “surfing the web” as accessing “digital streams of information.” These “digital streams of information” include Facebook, email, YouTube, Google Search, text messages, and Twitter.

As creatures of habit, our experience of the web is largely focused on our “digital information streams” of choice. Some people prefer email, Google Search, and Twitter. Other people prefer Facebook and text messaging.

The point is that you must understand your target audience. You must know the information streams your people prefer to use. Do they prefer Facebook? Do they prefer email? Do they prefer Twitter? You will have to do some research to answer this question definitively. And the answers may surprise you.

Understanding the communication and media consumption habits of your target audience is a key part of developing an effective communications strategy. The better you understand your target audience, the better you will be able to put in place the technology, people, and processes to open lines of communication with them.

These are the kinds of issues and questions we are always exploring here at Five More Talents. Technology changes. But the need for effective communication remains constant. Our goal is to equip you for effective ministry in our connected age. The needs and the opportunities are tremendous.

Photography is a key component of every website we do. Over the years, we’ve combed through thousands — probably tens of thousands — of photos for church websites.

In this post, we share some things we’ve learned along the way. These 20 photo ideas are divided into three categories:

1. People
2. Close Ups
3. Abstract Imagery

People

A church is not a building. Rather, it is a group of people “called out” and “set apart” by God for his purposes.

By using photos of real people on your church website, you communicate sound theology, make an emotional connection with website visitors,  and dispel superficial understandings of what the church is.

Here are 10 different kinds of “people photos” you could consider using on your church website:

1. Members of congregation singing
2. Worship leaders singing
3. People singing with hymnals
4. People talking and smiling before or after the worship service
5. The pastor
6. Church officers: elders and deacons
7. Sunday School or Christian Education class
8. People helping out with building maintenance at the church building or in the community
9. People at special events such as Vacation Bible Schools, Missions Conferences, etc.
10. People on mission trips

Close Ups

Each church meeting place has its own unique character. Close ups of distinctive elements of the church building and the surrounding community help prospective visitors feel more comfortable with what they can expect when they visit your church for the first time.

Here are some ideas for photographic close ups:

1. Pews
2. Bibles and hymnals
3. Communion elements
4. Details of interior architecture (pews, windows, chandeliers, etc.)
5. Details of exterior architecture (steeple, steps, etc.)
6. Text of a key verse in an open Bible
7. Familiar outdoor landmark near church meeting place

Abstract Imagery

Sometimes creating non-photographic images is the best way to get your point across. Here are some quick and simple ways to create distinctive graphics to announce sermon series, new classes, or an upcoming special event.

1. Use Pixlr Express to add abstract special effects and textures to a photo
2. Use part of a Gustave Dore Bible illustration
3. Create a Wordle from a key Scripture passage

Conclusion

Finally, use common sense by remembering that photographers and the people they photograph have rights protected by law:

1. Respect people’s rights to privacy by getting their permission before using their photos on your website.
2. Respect photographer’s rights by getting their permission to use photos on your website.

Disclaimer: We’re web developers and digital media experts — not lawyers — and we are not giving professional legal advice here. Please consult with a lawyer if you have more detailed questions about laws as they apply to photography on websites.

Photo by Talitha Belokonny. Used by permission.

The short answer is a resounding “Yes!”

You need a mobile-friendly website because a greater and greater percentage of web traffic is mobile traffic. According to StatCounter Global Stats, 14 percent of all web traffic now comes from smartphones such as iPhones and Androids. That’s about 20 times as much mobile traffic as there was back in 2008 when we first began developing websites for churches.

If the present trend contiques, you can expect that  by the end of 2013, over 20% of all web traffic will be mobile traffic: People looking at your website on their smartphones.

Desktop Traffic vs. Mobile Traffic from Jan 2010 to Jan 2013

At this point, you may object: “But the graph above shows that over 85% of traffic is still desktop traffic. I don’t need to worry too much about being mobile-friendly yet.”

