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CURRENTLY ON THE WEB
Constructing the church web site foundation

Marshall Janzen

This is the second of a series of columns aimed at helping churches make use of the Internet. A future column addresses Canadian MB Conference Internet resources. The first column discussed Internet basics.

I moved to Regina in April of 2000 and started attending Parliament Community Church, where I knew no one. After my second Sunday there, I talked to senior pastor Phil Gunther and let it slip that I design web sites. Pastor Phil’s eyes lit up: “We need to talk.”

Over the course of a few breakfasts (all far too early for my tastes), I heard Pastor Phil’s master plan. I thought he was going to say, “Since you’re a webmaster, why don’t you make a web site for our church?” Instead, he told me he was just finishing a course on multimedia ministry and had written a paper on crafting a church web site. He had been praying for someone to help take this from the theoretical stage to reality.

I was blown away. That event made me feel Parliament was truly my new home church. After that, I wanted to be involved. This was going to be a team effort, and I was privileged to have a part.

Pastor Phil later suggested I write a column about church web sites. I was hesitant to do this because, although I have been designing web pages for seven years, I have created only one church web site – for Parliament Community Church. However, after some pastoral persuasion, I gave in. This is probably a different kind of article than my pastor had in mind. Instead of a list of dos and don’ts, I want to discuss two overall concepts I am convinced are important for church web sites.

A church web site needs more than a webmaster. I could never have created a web site for Parliament Community Church by myself that did what the church wanted it to do. Many churches assume an outside contractor or a member with web skills can singlehandedly build them a site. It’s possible, but unless that person is acutely aware of the church’s vision, the site will probably not be effective. I believe it is a serious mistake to assume the person chosen to develop the site has all the spiritual wisdom and evangelical passion necessary to portray the church’s message and vision to the world. The site needs to be given the same attention by church leadership as a Sunday morning service. It is a big task, requiring a team effort. Poor web sites do damage. Some churches may argue that they can’t afford to invest that amount of time into their web site. After all, “A poor web site is better than no web site at all.” Absolutely not! If a church does not have the resources to develop a good web site, it should not develop a web site. Much better to focus on strengthening care groups or reaching the local community in other ways than to waste resources on an initiative that is not a priority. This does not mean churches that cannot invest thousands of dollars and weeks of people-hours should stay off the web. I believe the damage comes from bad sites, not small ones – sites with incorrect theology, perhaps written directly by a webmaster without any supervision; sites that promise more than they offer, such as links to pages that don’t exist or are permanently “under construction” (I struggle with this myself); or sites that look so unprofessional that only the most determined seeker would bother to explore them. If a church web site consists of a single web page with address and contact information, service times and links to the Confession of Faith and partner ministries, that is fine. If it has a clear, organized look, it is likely to be a somewhat effective tool. Far worse would be a 50-page site where clicking half the links leads to a page saying “Coming soon” or “Error 404: document not found”. Perhaps this hypothetical 50-page site has loud, annoying background music with no way to turn it off; that will have people looking for the “Back” button for sure! Or, perhaps in all the 50 pages, the church has neglected to list its address, phone number, denomination or beliefs. These are just a few of the signs that a site is not ready to be visible to the world.

On the Internet, people often stumble across sites they weren’t specifically looking for. If an unchurched person stumbled across your church’s web site, would it make a favourable impression of Christianity? The Holy Spirit can use any person, any web site to convict someone of the Truth. However, that does not release us from attempting to do our best. Colossians 3:23,24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord. . . . It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Congregations generally keep their church buildings tidy and in good repair. The same care should be given to church web sites.

Marshall Janzen is webmaster for the Canadian MB Conference, and a member of Parliament Community Church in Regina. He can be reached at marshall@launch.ca.

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Last modified November 5, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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