I was asked to live-blog a seminar called The Internet & The Sovereignty of God by Drew Goodmanson. I found the seminar fascinating. Goodmanson is a pastor of Kaleo Church but he is also very involved in the Internet industry.
He opened by noting that this is an issue of contextualization. An increasing percentage of our culture is going on-line. Today’s teenager has never known a world without ready Internet access. Most teenagers have iPODs. About 2/3 of them have cell phones. Social networking occurs not on e-mail but on tools like Myspace.
Avatar-based persistent social worlds. Older kids: Habbo Hotel, Gaia Online & Second Life. Younger kids: Webkinz, Whyville, Club Penguin. (Millions of dollars are exchanged annually in “second lives.”)
Three Audiences for churches to consider with regard to the Internet.
1. Connecting with members
Increasingly, members will check their church’s website several times a week, or more. They’ll look for schedule info. They might want to post comments about the sermon.
2. Gather other Christians (like ones who move into the area)
The vast majority of those who visit churches do so because they viewed the website first. The reality is, for many, a crummy website will discourage them from attending.
3. Reaching non-Christians
70% of Americans go online. 93% of American teens aged 12-17 use the Internet. Americans aged 13-24 spend more time on-line than in front of the TV. 64% of wired Americans have pursued spiritual activity on-line. 45% of Internet users say they have made huge decisions via the Internet.
Web 2.0 — what is it?
Mass collaboration
The blogosphere is doubling in size every 5.5 months. About 120,000 blogs are created every day.
YouTube — traffic has doubled in the last year.
Facebook — 65 billion page views per month (wow! That’s more than my blog!)
Twitter — massive spike in activity in the last 18 months
45% of teens post content on the Internet. There are many dangers. Things like “World of Warcraft” can be extremely addictive. Churches have lost people to such virtual worlds.
Church Website Trends
* Brochure websites. Links to PDF newsletters. (Stage 1)
* Dynamic websites. Content management system. Allowed frequent updates. (Stage 2)
* Interactive websites. Multiple administrators. Blogs incorporated. Syndication and API integration into other sites (e.g., iTunes, Sermon Cloud). (Introduces issue of management.) (Stage 3 — NOW)
Many churches have a communication director, and they may delegate some comment moderation to certain individuals.
Things to watch for when designing a church website
1. Please do not use a splash or entry page for your website. (Will not perform well in search engines.)
2. Ensure your site works cross-browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.)
3. Don’t create graphic directions without direction link.
4. Don’t have a site with complex URLs. (will be hard to lead people to it)
5. Don’t create a flash only or frames site.
6. Don’t have your site built by a hobbyist in the congregation or use a generic cms template.
7. Don’t use Christianese language. Will not be understood and received well.
8. Don’t have outdated content, coming soon or missing content. (E.g., no service times)
9. Don’t use annoying flashing icons and the like.
10. Don’t seek to make money from your church’s website.
Let your website be an artistic reflection of who you are. Kaleo Church displays testimonies, and is uploading video. Kaleo rebuilds their website every two years. A site like theirs probably costs about $10,000. And about $100/month for upkeep.
Another way to think about the shift is that in pre-Internet days, churches would toss out marketing/advertising literature and hope that it would arrest people’s attention. But today, individuals are going online and saying things like, “I’m lonely.” “I’m interested in God.” And churches can be prepared to give targeted responses. For example, people frequently search on-line for pre-marital counseling. So if a church is advertising their pre-marital classes on-line, they will likely get some non-Christian visitors.
When you design a church website, it is important that it has a high Google rank. 93% of people do not go beyond the first three hits on Google. 53% of people do not go beyond the first page. 51% of people click on the top result. 16% click on the second link. (Another way to get clicks is to pay for a Google ad. Depending on how popular your geographic market is, you might pay anywhere from $0.05 to $0.25 per click.)
So how do you get a high Google rank?
1. Get relevant links. Links from relevant sites (not just any links).
2. Great content. This will encourage people to link to your site.
3. Keyword focus
4. Themed site, site structure
SEO Book by Aaron Wall — they used to provide service to non-profits for free. It helps build web visibility.
Reach people when they need the church the most. Most families have some major issue every three years. A marriage, divorce, financial turmoil. Examples: Marriage, Death, Illness, Moves, Transition. Kaleo offers pre-marital counseling. They get many non-Christians who come and later come to Christ. Another church does hikes, and gets over 50% non-church attenders. The Rock (a church near Iowa State University) uses Facebook to connect with people.
In terms of connecting members, one church allows people reading through the Bible to leave comments about the passage being read. Other sites allow login to password-protected areas where conversations can be extended. (This works really well for gathering people of a certain flavor — e.g., artists.)
Need to remember that the goal is not to stay online. The goal is to get into life-changing relationships.