To this, I offer a number of responses:

First, mobile traffic is only one facet of the increasing diversity of web traffic. The web is now a multi-device environment. In addition to smartphones, people are also using tablet devices such as iPads, Amazon Kindle Fires, and the like. Some people are even using the web on television screens.

Second, mobile traffic is steadily increasing relative to desktop traffic. Over the course of three years, this has been a steady trend except for a plateau in the second half of 2011. There is no good reason to believe that mobile traffic will not continue to increase over the course of 2013 and on into the future.

Finally, remember that nearly 50 percent of North American adults have smartphones now (source: Our Mobile Planet). You may not use your smartphone to surf the web as much as your computer. But the potential is there. And chances are good that you would surf the web on your smartphone more often if more websites were mobile-friendly.

Based on data from Our Mobile Planet

As mentioned above, the web is now a multi-device environment. How is your church website doing in this changing environment? Is your website helping you communicate effectively and efficiently with your members and visitors?

We’re helping churches such as Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Wilmington, DE and Christian blogs such the Aquila Report adapt to the multi-device web. And we can help your church, non-profit, or publication do the same.

Contact Us Today »

Do you have a smartphone? Or a tablet? If not, I bet someone you know has one. And I bet they use it all the time to visit their favorite websites.

What does this mean for your church website? It means that your church website needs to work well on smartphones and tablets, not just desktops and laptops.

What do you think of our latest church website, for Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, DE? Take a look at it now, if you haven’t already. Look at it on your laptop/desktop. Then look at it on your iPhone or Android smartphone. (Or ask your wife or daughter if you can borrow hers for a couple minutes.)

Here’s what you’ll see on your desktop/laptop computer:

Screenshot of homepage of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, DE – click to visit the church website

Go ahead, take a few minutes to explore the EOPC website on your computer. What do you think? Is the design appealing? Does the navigation system make it easy for you to get around the site and find what you need?

Now, take a look at the website on your smartphone or tablet device. If you’re using a smartphone (iPhone or Android), you should see something like this:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Now, in case you are still feeling under-whelmed, take a look at this “before” and “after” slideshow. The “before” slides are from the previous design which was “one size fits all.” The “after” slides are from the new design by 5MT. Which one of the following websites would you prefer to use on a smartphone?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So… You’ve seen how we helped Emmanuel Presbyterian Church with their website. Before their website made you squint when you used it on your iPhone or Android device. Now it responds to whatever device you prefer to use: smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. We even tested the website on older versions of Internet Explorer to make folks with old PCs have a good user experience too.

Good websites don’t leave anyone out. They put your content and your users first.

That’s key to our mission here at 5MT: To test your website so thoroughly that everyone who visits your church website has a pleasant, friendly experience. We are here to help you highlight your message so that (Lord willing) your church can be more effective in its God-given mission of gathering and perfecting the saints.

Do you want to learn more about how we can help you make your church website more effective in 2013? Click the button below to visit our Contact page.

Contact Us Today »

Yesterday was Reformation Day 2012. It was the 495th anniversary of the day Martin Luther first published his “95 Theses,” igniting the movement which has come to be known as the “Protestant Reformation.”

Reformation Day is a good day to reflect on why we do what we do here at Five More Talents. We spend a lot of time building websites for Reformed churches, non-profits, and conferences. We do this because we long to see Reformed churches flourish. In the words of 18th-century hymn-writer Isaac Watts,

We long to see Thy churches full, 
That all the chosen race 
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.

(Source: “How Sweet and Awful is the Place”)

The legacy of the Reformers

I thank God for His servants the Reformers. I thank God for their legacy which lives on in tens of thousands of Reformed congregations throughout the world. As the late Dr. Jack Arnold wrote,

The Reformers, while not free from fault, were men with pure motives and high aims. They were unique in the history of the church as men of intellectual ability and passion for Jesus Christ. Most of what they wrote is still as relevant today as when it was written, for most of the same issues prevail at this very hour. The Reformers set forth the Bible and opposed all false religious systems. What the Reformers maintained was in the main truth — God’s own truth as revealed in the Scriptures. (Source: “The Cause and Results of the Reformation,” italics mine.)

