By Jonathan Howe
As we’ve stated countless times here at ThomRainer.com, your church’s website is the front door to your church. I’ve written about why your website needs to be guest friendly, but I haven’t written much about how it should interface with your members.
Needless to say, your church’s website should serve your members as well.
The problem is that too many church websites don’t. Some churches put so much effort into guest information, that they overlook information and features that would appeal to members and have them use the site more. These are the seven most common reasons church members don’t use your church’s website:
- You don’t have a church calendar. Almost every church management software includes a church calendar in its functionality. You can embed it on your website or use another calendar tool to keep event information in front of your members. Google Calendar or a calendar plugin on your website are the most common alternate methods churches use to place event information and schedules online.
- You’re not using social media well. Your members are the ones who are most likely to engage with your church on social media. If you’re not using social media well, you’re not going to engage your members well. When you provide sharable content on social media, you will draw members and guests alike to your church’s website.
- You don’t provide media to consume. Church members miss services from time to time. Many want to catch up on what they missed. Therefore, if you don’t have sermon videos or sermon podcasts on your church’s site, they can’t watch or listen to what they miss. A full media offering will draw more members to your website, and is a great resource for guests wanting to get to know more about your church.
- You don’t have online giving or online registration. Both of these tools allow members to make easy payments on your site. Obviously, online giving is much more than a payment, but if you don’t offer it, that is just one fewer reason for members to visit your site. Online registration for upcoming events and the ability to pay for any associated costs is also simple to install and helpful to members.
- You don’t publicize your church website. When you have information, event registration, and church-related media on your website, it will lead you to talk more about it. If every event you host requires (or strongly encourages) online registration, your church members will use your website more than if the event registration is a clipboard in the fellowship hall.
- You don’t have a church website. There is really no excuse here. A Facebook page is not a substitute for a website.
- You don’t have analytics or stats to know if church members are using the site or not. If you don’t have data about what pages are being accessed on your site, you’ll never know who’s using it or what they’re using it for. You’ve got to have data to make informed decisions about what to emphasize.
Do your church members use your church’s website more or less than you would want? What would you add to this list?
Not only should sermon videos be on-line, but also the whole service. The hymns, prayers, and announcements are as much a part of the service as as the sermon.
#8. They don’t have a computer. LOL
Hahaha
You should already be live streaming on YouTube and Twitch. You likely have the necessary talent available in your young boys and men already, just ask for help. Your site should always be up to date with current church events, get staff and volunteers to keep your site current. Don’t be afraid to ask for help even outside your church, like hacker groups for instant, there are nearly endless options to connect with the community if you think outside the box.
Don’t make the common mistake of focusing only on girls when promoting involvement of young people. See “The War Against Boys” by Christina Hoff Sommers if you do not understand this.
Thanks, Joe
Don’t restrict your thinking to “boys and men”. Our Technology committee has members from both genders and all age groups.
Respectfully, don’t restrict “tech assistance” only to boys and men. There are many women and girls who have extensive experience with tech.
Having the entire service is a good thing, but there are copyright considerations here. While my church has a license to stream basically anything during our live service, we cannot archive our service for later playback. That license, for a church of our size, is pretty expensive and we’ve chosen not to do so. And remember if you don’t have a license to stream/archive your music, you’re stealing!
Bingo
The only issue with that is the license for the music. Make sure you’ve got that squared away first.
>The hymns, prayers, and announcements are as much a part of the service as as the sermon.
This little thing known as copyright comes into play.
The license that covers singing in the church might, but probably does not include distributing an audio recording of the service, which, in turn, does not include distributing a video of the service, neither of which include live streaming of the service, which is not to be confused with downloading the service, which is not to be confused with broadcasting the service over the air on TV or Radio.
Even if the distributed product excludes music, potential copyright issues remain:
* The passage of Scripture that is read;
* The order of worship that is used;
* The prayers that are used;
* The sermon itself;
( I thought I had read a post by Thom Rainer on copyright issues relating to sermons, but that search comes up blank.????)
What about licensing for the songs? I’ve heard of churches getting into trouble for copyright infringement about that.
Too often the calendar isn’t updated. It might still be showing January with nothing showing for April.
