National Community Church
Washington, D.C.
http://www.theaterchurch.com

I like this site because they tend to make good use of Web 2.0 technologies — podcasts, videocasts, blogs, mobile version, etc. I have a love-hate relationship with churches making their sermons available via their websites (because I think it can discourage people from joining the physical gatherings), but Mark Batterson (the pastor of this church) is a great apologist for the effectiveness of podcasting. He routinely stretches my thinking about podcasting and videocasting. Here is an example from his blog — an article in which he compares podcasting to the field preaching of Wesley. I respect Mark so much that when pastors and church leaders ask me about podcasting their sermons, I give them my opinion, but then I invariably tell them to go check out Mark’s articles on podcasting for the other side of the coin.

In some ways, the National Community Church website tends to present the church as an institution rather than people, which is one of my pet peeves The easiest way to see how a church thinks of itself — as an institution or as people — is to take a look at the “About Us” or “Who We Are” menu on their website. Churches that think of themselves as an institution tend to populate their “About Us” menus with items like “Core Values,” “Leadership Team,” “Mission,” “Vision,” “How To Give,” etc. That’s the language of an institution, not of a community, and I believe it turns off unbelievers. On the other hand, National Community Church gives a lot of prominence on their website to their small groups, which I applaud (because it suggests that the church is people).

Overall, I like the National Community Church site because of its modern design and willingness to employ Web 2.0 technologies.

Contacts: David Russell is the church’s digital pastor, and Mark Batterson is the senior pastor.

University Christian Fellowship
Syracuse, New York
http://www.ucf.org

This appears to be a fairly run-of-the-mill church website until you read these two pages:

Questions We Get Asked About Our Church Service, and Our Snappy Answers
UCF Order of Worship

The humor is priceless! The only thing I wish is that they would give those two pages more prominence (if you start from the home page, they are a bit hard to find).

Contact: Unknown

Manna?
Holland, Michigan
http://www.mannais.org

I like this site because it’s really just a community blog. Anyone in the congregation (or outside the congregation) can post to the website. The lack of traditional trappings combined with the simplicity of the site and its group nature make me feel like this church is authentic.

I especially like the Manna FAQ section, in particular the answer to “So who preaches and are there sermon series or points or whatever?” Beautiful. A close second is the answer that mentions snake-handling, although the lack of that time-honored tradition would probably keep me from being a part of Manna? if I lived in Holland, Michigan (Gee, if Mike Boyink can suggest I get a tattoo, I ought to be able to get away with suggesting Mike start handling snakes! How about it Mike?).

All kidding aside, take a look also at this article about the Manna? website which touches on the power of the Manna? website concept.

The Manna? site also uses my favorite content management system, ExpressionEngine.

Contact: Mike Boyink is the designer/developer.

Jacob’s Well
Kansas City, Missouri
http://www.jacobswellchurch.org

This is by far my favorite church website. The “Community” section is brilliant. Through the use of biographies (it appears that most of the people in the congregation have contributed at least a short bio) and photos, it presents people rather than an organization. Through its use of blogs and discussion forums, it presents the authentic voice of the congregation (not just its leaders) to unbelievers in the Kansas City area.

The one thing I don’t like about this site is that these elements which are so strategic to reaching unbelievers are actually in a password-protected area. When the site was first launched, I registered and was given a username and password which is still functional. I have no contact with the church at all, so I assume they allow anyone to register (and probably use that information to police the forums and other places where users can contribute), but I would like to see the information in the Community section presented publicly, without any need for prior registration and login. They could still require registration and login for a user to contribute (or edit previous contributions), but presenting the information publicly would, in effect, open the authenticity of the congregation for everyone to see, whether believer or unbeliever.

Contact: Scott Raymond () is the designer/developer

I was asked yesterday by a reader of this blog for a list of church websites I like. I responded to the email, but thought it would make a good subject for a series of articles, so here goes.

To be honest, because I have some fairly strong opinions on these issues, there are not a lot of church websites I like. But in this series, I’m going to mention a few that I admire, along with the reasons for my admiration and any further information I might have. I may not like everything about these sites (and I’ll tried to point out what I don’t like), but there are aspects which are encouraging to me. Where I list contacts, some are people I know (almost always virtually), but some I have never met.

Feel free to suggest other church websites you like in the comments section, but if we can, let’s try to point to church websites who are effectively using the web in terms of their strategy not just websites that look good (which is not bad in itself, but good-looking websites without an effective online strategy are irrelevant, in my opinion).

Church of the Resurrection
Leawood, Kansas
http://www.cor.org

The main reason I like this site is because it features “normal” people. If you visit the Resurrection Stories section of the site, you’ll find brief testimonies of normal people from within the congregation. One of the strategies I advocate for church websites is to include an extensive set of life stories of believers in the congregation. These are then used to promote the church to various segments of society. While I am not a big fan of religious testimonies on church websites (which the stories on this site resemble to some extent) — largely because the vast majority of unbelievers won’t initially care about religious testimonies — I do applaud the prominence this church gives to the “normal” people in its congregation. In an earlier version of the site, the photos of the people and their stories were prominently featured on the front page, and I would like to see them go back to that, but in general, the fact that they feature people from within the congregation means I don’t get the sense that this is primarily an institution — instead, it’s a group of people.

Contacts: the folks who write the Appian Way blog - Clif Guy, Brian Slezak, Chuck Russell, and Leo Johns.

This is the fifteenth session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we discuss the next part of 1 Peter 3:15 — “always (be) ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you,” emphasizing the need for internet evangelists to have a good knowledge of the truth.

I’m going to take a bit of a hiatus in the video series after this session and try to come back to it early next year.

Here is the fourteenth session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we begin to look at how the internet evangelist can prepare himself or herself for the task to which God has called them.

Here is the thirteenth session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we flesh out some examples of how the principles we’ve been discussing could be relevant to internet evangelism.

This is the twelfth session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we talk about some of the implications of the principles we’ve been discussing, specifically as they relate to internet evangelism.

Here is the eleventh session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

After studying five different passages of Scripture (John 17:20-23, Luke 10:1-9, Acts 2:42-47, 1 Thessalonians 1-2, and 1 John 4:12-14) and finding that each supports our contention that an authentic demonstration of Christian community is the foundation of all effective outreach, we expand on that principle a bit and talk about a concept known as oikos evangelism and about how people typically come to Christ.

Here is the tenth session in our multi-part series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we examine another passage which demonstrates the need for Christian community as a foundation for outreach — 1 John 4:12-14.

Here is the ninth session in our multi-part video series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we look at another passage which demonstrates the need for Christian community as a foundation for outreach — 1 Thessalonians 1-2.