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Outdated design & content.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?

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