10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website

I spent quite a bit of time tonight visiting church websites throughout the country to find a cool church to tell you about this week. Don't worry. I found one, and I'll tell you about it in a separate post. In the process, though, I found lots of uncool sites. With that in mind, I thought this list might be helpful. Now, at least, you'll know what it might take to become my cool church of the week. Here are the...

10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website

1. Avoid telling me what's going to happen at your church this weekend. I found churches that had weather reports but nothing about their upcoming weekend service. I found two churches that had prominent information about upcoming golf scrambles (which I appreciated as a golfer), but nothing about this weekend's service. Why would I come if I don't know what I'm going to experience?
2. Put a picture of your building on the main page. After all, ministry is all about the buildings.
3. Use lots of purple and pink and add pictures of flowers. Really. Are you expecting any men to show up? And, for my benefit, please don't put any doves on your website. Doves scare me.
4. Make me click a "skip intro" or "enter site" link. I don't have time for that and it's very annoying. If I have to wait for something to load or have to click around intro pages to get to the real information, I'm probably going to skip your church service.
5. Add as many pictures and graphics as you can to the main page. My life is already complicated. I don't have time to figure out what's important at your church. If you dump everything on the main page, I'm assuming you don't know what's important either.
6. Use amateur photography. And, for the record, it would be helpful to have at least one normal looking person on your site. Do us all a favor and hire a graphic designer, a professional photographer or purchase some stock photography.
7. List every single ministry you have at your church. Frankly, I don't care what ministries you have. I just want to know whether or not I should visit your church this weekend. My first step isn't the men's Bible study or joining your church's prayer partners ministry.
8. Make it as difficult as possible for me to get directions, services times, or find information about what will happen with my kids. It's important that my kids have a great experience. If you can't convince me that that will happen, I'm probably not going to risk visiting your service.
9. Put a picture of your pastor with his wife on the main page. That tells me it's all about a personality, and I see enough of those people on television. I actually found one church that had not one but two pictures of the senior pastor on the main page. He was looking mighty dapper, though, in his fancy suit.
10. Try to sell your church rather than telling me how I will benefit from the experience. I don't care how great your church is. I just want to know if visiting your church will help me and my unchurched friends take our next steps toward Christ.

OK. I have to go check our new web design (coming in just a few weeks!) to make sure we haven't made any of these mistakes. I'd hate it if I couldn't visit my own church.

Now go and be cool.

Comments

[Terry Storch]

Great, great post!

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Wow, this is a powerful post. I'm definitely sharing this with our team at Church in the City (http://www.citcweb.org) and make sure we at least take this into consideration. Thanks for sharing!

[Graham Chastney (oak-grove)]

Wonderful. You missed one for me though.

- Have a but wrenching little MIDI file playing with something like "this little light of mine" or "abba father".

God Bless

[David Neal]

Great post! And, I love what I've read on your blog so far. Subscribed!

[Jesse J. Anderson]

Pretty good post, I disagree with a couple of your points however.

2. Having a photo of the building can do a lot for people who haven't attended your church but are considering. They may recognize the building and have the "oh! That building!" thought, or at the very least they'll have an idea of what to look for when trying to find it. I think a photo of the building on the directions page is a great thing.

7. When I'm going to visit a church, I want to know what they "have to offer". May not be very church-like of me but, I want to know if they have a college-age ministry, a singles ministry, a youth group, etc. They don't all need to be plastered on the fron tpage but they should definitely be on your website somewhere.

Other than that though I fully back your list. Especially the Pink/Purple and Flowers websites!

[Mike Schorah]

Great list of tips! I'm linking to this for all our church and charity customers to learn from your wisdom.

But you've missed out "News" that's past due - preferably months out of date!

http://www.the-vineyard.cc and http://www.cthree.org seem to have got it right, though!

[Robert Varnam]

Great tips, thanks.

