Navigating the stormy seas of the web...
When I first moved to this city, my wife and I began our search for a church home. I, like many others in my demographic (20-30 year olds), began this search online. Now, I’m biased here because I’ve always been disappointed in church web sites. I have a bit of a background in technology, especially web-based technology, so I admit that my perspective is already skewed. I don’t typically view so many church web sites all at once, so this little binge on church web sites was immensely frustrating. I was literally turned off of some churches based on their web sites alone.
Fickle? Perhaps. But we live in a connected world now, and these churches were failing to connect.
What was wrong with these sites? I’ll let others speak for me. Consider these responses to my “why are church web sites ineffective?” question on twitter:
It comes down to being cheap & perceived unimportance, IMO. (http://twitter.com/manovotny/statuses/2556424452)
Outdated design & content. Too much info. Pics of bldg – not ppl (http://twitter.com/lightenupgear/statuses/2556758121)
no one takes junk sites and trifold brochures seriously, thats for drug awareness campaigns not the places we form our faith (http://twitter.com/joe_makes_art/statuses/2555392201)
There’s been a lot of discussion lately on technology in the church. While I’m obviously a Lutheran, churches across the world and across all denominational divides are struggling with the ever-changing technological landscape. It’s not really a new problem though. Churches have always struggled to adapt to changing environments. In some cases the church struggles because they are too slow to change. In other cases, churches willfully refuse to adapt, claiming that the timelessness of the message should not bend to the latest trends.
While the latest technology may be a trend in and of itself, the concept of the web will not go away any time soon. We’ve opened a huge can of worms. People are more connected than ever before. The world is shrinking. We are becoming, more and more every day, a global community. While facebook and twitter may be replaced six months from now with some other trending technology, the constant crave for connectivity reflects a paradigm shift in human interaction. Never before has it been so easy to spread a message or connect to someone across the globe. Whether church leadership embraces technology or not, the church is already online. Your church members are already e-mailing, instant messaging, tweeting, and facebooking. Why, then, are so few churches successful when it comes to their online ministry? How do you even measure this success?
I’m a geek at heart, so I’d love to just start a run-down of current technologies and explore their applications for a church. But, I feel the need to address a few underlying issues that I see. Mainly, what causes the struggle between the church and technology? Is online success for a church as easy as creating an account and logging on? Are there any prerequisites for online ministry?
For churches that want to be online but can’t seem to make it work, what are we missing?
We’re Missing Vision
I really think it’s all about vision. I’ll give you an example of what I mean.
I first started this blog and twitter account about a week ago. Blogging and twitter are not new to me. In fact, I’ve been blogging and tweeting through other accounts for quite some time now. I started this particular blog and twitter feed based on a handful of goals. One of my goals was to foster discussion on a broad range of topics in the Lutheran church. I feel like that’s already happening and it really hasn’t even taken very long. (So, a big THANK YOU to those who come back to join in on the discussion!)
When I read the Bible, I see examples of such discussions. In fact, I see significantly more discussions than sermons. Even when Jesus is preaching, it often seems conversational in nature (Nicodemus comes to mind). It’s as if these people are figuring it all out together, seeking, asking, and sharing as a group. I believe this is the way it was meant to be. The faithful gathered together asking the hard questions and struggling for answers.
Binding. Loosing. Praying. Discerning.
It was this vision that prompted me along. I didn’t look at blogging and twitter and say to myself, “wow, these are popular tools, I should be on them.” Instead, I recognized that I had a vision and that these tools could potentially help me achieve this vision.
Churches can look at these tools the same way… as tools. When I have a project at home I don’t select a tool based on its popularity. I don’t pick up a hammer when I’m looking at a screw. I pick the right tool for the job. The web and social media can be viewed in the same light. Don’t look at the newest social media craze and think “how can our church get in on that?” First, figure out what your church’s mission and vision are, then figure out if the newest social media craze can support this mission and vision.
Businesses are in the same sort of struggle. There are a lot of businesses using tools like twitter successfully, but I’d argue that there are many more using it unsuccessfully. The key difference is vision.
We’re Missing Identity
Churches, overall, are terrible at marketing and identity. I know I know, nobody wants to hear the word marketing when it comes to churches. And yet, we complain as we lose members and close church doors.
The dynamic of losing church members can (and often does) function similarly to a business losing customers. Some churches want to chalk it up to Godlessness or point their fingers at younger generations being “lost”, but the reality is that many of these people flocking out of one church’s doors are flocking into another church’s doors.
Nobody wants to hear it, but churches compete. All you have to do to be aware of this is visit a Lutheran church in the southeast, where Baptist or nondenominational churches seem to dominate the landscape. I think I hear a snarky joke about Baptists at least once a week, even occasional ones from the pulpit! Usually it seems to be about beating them to the restaurants for lunch. But I digress…
My point is this: if one church is declining, I can find another one nearby that’s growing.
