There are three main ways churches often neglect their websites:
- NOT having a website at all.
- NOT updating the design of your website to keep pace with advancements in web technology. Most designs have a “shelf life” of three to five years.
- NOT logging in to the website and updating pages on a regular schedule, e.g. every week, every month, quarterly.
But are you serving potential visitors to your church if you’re neglecting your website? Or don’t have a website at all?
Smart business owners know that “Your website isn’t for you, it’s for your customers.” Unlike businesses, churches have a spiritual mission. But stewardship is just as much an issue for church leaders as it is for business leaders.
Neglecting your church website can be a sign of poor stewardship. Your church website isn’t for you. It’s for your visitors.
So what’s your excuse for neglecting your church website? Here are the three biggest excuses we hear:
Excuse #1: “We Don’t Know How”
Valid excuse… sort of. Granted, the technological world is daunting to the uninitiated. But don’t underestimate its importance just because it’s scary. Nowadays, you don’t need to know how to build a website. Seriously.
Think of it like a hamburger: you’re stuck in a lawn chair (maybe holding the sleeping baby), so you ask us to build you one. We ask how you like your meat cooked, and whether you wanted ketchup or mayonnaise or lettuce, and in no time it’s sitting on the table at your elbow, slightly steaming, awaiting your teeth.
5MT builds church websites in roughly the same way (only without ketchup), harnessing our technological savvy for your benefit, guided by your input.
Excuse #2: “It Takes Too Much Time”
It’s possible to have a new church website up and running in as little as a few weeks, depending on the kind of website you want.
Updating it doesn’t mean hiring full-time tech-savvy salesmen — it means a little routine upkeep and TLC. Web platforms like WordPress (which we use) are designed to put you, the site owner, at the controls.
5MT offers WordPress-specific training, so you won’t feel like you accidentally sat down in a fighter plane cockpit. Updating your church’s website can be about as simple as checking your Facebook. Not too scary!
Excuse #3: “It’s Too Expensive”
Paying someone to build you a website costs money. If finances are so tight they’re threatening to cut your electricity (and with it your access to this blog post), maybe now is not the right time for you to buy a website. But if you do have a couple comfortable zeros to the left of the savings decimal point, you should consider it.
5MT offers Ready-to-Go Websites at a price almost any church can afford. And put this under your hat: If new visitors can’t find your information, they’ll probably end up not visiting at all.
So… what’s your excuse for neglecting your church website?
