Agape Press ran a story yesterday about a research project performed by Ellison Research, in which various statistics about the use of the internet by churches is presented. One portion in particular, quoting Ron Sellers (the president of Ellison Research), was especially intriguing:

“Pastors need to take a hard look at where technology might no longer be a matter of style or a luxury for the congregation, but an expectation,” he says. He says it is “amazing” that one out of four medium and large churches do not have a web presence—“particularly with many churches trying to figure out ways of attracting younger people, who are particularly likely to use the Internet to gather information and explore their options.”

One of the projects we have described on our Initiatives page is a two-tiered vision for using the web to help churches and ministries in a local area present the good news of God�s grace to those who have not yet committed their lives to Jesus Christ. We are currently using Santa Cruz County as the “test bed” for our vision, implementing the two-tiered website plan for our local area of the world.

Believing that authentic Christian community is the foundation of all effective outreach (John 17:21-23), our vision begins with a website for believers in a particular locality. This initial website is designed to facilitate community-building across denominational and individual church lines. A demonstration of Christian community serves as a platform from which the church can speak to an unbelieving world.

This first tier of our vision, as it is expressed in Santa Cruz County, is already up and running at ChristianCruz.com. Although it is not directly related to internet evangelism, we believe it serves to play a small part in providing a platform from which believers can speak to unbelievers in the online world.

The second tier of this vision, as it will be expressed in Santa Cruz County, is represented by SantaCruzLife.com, described in the post just below this one.

SantaCruzLife.com will be the first implementation of a vision I have had for approximately two years. SantaCruzLife.com will be a website dedicated to using the internet to present the stories of real believers to unbelievers in Santa Cruz County, California. The strategy behind SantaCruzLife.com will be unique in that it will naturally build the local church rather than resulting in conversions which occur outside the church. Read on for more details ....

Important: see the wise comment from Mike Boyink before running out and implementing this idea. As I said in my response to Mike, I’m going to give this some further thought.

In the meantime, check out Mike’s newly designed website, where you can regularly read insightful commentary on the state of web design today (and many other topics).

Recently, I’ve been having fleeting questions run through my mind about how a photo blog might be used for outreach purposes. Until a couple of hours ago, I would have said that there really isn’t much use for them in terms of outreach. But then I was reading a post by Jordon Cooper about how Bible colleges and seminaries could make better use of their websites. Jordon was lamenting the sterility of most efforts by Christian educational institutions to reflect the life of their community through photos:

Of course tools like Flickr and Movable Type working together make it a lot easier to show a day by day life of a community, from academics, to spirituality, to the social life of the community.

That made me think about how a church might be able to better present the life of their community to the public through frequently updated photo galleries which would remain largely unmoderated. What if a church were to establish an official photo team and ask them, armed with digital cameras, to take photos of congregational life and post them to these galleries on a regular basis. Would this serve to present the life of the community effectively? Just thinking out loud. Anyone know of any churches doing something like this?

I’ve been spending some time over the past few days redesigning a denominational website (actually for a two-state district of a denomination), and I’ve found myself wondering how such a denominational site could be used to spread the gospel rather than just highlight programs and departments.

A denomination by its nature, it seems to me, tends to compartmentalize itself into different programs and departments: we have the youth department, the children’s department, the women’s department, the men’s department, the missions department, etc. But unbelievers are largely uninterested in the ways we categorize our various activities.

Is a denominational website doomed to being simply a description of its programs and activities which are largely designed for the benefit of believers, or are there ways in which denominational websites can be used to reach unbelievers as well?

I was doing some filing today (which I generally dread!) and came across this article on the power of storytelling on the web. While the direct application is for e-commerce, I think some of the principles the article discusses are important for churches and ministries to remember when they are seeking to win the lost via digital means.

DJ Chuang, who writes ForMinistry’s eQuip blog was kind enough to mention Strategic Digital Outreach today, so I’d like to return the favor!

The eQuip blog regularly features practical tips, examples, news, and more about doing ministry online. What I especially like is the wide variety of links which DJ shares, often sites I haven’t heard of or have never visited.

Pay DJ a visit online or subscribe to the eQuip blog’s XML Feed to be sure not to miss any of the valuable information he provides.

I do a lot of work with pay-per-click campaigns in my day job and perhaps tend to look at PPC ads more than the average web surfer. I was searching for some photos of the recent tsunami this morning and noticed this pay-per-click advertisement from World Vision:

Help Tidal Wave Victims. 9.0 quake strikes Asia. Help relief aid efforts now. More than 11,000 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless after a tsunami hit the coasts of six Asian countries. Donate. http://www.worldvision.org

I thought this was a very compelling use of the medium from a recognized charitable organization (which probably plays a large part in why I (and others undoubtedly) find it so compelling).

While it may not relate directly to online evangelism, I do think it combines some elements which are important in PPC advertising: relevance (current events) and credibility (well-known organization).

It would be interesting to find out how many churches and ministries are using PPC advertising and what level of effectiveness they are seeing.

By the way, if you would like to donate, you can do so here.

I am very interested in storytelling as a method of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. I suppose that is true because I have sensed the power there is when people tell their own stories - of their life experiences, interests, etc., often intertwined with elements of their faith journey. Unlike our traditional evangelistic efforts (tracts, surveys, crusades, etc.), these tidbits of how their faith has impacted their experiences don’t seem forced or manipulative to me.

And so I was intrigued this morning by a quote I read on the Wanderer of the North blog from Anthony de Mello’s book One Minute Wisdom (I actually found this more complete quote at Patti’s Favorite Storytelling Quotes, but I started with Wanderer of the North):

The master gave his teaching in parables and stories, which his disciples listended to with pleasure - and occasional frustration, for they longed for something deeper. The master was unmoved. To all their objections he would say, You have yet to understand that the shortest distance between a human being and the Truth is a story.

Yahoo launched a beta version of a new video search engine yesterday.

John Battelle commented today on the potential importance of Yahoo’s foray into video distribution:

Yahoo is using its power as a major distribution player to feed what it hopes will be a major play in video distribution. It may not seem like a big deal now, but as the web increasingly becomes a native environment for video, it will may well prove to be one of the most forward looking things the company has done this year.

I think this has some potential application for web evangelism, and I’d like to offer some initial thoughts.

Jon Trainer, pastor of New Hope Bible Church in Albany, Ohio, wrote in his blog recently about the influence their church website is having on their community:

Every visitor we have had in our church lately has either found us on the web, or visited the website before they visited the church.  This is an incredible ministry tool that acts as a natural magnet or filter (as the case may be) for our congregation.

I love what Pastor Trainer says about the website being a magnet for visitors. An effective church website will draw unbelievers to your community of believers. If your church website doesn’t do that, it’s not as effective as it could be. See our white paper on effective church websites for a thought-provoking discussion on what the purpose of a church website should be. To quote a famous person, “You may not agree with me, but at least you know where I stand!”

I’d be very interested in hearing from other churches who have experienced the same visitor interest in their websites. Feel free to leave a comment if that’s you!