The Internet is littered with poor church and ministry websites.
Kevin Ring has taken on the challenge of raising the level of excellence in ministry websites through an effort called State of Ministry Online. He recently asked me if I would write an article for the site, which I was happy to do.
One of the things that bothers me about many Christian websites is that they don’t honor God. Often times I hear people say they don’t have the money, talent, or know-how to create an excellent website. But I believe honoring God with your website is not as much about how much money & talent an organization has, but whether it is doing the best it can with the resources God has provided.
You can read the full article here:
The Case for Excellence – Honoring God with Our Best
What do you think? Do you think as Christians we ought to design and manage our websites as if we were doing it directly for God? Do you think excellence for a website is primarily about money and talent or about giving God the best of what we have?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.
9 Comments
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Just read your article and wholeheartedly agree with you, simple things like making sure your website is correct in grammar and spelling is fundamental and doing things like making sure all your links work is essential.
And while it may not take a huge budget to make your website glorify God, I remember what you said in your article about the Wednesday website reviews: if your not willing to pony up $5-10 a month, I question your commitment. That struck home with me as well. My web ministry has been on-line since 1996 in many forms and host always just trying to get the best deal I could for free but it never really took off. Now I am with OurChurch for the long haul and have the ad free option and the site looks so much better. When my domain name comes due next year I will transfer that to OurChurch as well and upgrade to a starter package as well.
Thanks for all you do for online ministries, even little ones like mine to help them glorify God.
Glad to hear you're making strides towards excellence and honoring God.
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I thought your third paragraph was going to go this direction:
I believe honoring God with your website is not as much about how much money & talent an organization has, but whether it is being faithful to stay current with the site it already has.
I see faithfulness as key. The Bible talks about counting the cost if you're going to build something. Part of that is simple updating.
Believe it or not, where I live, there are church websites still announcing the dates and times of their Christmas services.
Hey Paul, I completely agree. "Making sure the website always has current information on it." is one of the bullet points in the article.
I love this comment – faithfulness is such a key concept that I am stunned by how many folks just don't get it.
Faithful in service. Faithful in time. Faithful in commitment, money, work, etc ….
But you also touch upon the age old issue of communication – is updating all about communciation? Who is responsible for it, who does the actual deed, who ensures it is carried out, who checks the accuracy and so on … this is something I am trying to drill into my pastor. Yes we can have a web presence but it needs to be planned and actively policed to ensure it remains current and relevant.
Very true. Faithfulness with web/communication requires a plan & assigning responsibility for carrying out all aspects of the plan.
Simple things like making sure your website is correct in grammar and spelling is fundamental and doing things like making sure all your links work is essential.