Not sure I agree with 7 - List every single ministry you have at your church. I find it's actually a pretty good way to find out if this church is about more than just meetings, or if they have a life, an outreach and an understanding of community. An impressive Sunday meeting on its own doesn't impress me (or God, I suspect).

[Brad Hinman]

About a year ago, I went to the websites of the top 10 largest churches and top 10 fasting growing churches. I looked to see how many of the sites had one or more pictures of their senior pastor on the front page. I don't remember the exact results, but it was not good. Many large churches have a fixation with the senior pastor. I believe there was one church that had the pastor and his wife more than 3 times on the front page. With all the buzz around so called "megachurches", it is good to keep some perspective that big doesn't always mean the right values and attitudes are being encouraged.

[Felix Miata]

Wow! May 14 was the day I began this new page in a similar vein:
http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/evang-part.html

BTW, there's something wierd about your CSS here. I can't see what I'm typing on the right 1/3 of each line. :-p Oh, but in preview mode it's fixed. Its textarea is 1/3 wider. :-)

[Chalicechick]

Personally, I think your post is kinda shallow and churches that didn't feel like they had to hire Jeffrey Zeldman are fine with me. Actually, I think there's something about a church that has a website that was pretty clearly stuck together by some old guy with a photography hobby that is sort of charming.

I want a church that puts the minister's sermon archive in some easily accessible place. If your minister doesn't think well or can't write, all the updated activity schedules in the world won't bring me to your narthex.

That having been said, my entire blogosphere seems to love your post.

CC

[Justin Amateur]

So let me get this straight... If I can't find any "normal" people at my church to photograph I should just go out and get some stock photography?

If our church is located in a non-hip, non-fashionable part of town, should I give a fake address, preferably in a just-starting-to-gentrify area of the city, just so I won't turn off the culturally sensitive web visitor?

So much for authenticity.

[Tony Morgan]

First of all, let me say it's refreshing to have some dissenting viewpoints here. I was afraid everyone was starting to think like me, and that was pretty scary.

Justin, I'm having difficulty, though, understanding where you an I are in disagreement. I thought "normal" meant genuine, real, "authentic." Since when does normal mean "inauthentic?" My only point is that the pictures on our sites should be a a good reflection of the people who are attending our churches and a good representation to the "normal" people (non-churchy people) we're inviting to check out our churches. And, it's obviously a preference thing, but I think the quality of the photography matters.

Thanks, though, for sharing your opinions. It makes for a much more interesting blog.

[Ted Pack]

I agree with 9 out of 10 of your points. #6, however:

Do us all a favor and hire a graphic designer, a professional photographer or purchase some stock photography.

If we have a 90-year old building with dry rot problems and some of our members have a little more stomach than Hawaiian shirt during the summer (no A/C, either), is it OK to buy a picture of a two-story brick church with an immaculate lawn and some Mormons in suits and ties or white dresses, then pass them off as our building and members?

If the web committee's budget is $100 a year, how much of a graphic designer could we get?

Even amateurs take good pictures 1 - 10 times out of 100. If you use those and give back the 99 - 90, isn't that better than no pictures at all?

[holmegm]

I think the problem with point #6 is that it is confusing, and appears to be contradictory.

You're more likely to get normal looking people with amateur photography, no? Stock photography tends to give you abnormally cheerful people (who are, for some reason, looking up at the ceiling).

[Ralph]

Great list. I especially like #10.

That's what I'm talking about. I want to know what I get get for ME at a church. Encouraging others to love and good works, working towards achieving the Great Commission, world missions, visiting orphans and widows, etc. etc. etc. BOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!

I want to know what I can get out of it. What's in it for me? What have you done for me lately?

[Justin Amateur]

Tony, I guess I'm just confused as to why would you have to have an entry about "normal" on your list if all you meant was "genuine" or "authentic." On my church's website, we have (in photos I, a lowly family snapshot type) a representative cross-section of the congregation -- a grandma with a baby, a married couple, an adolescent girl, and a 40-ish biker looking dude. Which of these is normal/authentic? And what church lacks normal/authentic people to take photos of, such that one would need to resort to stock photography to find a normal/authentic person?