The Web is the “new printing press”

How does this relate to our work making websites for the church? Consider the role of the technology in the Reformation.

It is well-known that the printing press was an important tool in spreading the 16th-century Protestant Reformation in Europe. In Germany, Martin Luther, Philipp Melancthon, and Lucas Cranach used the printing press to publish pamphlets and engravings which embodied their ideas. They leveraged the technologies of their time in their quest to reform the church “in accordance with the Word of God.”

Fast forward to the 21st century. The World Wide Web is the “new printing press.” As those who long to see “God’s churches full,” shouldn’t we seek to leverage the power of the Web as the Reformers sought to leverage the power of the printing press?

Does your website leverage the full power of the Web?

As you reflect on the precious legacy of the Reformers this week, take a few moments to ask some questions about your website:

1. Is your website up-to-date and easy-to-use — not only on desktops and laptops, but also tablets and smartphones? To ensure a delightful user experience, we perform extensive testing on every website we build to ensure that it runs well on smartphones and tablets in addition to desktops and laptops
2. Does the design of your website create a positive emotional connection with website visitors? We hand-craft your website to make a positive first impression, connect with your audience, and persuade them to act.
3. Does your church website convey the beauty and excellence of God’s truth? We want every website we build to point to the beauty and excellence of the Creator. Soli Deo gloria!

If you long to see the Lord’s churches full, and you believe that Web technology can help your church, ministry, or event, we would love to hear from you. Let’s talk soon!

Contact Us Today »

Image by 96dpi on Flickr

When you hire Five More Talents for a church website development project, we begin the process by asking you questions and listening to your answers. Your local congregation is unique. Our goal is to develop a website which reflects your specific mission, vision, calling, and personality. To achieve that goal, we need to get to know you first — which is one of the greatest privileges of our work.

So once you have decided to develop a new church website, we do two things: First, we give you a series of questionnaires to fill out. Second, we set up a project kick-off meeting, typically a phone teleconference. The questionnaires include a variety of important questions addressing all aspects of the website development project. Questions range from “What domain name(s) (if any) have been registered for the church?” to “What is the overall message you want your church website to convey to your target audience?”

Once we have received the completed questionnaires from you, we schedule the project kick-off meeting. In this meeting, we review your input on the questionnaires and clarify anything that is missing or unclear. We also provide you with access to the website development area, so that you can monitor the progress of your website throughout the duration of the project. Finally, we discuss the project timeline, which is usually at least four to six weeks. Above all, we strive to keep the lines of communication open throughout the project.

Here’s how the church website development process proceeds after the kick-off meeting:

Step One – Choose and customize a design.

You will get to select a design template from our extensive library. Based on your input in the questionnaires and the project kick-off meeting, we will provide you with two or three options. From there, you will select which design template you like the best. Then, based on your input, we customize the template for your church. The extent of customization depends on which service package you have chosen. Contact us for more details. However, we are able to customize all aspects of the site design: logo, color scheme, typography, and textures.

Step Two – Create or adapt content.

The content — text, images, and audio — is the core of your website. We begin by identifying the content you already have. Your existing content may include photos, sermon recordings, and text content such as vision statements and staff biographies. Once we have inventoried what you already have, it is easier to see what is still missing. Then we work with you to develop a plan for creating the desired content for your new church website. If desired, we can draft text for pages and provide stock photography ideas.

Step Three – Develop functionality.