As I browse church web sites and see faltering attempts at injecting technology into the church landscape, a glaring lack of identity is quickly revealed. As the tweet above mentioned, I see more pictures of buildings than people. I see outdated design that, to me and others like me, tells me that your church is out of touch with my generation. I see sites saturated with irrelevant content, yet sorely lacking in spiritual food.
I see trifold brochures converted into web sites.
I see sites clearly made in Microsoft Frontpage by some poor soul a committee chose because they could spell H-T-M-L.
I see static, stale web pages that were behind the times before they were published… and they aren’t getting any newer.
But mostly, I see a lack of identity. Fortunately, we visited a church that had a bad web site. We ended up joining based on a number of factors. There was a youthful energy in the congregation that was contagious. This energy and vitality could be extended online, but there was seemingly no attempt to link the design and content of their web-based identity to the identity the church has created for itself behind its doors.
Churches, know who you are and who you want to be and project that through whatever means you have available to you. This takes more than a “web strategy”. It takes more than a committee and a member who knows HTML. It requires a long and prayerful self-assessment. Are you wanting to reach my generation? You may need to take a look at your identity and update it accordingly. I’ve said before that the message of Christ is timeless but the packaging of that message may not be.
When I graduated from High School, one of my graduation gifts was a New International Version (NIV) Study Bible. My grandparents (one a music pastor, the other his church pianist) knew this had been given to me. They were there when it was given. They witnessed it first hand and yet, a week or two later, they gave me a Scofield Study Bible.
King James Version.
Black leather. Gold-edged pages. Red letters. Completely outdated text.
My grandparents’ unspoken admonishment of the NIV Bible was easily heard. They viewed the King James Version as “the real” version of the Bible and all others as inferior or lacking. Yet the message of Christ is in both versions. Now I know some argue that there are verses with debated accuracy or authorship, etc., but the primary and most obvious difference between these two versions is the language. If “thee” and “thou” are no longer commonly used, why do I have to trip over them when trying to read the Word of God? When God speaks to me through prayer, He doesn’t talk like that. Why should He talk like that in my Bible?
Whether we like it or not, packaging can hinder us from hearing God.
If your church wants to reach a demographic that you feel is slipping away, consider your identity. Is your identity as a church in-line with your outreach goals? Are you speaking the same language as the people you prayerfully want to reach? Is your church’s language spoken consistently across all resources, weather web-based or brick-and-mortar?
We’re Missing Community
Even if your church has nailed down your vision and identity, you may still be missing the big picture of current online trends: community.
Current web technologies such as facebook, twitter, dig, friendfeed, and the like all have community in common. Twitter is a great example. Twitter is simply a tool for people to broadcast and share ideas or current events… even mundane ones. The very fact that someone takes the time to type out “going to the grocery store” or “eating a sandwich” and submit it to Twitter is borderline silly. And yet, it happens. The last number I saw was that Twitter is updated at a rate of 201 “tweets” per second.
The heavy hitters on twitter, the folks who are truly driving the technology forward, are the ones who frequently engage others in conversation. Are you listening, churches? Our generation wants community. We want to be engaged and to engage others. We want to share ideas openly. We want to ask lots of questions. We want to seek truth.
When looking at the web and social media, is your church’s goal to “create an online presence” (an often-quoted phrase in the 1990s web development era) or to extend your church community? Yes, the web can be a good way to “get the word out” about your church to potential new members, but what of your current church family? They’re certainly on the web at some point. Where are they going if not to your site? Who are they engaging online if not their church family? The connectivity we are failing to provide as a church is being provided through some other means… and with some other message.
I’ve received pushback from churches when the subject of online community came up. At one church, discussion of online forums or discussion groups was immediately stifled when concerns of privacy came up. The risks of online communities exist regardless of the intent of the community. Privacy can be compromised. Feelings can be hurt. Rudeness and callousness can occur.
It’s funny how sin can crop up anywhere.
What needs to be understood is that these risks already exist both within your church walls and in other online communities that your members are already a part of. People are flawed, and regardless of where a community exists (whether online or within a physical structure), these flaws will manifest themselves.
My current church is in the middle of a building campaign. They just broke ground for a new facility (they’ve even posted pictures on their facebook page). They spent a long time in prayer and discernment to determine the correct course of action. The decision to build was not one they took lightly. It was based on genuine needs within the church body and is a testament to the growth our church has experienced recently and to the future growth expected of our ministries.
Churches have a wonderful history of undertaking projects like this. It seems like there’s always a “building fund” to contribute to, regardless of what church you go to. Why is it that we can be so good at building brick and mortar structures to support our ministries and yet fail so dismally at extending these ministries through technology?
We have the potential to reach far more people online than will ever set foot on our property. We have the potential to infiltrate our membership throughout the week wherever they are. We have the potential to foster discussion and debate. We have the potential to generate and maintain a stronger (and broader) sense of community.
Before you create an account or log on or attempt to generate friends or followers, ask yourself why you’re doing it. What’s your ministry strategy for these new technologies? Is your church connected? Are you meeting people where they are? Has your church put as much prayer into their technological expansion as they have building projects and mission trips? How can the latest and greatest technology serve your vision, identity, and community?