I really think that the original list item was afflicted with wannalookcoolitis.

[Ben Fulton]

ChaliceChick: I hear what you're saying, but there's also the argument that church web design has grown beyond us geezers. Like:

http://www.e-church.com/Blog.asp?EntryID=37069

[David Ravell]

Hey Tony, my favourite colour is purple. Are you saying I am not really a man? (ha)

[Tony Morgan]

David, does that also mean the men wear purple shirts down in your area of the world? I'm just getting accustomed to having a pink shirt. I don't think I'm ready for a purple one too. :-)

Tony

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Something to think about for sure. And Tony's photo is at the top of the page because...?

[Tony Morgan]

Now, Jim, are you suggesting it's inappropriate for me to have my photo on my personal website? Or, are you suggesting I'm an unattractive man and you'd rather not look at my picture?

[Fulton Green]

Hi Tony (and others),

I saw the link to this post from TitusOneNine. As an MBA student with previous website design experience (absolutely none of which I've bothered to apply to my own website, naturally), I just *had* to make some observations, point by point:

1. I am a big believer in a website's front page being able to channel information to its core audiences as quickly as possible. In the case of churches, it's typically potential visitors, regular attendees (whether members or no) and, in several cases, members of the surrounding geographic community. While I'm not as hardcore on having the upcoming service date / time / locs (I think it depends on the visual design), it should take, at most, only one click to get there, preferably with some kind of "Come visit us!" or "Visitor?" link.

2. While I sympathize with the "church is the people, not the building" credo, I don't see a problem with the concept of a front-page building photo. In fact, in certain urban situations, it can help a first-time visitor that's running short on time to find the building (provided they bothered to print out or remember the picture). It is definitely an issue if it's presented as a "trophy building" (which I believe was Tony's point). And it's an issue if the building's surroundings in the photo don't mesh well with other elements on the page. Some people insist that the more architecturally or historically significant buildings have potential to draw in seekers who might otherwise never darken the door of a church. This is why most websites for Gothic-architecture churches have a "virtual tour" with a soft-sell for a more physical visit. However, it's a rare church that will actually leverage that aspect to lift up that church's core message, if indeed the church still has a Gospel to tell.

3. Re: the pastel colors and other "feminine" visual cues: ideally, you'd want to find a consistent look that incorporates both feminine and masculine elements ... unless your particular locale / target demographic skews towards one specific gender being the driver in "church shopping". Speaking of which, if there happens to be some gender imbalance with respect to the congregation's unattached, then visual cues for the underrepresented could help (but probably won't) balance that out. Lord knows it could have helped *me* out in engineer-laden Huntsville, Alabama! By the way, textual content will convey feminine or masculine messages, so it's important to refine that as well.

P.S. Nice feminine-leaning, yet tasteful, colors on Granger's site. ;-)

Re: the dove: I think in America, and possibly other cultures, it's pretty much become a meta-logo to indicate a pentecostal/charismatic "brand". For pentecostal/charismatics, it's a sign of (holy) comfort. For others, particularly those that associate "pentecostal" with "televangelistic", it could bring, sadly, a tacky feeling. The use of the dove Presbyterian Church (USA) logo ( http://www.PCUSA.org/ ) is an obvious exception, but in that case, the dove is a very minor, yet symbolically significant, part of the logo. Plus, you're too busy trying to figure out what the other elements of the logo are!

4. This one I'm absolutely down with. Anyone that still insists on a Flash intro clearly hasn't gotten the memo regarding non-linear modes of communication.

5. This one I can also agree with. I might also expand it to include sites that are extremely heavy on "text graphics" and Flash-based navigation. I understand the design reasons for doing text graphics or all-Flash nav, but it will also cause a negative browsing experience if the bandwidth or browser technology isn't there to support them.