Spend the money for a professionally designed site (that you can revise), not the free versions available online that just look cheap or what early websites looked like in the 1990s.
Think about what the pictures are showing. If you want to show off your children’s program, show off both genders of children participating in the service or being baptized or confirmed. If you want to focus younger people, show pictures of your service for the younger generations and weddings. People use the website as their first look at a church.
Also put links to the unique email addresses of your clergy and leadership. Some people would like to contact them directly. Online forms really don’t cut it.
Agree with all. And make sure you have releases to use pics of kids.
I would take a late 90’s style site that’s up to date and interesting over a slick static site that never changes. There are many very high ranking sites that have a 90’s look to them. If it looks expensive it must work is a fallacy in my mind. Look at Google, it looks much as it did in the 90’s, of coarse the back end of Google makes it one of the most complex sites on the internet. Going from not streaming to streaming is a huge improvement that is hard to quantify.
I don’t visit my church’s website because it’s a “static page.” It doesn’t change, has no interactivity, and the calendar only has the regular monthly events. Special events are not put on the calendar well enough in advance for it to be helpful.
And this is probably nit-picky, but I’m a teacher and I notice — there are lots of spelling errors. It bothers me that our church website is presented this way, especially in an age of spell check. It bothers me enough that I just don’t visit the website.
Agreed. Spelling is a simple correction that is often needed.
Alerting someone of the spelling errors is a great opportunity to serve your church. Do it in a kind manner. You will be helping your church to better serve the community.
Thom…
I was going to comment on #1 – but Mark said it well – I browse many church web page & MANY calendars are just ‘there’ – and even blank.
Having recently move from Senior Pastor to DOM I have noticed many churches don’t even have a web page and for some reason, choose not to use technology…(associations also)…we are developing an IT conference to help our churches realize the benefits and opportunities available with the use of technology.
While an attractive professionally done web page is preferable, many-if not most churches cannot afford that outlay. BUT most church have someone in the membership who can do a good job of getting their local church seen in a positive light. Good article.
Thanks
1) Make sure your site is responsive, or at least serves a mobile version. More and more access is by phones, and your site needs to be usable at that scale.
2) Just like getting an outsider to visit your services for honest feedback, get outsiders to visit your web site and offer an opinion. Almost every first time visitor on Sunday morning has been to your web site on Saturday. Even scarier is the fact that people may have decided against a Sunday morning visit after that Saturday exposure to your web site.
3) Pictures of activities and people are important. Generally, pictures of buildings are not. Good (i.e. professional) pictures are good, (almost all) amateur pictures are not. Stock photos are better than lousy amateur photos, but best would be to spring for professional photos of your own people involved in your own activities. And, get used to the idea they have to be refreshed and updated on a regular basis.
Personally, I can’t stand stock photos of people (objects, landscapes, etc. are different). When it comes to people, it bothers me if the pictures don’t reflect reality. If I show up at a church and it looks nothing like what I encountered on the website…I kind of feel lied to.
Even so, you appear to have greater expertise than I do and think you share a lot of good insight. Just stating a personal preference.
The calendar app we use for our church is Tockify. We love it – It’s beautiful and as the dates of the calendar advance, they automatically drop off, so our calendar is always current. I don’t get anything for recommending it, just so you know but it makes my job easy. We just love it – easy to use, keeps us current, the interface can be customized by the viewer of the page as to how it is viewed, and it’s just beautiful. Here is ours: http://www.calvarygospel.church/upcoming.html
Thanks
Please make websites easy to navigate. If someone wants to watch a pastor’s message, put it in a section called, “Messages” not some insider language like, “Learn”. Make it easy to find where you are, how to contact you with email, phone, twitter and Facebook.
Great points
The forgotten members (over 60) have not been trained in computer use.
A good point. And something to consider
Not necessarily so. Some of our congregation’s most dedicated online users are the “over 60” crowd. That was the generation that developed COBOL, FORTRAN, and the foundation that is in use today.
And what percentage of that over “60 generation” used FORTRAN and COBOL on a daily basis? A few programmers at IBM, HP, Western Digital. The FAA. Who uses it now? The local homemaker back in 1973, or hard-hat type in 1970 didn’t. The full time college student in 1971 majoring in English didn’t.
