If we are to keep the metaphor consistent, the website is now the foyer. If you don’t have a statement of faith on the website, you will miss out on some of your more discerning guests.įor the last twenty-five years, the worship service has been declared to be the front door of the church. In recent years, more prospective guests have wanted to know the basic beliefs of the church. They may assume that you are not very proud of the preaching ministry of the church if you don’t have podcasts easily available. A number of your prospective guests will listen to an entire sermon before deciding to visit.
The best sites I’ve seen include personal statements from the staff along with their photos. Guests want to know as much as possible about the staff of the church. You’ve lost your young families with this omission. You are probably missing out on the majority of your guests if you don’t have a clearly marked physical address. They won’t be seeking your church in the Yellow Pages. Most of your guests will likely put the address in their GPS system.
I do not have confirmation of these statistics, so I am hesitant to put them in writing. Forgive my judgmental words, but I was not impressed with most of the sites.
I am not an expert in either design or technology, so my primary purpose was to look at the sites from the perspective of a person considering visiting the church. I just finished looking at over 100 websites from a variety of churches of a variety of sizes. Most church leaders don’t grasp the value of a website to get guests to their churches to hear the gospel. Allow me to begin with a couple of negative comments.