“Functionality” means the more advanced features of the church website which engage website visitors. These features include sermon media libraries, upcoming events calendars, web forms, photo galleries, and “featured content” slideshows. The purpose of these components is not only to create a good first impression, but also to keep visitors coming back for more by providing them with useful tools. For example, sermon media libraries serve a dual purpose: First, they give prospective visitors a taste of the preaching. Second, they give regular attenders and members an opportunity to listen to a sermon they missed, or listen to a sermon again. Upcoming events calendars are particularly useful for churches with mid-week meetings or activities. These calendars can be closely integrated with Google Maps to make it easy for people to quickly identify “What? When? Where? How?”

Step Four - Fine tune usability.

Make sure the church website is easy-to-use on both the front-end and the administrative back-end. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to update your church website, and as easy as possible for users to navigate your website and find what they want. To accomplish this goal, we think carefully about things like page layouts, navigation menus, and placement of sidebar components. Workflows are also important. For example, if you ask us to put an event registration form on your church website, we test and examine the event registration process to ensure that it flows smoothly.

Step Five – Ensure findability.

Finally, we want to make sure that it is as easy as possible for people to find your church website if we are going to spend all that time and energy customizing the design, creating content, developing functionality, and fine-tuning usability. Otherwise, all that time and effort is wasted! Findability, which includes search engine optimization (SEO), is actually a key consideration throughout the development process:

1. Design: Is the underlying HTML code friendly to search engines? Remember that search engines are text-based. All those beautiful images, colors, fonts, and textures in your design — they mean nothing to a search engine.
2. Content: Text content is the heart of findability. Generally speaking, the more original text content you have on your website, the more likely it is to be found by people searching for matching keywords.
3. Functionality: Great features are more likely to generate interest and buzz among website visitors, making it more likely to return to the website and to share it with their friends via social media sites such as Facebook.
4. Usability: Page URLs, page titles, and site navigation systems influence the ease with which people are able to find your site via search engines.

Leadership, usability, content strategy, and analytics are as important as a snazzy design when it comes to the success of your church website.

1. Who’s in charge? Is somebody in charge? Is anybody in charge?

Almost all of the pastors I know work overtime preparing sermons and shepherding the flock. That’s as it should be. Pastors should focus on pastoring, and delegate the responsibility of maintaining the church website to trustworthy, reliable stewards. Sometimes this can be done effectively on a volunteer basis. But volunteers often lose interest in the project over time. That is why it can be a good investment to pay someone to keep your church website up-to-date.

2. Is the church website easy-to-use, fast, and simple?

To paraphrase the apostle, does your church website “take every pixel captive”? In Planting an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Rev. Ross Graham reminds us that a church website is a form of advertising.

“The purpose of advertising,” writes Rev. Graham, “is to get people to visit the church’s services of worship, where they will be exposed to the preaching of God’s Word. Therefore, such advertising must be factual and easily and quickly read” (emphasis mine).

In other words, sometimes overzealous web designers need to be reminded to restrain themselves. Visual pyrotechnics can actually hurt a site if they slow it down or amount to a confusing user interface.

3. Do you have a plan for driving traffic to the church website?

“If you build it, they will come.” Wouldn’t that be nice? Unfortunately, websites don’t work that way. Even though in principle a website is visible to the entire world, in practice you must implement a plan to make the intended audience of your church website aware of its existence. A few tips:

Many people will hear about your church via word of mouth. Have someone verify that your website uses semantic HTML markup for maximum visibility in search engines.

Avail yourself of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. Set up a Facebook page for your church as a complement to your church website.

Consider experimenting with targeted online advertising via Facebook or Google Ads.

Make sure that the URL of your church website is listed prominently on road signs or banners for your church, as well as on business cards and other print advertising materials.

4. Do you have a way to measure the effectiveness of your church website as an advertising tool?

Five More Talents takes time every month to analyze the site traffic statistics for every church website we serve. We share this information with church leaders and use it to identify ways to improve each church website. The importance of traffic analysis was the topic of our last feature article.

5. Does the church website make a good first impression?

Design is the first thing people will notice about your church website. Make sure the design of the website is aesthetically pleasing. Effective designs are distinctive and simple.