Heck, most GenXers and Millennials don’t use computer languages unless they are a programmer. I have not used any computer language since I left IBM……and women find out I worked in high tech and they bring me their computers wanting me to “fix” it for them. I don’t know why their computer hates them……..I tell them to take a class, or read the manual to Windows…….let’s not forget Apple / Mac based platforms (cough) never have problems.
Most senior citizens are not tech savvy, and I don’t blame them actually. There is a part of me that wishes I could live in ignorance like that. I am 47 years old, and I still prefer the “print out / hard copy” of the church program and calendar than the one that is online, or on the church webpage.
It doesn’t matter what your “style” your webpage is. Does it work? Is it usable? Is it up to date? Can a user “go back” to the home page easily? Is the font and print large enough? Are the pictures “believable” or are they of only the pastors kids?
Are questions posed via the webpage RESPONDED to? Is the phone number listed “working” (this is in reference to potential visitors). Are the hours clear? Is there a mention of “doctrines” or “what the church believes”?
Is there a “reason” for members to GO to the Webpage? I mean, if it’s just general information……..and let’s say it’s up to date……most of the regulars probably WON’T go there.
The above comments of having the sermon online / available is good.
Let’s say the church is having an outing / activity and you can “sign up or register” on the Webpage. Yes, a good thing.
Putting the songs from the Service up on the Webpage “could” be a legal issue. Probably better to err on the safe side. Christian publishing companies can be “jerks” sometimes when it comes to that.
Web design and usability testing a church should not have to pay a lot of money for, if at all.
…Putting the songs from the Service up on the Webpage “could” be a legal issue. Probably better to err on the safe side. Christian publishing companies can be “jerks” sometimes when it comes to that….
“Jerk” has nothing to do with it. When churches don’t pay CCLI or streaming fees, song writers DO NOT GET PAID!
As Luke 10:7 says, “…a laborer is worthy of his hire…”
I think it’ wise to use live streaming and videoing of a whole worship service sparingly. So many churches don’t have good A/V equipment – or it isn’t broadcast quality – or the audio is over a mic that is being recorded out of the room speakers while the video is being recorded elsewhere and the sound is poor and tinny. Even when the sound is right, more than one camera angle is needed (not, as we see on so many videos, a camera in the balcony, aimed at the chancel). Finally, unedited video has a lot of empty time when there is nothing going on – I don’t think it’s an effective way to introduce someone to a congregation they aren’t already familiar with, just because we can (IMHO)
I very much disagree with Deborah’s opinion. A poor quality job is better than doing nothing at all. As far as camera gear goes cost is very low already. A typical smart phone is better than the best professional equipment a 15 years ago. The more you pay for gear the smaller the the improvement in quality.
When I came to the church I now pastor in 2014 there was no website, Facebook page or anything else online. I pitched the importance of web presence to those looking for a church. Over half our congregation is made up of senior citizens – I don’t mean 55+ I mean 80’s & 90’s. They’re not looking at our website or any others for that matter. The website is visitor friendly with contact info, service times, directions, a welcome letter from the pastor and listings of upcoming events. There is also current information and media content. When potential visitors look at our site I want them to see we welcome visitors AND ALSO KNOW that if they join the church the website will continue to be useful. Our current members are not using the site, but it’s designed for guests and members to use so that it doesn’t look “static” to anyone considering making our church home. (Right now of course everything is geared toward Start Your New Beginning.)
Thanks for the great list.
In our work with churches, we also find the following contributing factors to the church’s website being under utilized:
1. Slow Web Page Loading Speed
2. A lack of content that is optimized to the “felt needs” that people search for (such as a page optimized to the focus keyword ‘parenting support’)
3. A low Google Quality Score on their Google Search Campaigns
4. An absence of dedicated Landing Pages with clear calls to action
5. A lack of clarity on the Keywords that support the church’s ministries
Thank you for the information sir. I shared this post on a blog and forum, believe me many people have a lot to say
http://www.believeall.com/2017/03/seven-reasons-your-church-members-arent.html
http://www.nairaland.com/3691065/seven-reasons-church-members-arent