6. Oh boy. When I first saw this, the word that raced through my head was "elitism". After all, a lot of churches can't (or won't) allocate enough budget for such high-falutin' ad-agency-level marcom outsourcing. But the good news is that clean design templates can be freely had ( http://www.OSWD.org/ ), and amateurish photos can be spiced up with freely-available packages such as Picasa ( http://Picasa.Google.com/ ) and GIMP ( http://www.GIMP.org/ ). Stock photography can be a fast and potentially cheap way to incorporate generic naturescapes. However, model-centric stock has the potential to convey, hopefully unintentionally, a message that only the "beautiful people" would be welcome at the church. This issue, by the way, has also come up within mail-order catalog groups.

7. This brings me back to point #1. I'm assuming here that the objection isn't with the existence of the detailed information, but with the links to such appearing statically (i.e., not within a drop-down menu) on the front page. And I tend to agree. But keep in mind that some people carry a "grocery list" when they church-shop, so it would behoove a church with a "strong supply" in particular "items" to prioritize "display space" for them. I wanted to mention "coupons" here but couldn't think of a good analogy. :)

8. This ties in to #1 and #7. If you're going for a "life situation" balance of families, couples and singles, I'd think that you wouldn't want to go too heavy on the "family" language.

9. While I definitely share the "cult of personality" concerns, you have to at least admit that there's a consistent message coming across, i.e., that the church's livelihood is centered around the ministry (or "ministry", depending) of the chief pastor and his/her spouse (assuming (s)he actively participates in the ministry). A "best practices" approach would be to have separate websites: one for the church community and one for the pastor's teaching / music / drama / whathaveyou ministry. Most churches with a strong sense of peer-driven ministry do this. A significant number of televangelist-styled churches still don't.

10. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with, say, a tagline such as "God is doing great things at _____ Church. Come and see!" Of course, "great things done by God" can be quite subjective these days; just ask us Episcopalians! I will say, at the risk of stating the obvious, that a front page that doesn't have *something* to draw in and welcome potential visitors can be just as bad or worse than one that tries to influence visitors with non-core mission reasons (e.g., gym, concerts, self-help seminars).

Whew. I hope someone reads this! Thanks for having me.

[Mainline Protestant]

Of course this all depends on the point of the web site. The first one I did for a church was designed specifically to communicate with members who were far away - college students, grown children who had moved out of state, older members who spent long periods in other parts of the country.

It was launched at a pivotal time in that church's life - they were moving from their original location to a new site and new building. So it was vitally important to keep EVERYONE associated with the church informed of all pertinent information.

It wasn't intended to lure new visitors and it's address was delivered directly to the target audience - not promoted in general.

The site featured info on the capital campaign and pics of the architect's plans (as they developed) and then pics of the construction.

It was important to keep these folks "in the fold" so to speak so the site also featured lots of photos of fellowship events as they occurred from month to month, with commentary that would have been insufficient to someone who didn't know the people in the photos - but just fine for the target crowd.

So, just a reminder that web pages can be used for a variety of purposes. I think the problems arise when churches try to do everything with one site. The best sites are very specific about their audience and goals.

The only direct criticism I'd offer is the sexism in your list - the comments on the feminism of certain colors - but more importantly, the wording about the "pastor and his wife." My pastor is a woman, and I'm my pastor's husband...Mainline Protestant

[CCC Webmaster]

I Agree with your post in a lot of ways but I don't fully agree with #7. I mean you shouldn't have all of the ministries on your frontpage of the website but you should have them on a seperate page. It will allow people to know what you have to offer. I also think that for a church website to be somewhat effective i think that you should post your sermons on a page named Sermons or something of the sort. Personally I think that www.Cartervillecc.org does a terrific job about all of this stuff so use my website as a model or preview for what yours should be.

[JJ]

It seems to me like you have quite a long lisst of demands. It might help for you to stop telling churches what they are supposed to do for you, and consider the opposite question.