Three good questions — out of many — to ask about the design of your church website:

Is it based on some kind of visual metaphor? The visual metaphor can be overt (MailChimp’s banana-loving postman) or subtle and minimalistic (Google’s use of blue, red, orange, and green).

Does it respect “the fold”? The fold is the bottom border of your web browser window. As a general rule, the most important elements in a design should be “above the fold.” They should be visible without forcing the user to scroll.

Is the typography optimized for readability? One key factor is “characters per line.” Lines with more than 100 characters are usually less easy to read.

Analyzing website traffic is the main component of measuring the effectiveness of your church website. Thankfully, website traffic analysis tools have come a long way since the days of “hit counters.”

Scenario: You’ve just spent a lot of money putting up a website for a church plant. You paid a few thousand dollars to come up with a snazzy, colorful graphic design. You “go live” with the site and wait for the visitors to come. And then … nothing happens. No new visitors come. To say you’re a bit underwhelmed is the understatement of the decade.

You began your church website project with high hopes of harnessing the power of the Internet and the World Wide Web on behalf of your local church. You know that fewer and fewer people turn to the Yellow Pages when they’re looking for a church, and more and more are turning to the Internet. But now you’ve spent precious time and money on a website, and it doesn’t seem like it has made much of a difference. No new visitors. You’re disappointed, frustrated, and perhaps even a bit angry.

What should you do next? Well, probably a lot of things, most of which are beyond the scope of this article. But one of them should be to implement a plan for measuring the effectiveness of your church website.

A Matter of Stewardship

“Know well the condition of your flocks,” the Biblical proverb goes. “And give attention to your herds, for riches do not last forever” (Prov 27:23-24a).

Measuring the effectiveness of your church website is essential if you want to be a good steward of your investment. Just as shepherds must be diligent to look after their flocks, so church leaders must be diligent to measure the effectiveness of their church websites.

Why? Because church websites don’t always produce the desired results right away, and because even effective church websites tend to become less effective over time when they are neglected.

Incidentally, most church leaders will probably find that it is best to delegate this task to a faithful steward. This will allow them to stay focused on the ministry of the word and their other pastoral responsibilities.
What Can Be Measured

Analyzing website traffic is the main component of measuring the effectiveness of your church website. Thankfully, website traffic analysis tools have come a long way since the days of “hit counters.” For example, free tools such as Google Analytics can provide answers to questions such as the following:

• How many visitors does your church website receive each day? Each week? Each month?
• Where are these visitors physically located? (i.e., what country, what state, what city)
• What are the sources of traffic to your church website?
• Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing?
• Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube?
• Denominational websites such as opc.org or pcanet.org?
• What keywords send visitors to your church website from search engines?
• The name of your church?
• The name of a church leader mentioned on your website?
• The name of your city?
• A theological distinctive? (e.g., Reformed, Presbyterian)
• What pages do visitors to your website view? Which pages are the most viewed?
• How long do visitors spend on each page?
• What percentage of visitors abandon your website after viewing just one page?

What to Do With This Information

First, commit to a process of ongoing improvement and maintenance of your church website. Website traffic data can be enormously helpful when it comes time to make decisions about your church website.

Taking the time to analyze the traffic of your church website does two things:

• It helps you test your assumptions for their validity
• It helps you to identify what is most important

Testing Your Assumptions – For example, if you have built your church website on the assumption that it will attract visitors located within your city, this assumption needs to be tested. Website traffic analysis enables you to test this assumption.

Identifying What is Most Important – Analyzing the visitors to your church website will help you to identify what content they view the most. This helps you understand what parts of your website are most important to improve and maintain.

Second, be intentional about asking visitors to your worship services what influenced them to visit your congregation. Ask them, “Was our church website an important factor in influencing you to visit our church?” When you combine website traffic analysis data with what you learn from your ongoing informal survey of visitors, you are sure to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of your church website.