manna?, a church in Holland Michigan, is experiencing a fascinating scenario on the home page of their website. The manna? website is set up differently than most church websites. Here’s a hint of the difference (from the bottom of their home page):

Hey - we don’t hold much on formality at manna?- if you want to contribute something to this weblog there’s no committee to work with. Just register (or log in if you already have) and use the Control Panel to speak your piece.

Did you catch that? Anyone can post a story to the front page of their website.

You might think that’s a recipe for danger, but a person does have to register as a member on the site before they can post, so the church does have some control over what stays on the website (although I believe they moderate after the posts are made rather than before). Although you might think it is dangerous, take a look at this article which was posted to the front page of the site recently (I’m linking to the permanent link of the article because it will eventually fall off the home page as new articles are added). Also take a look at the comments. Fascinating.

A person who has never attended manna? posts to the front page of the site telling them they are planning on attending a service. People from the congregation respond and ask the “newcomers” to introduce themselves. The newcomers are invited to join the congregation for a meal before they ever attend a meeting.

How do you think those people will feel when they show up at their first meeting of the congregation? Will they feel like they already know some of those who are part of the church? Will they feel welcomed?

In my opinion, the potential “danger” is far outweighed by the potential benefit.

What do you think?

Bill Seaver of the MicroExplosion Blog posted recently about a free ebook he wrote called Web Two Point What? A Pastor’s Guide to New Media. It’s being made available via download at the Do More Ministry Blog

Mike is blogging about this conversation at GodBit in his post Fear Behind Namby-Pamby Church Websites. It’s a fascinating discussion, and I firmly believe that Mike is landing on the right side of the discussion.

Dave Dias is a great friend and advisor to Strategic Digital Outreach (you can read more about Dave on our About page). Recently, Dave’s wife Irene was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening disease known as Amyloidosis. Without treatment, average life expectancy would be 18 months. With treatment, six years. For more information, visit IreneDias.com.

If you have a moment, I know that Irene and Dave would greatly appreciate your prayers.

A couple of months ago, in this article, I mentioned that I had stopped designing and coding websites for churches and ministries in favor of consulting regarding web strategy issues and also in favor of some personal projects.

One of the websites I was thinking of when I mentioned “personal projects” was actually a team effort by some friends of mine and myself. And today, I’m happy and excited to announce the launch of MissionEquip.com, a virtual toolkit of services to assist in preparation for missions trips, both short-term and long-term. The site is divided into four main sections: Prepare, Go, Connect, and Share.

Internet Evangelism Day, that is.

The third annual Internet Evangelism Day will take place this year on April 29. This is a great opportunity for your church or ministry to highlight the potential for the use of the internet in the completion of the Great Commission. The Internet Evangelism Day website is a vast compilation of resources to help you do just that. I would strongly encourage all churches, ministries, and individuals to visit the site and give consideration to how you can promote the this worldwide annual focus day.

Here is a press release from the Internet Evangelism Day team which will give you more information:

My friend Scott Aughtmon is the pastor of Pathway Church in Palo Alto, California. At one time in his life, though, he was an internet entrepreneur and marketer. One of his best products was a series of recommendations from a group of well-known internet marketers, all compiled into one e-book.

When Scott first told me about that e-book as we visited at a local Starbucks, he also told me that he had a vision to do something similar, but this time gathering the advice of well-known youth pastors.

It was exciting then, to receive an email from Scott about a month ago telling me that he had released the e-book, entitled How To Build A Lasting Student Ministry. Although I’m not involved in youth ministry myself, I purchased the e-book and have read through it, albeit somewhat quickly.

I’ve known Rich Tatum for several years. I first met him when he was the webmaster for the Assemblies of God National Headquarters and I was participating in an email list for Assemblies of God ministers in Northern California and Nevada. Somewhere along the line (I’m not exactly sure of the timing), I started doing some freelance web design for the Northern California and Nevada District of the Assemblies of God, and that gave us some more common ground to talk about. At some point, he left the Assemblies of God headquarters to start working for Christianity Today. We’re both sometimes participants in an AG mailing list or two. Over the years, we’ve kept in touch directly from time to time, usually talking about web design, working for Christian organizations, some theology, etc. We’ve never met face-to-face, so we’re virtual friends.

Four months ago, Rich was laid off from his job at Christianity Today. Since then, he’s been looking for a full-time gig while also doing some freelance web development. Rich is a gifted communicator, writer, teacher, trainer, and strategist with a great amount of insight into today’s technology. If you’re looking for someone with these skills, I would encourage you to take a look at Rich’s resume as well as his LinkedIn profile. If you’re not currently looking for someone with these skills, why not pass Rich’s information on to those you think might be looking for someone like Rich?

Also, for a fascinating read, take a look at The Sharpe Logs, transcripts of Rich’s IM and email conversations with Kathi Sharpe, an ex-Wiccan now converted to Christ, over a year-long period. A great example of how the internet can be used to influence a person’s initial decision for Christ and to disciple or mentor a newly-converted Christian.

I was wandering around the Gospelcon Blog (the home of Gospel Communications’ annual internet ministry conference) this evening and was pleasantly surprised to see my name and this website mentioned in this article. The folks at Gospelcon were responding to the article just before this one, entitled Flawed Follow-Up or a Flawed Philosophy of Evangelism.

While I was flattered by the mention, I felt that they had misconstrued what I was trying to say, so I left a comment to attempt to clarify my thinking. If you’re interested, why not visit the article and add your thoughts there (or here if you prefer). While you’re over there, the Gospelcon Blog is well worth reading, so why not spend some time perusing their articles?

The following was something I wrote to an internet evangelism mailing list in which I participate, in response to some comments made on the list regarding this article by Dr. Stephanie Bennett.

In many ways, I live in a digital realm. My day job is completely concerned with the web and ways it can be used for business. The overwhelming focus of my ministry is in finding ways to use the internet and other digital means to spread the gospel. I am “in the digital realm” in some form at least 10-12 hours per day Monday through Friday (somewhat less on the weekends), whether that means actually “surfing the web” or spending long hours formulating strategies for the use of digital means to further either God’s purposes or the corporation’s business.

I have spent years on the web, developing virtual relationships with many people. Some I have gone on to meet face-to-face, but many of these relationships remain completely virtual.

And yet, Stephanie’s article rings very true to me. While I might not go quite as far as she seems to (in almost seeming to say that we should abandon the internet for face-to-face relationships only), I do believe strongly that those of us involved in internet evangelism in the West have, in many cases, devalued face-to-face relationships and neglected (or even abandoned) the local aspect of Christian community.

I put some time in this weekend to sprucing up this blog a bit. Things were getting a bit stale, and I've been toying with some changes for awhile, so the three-day weekend seemed like a good time to do some housekeeping. Here are some of the changes which I've made:

1. A New Logo. I've long been dissatisfied with the masthead I was using on the site (for those who don't remember, it was simply the words "Strategic Digital Outreach" and the tagline "Telling the old, old story via modern-day wineskins" sitting on top of part of a map of the world. Recently, while looking for some world maps at a stock photography site, I came across some globes that had been transformed into cube shapes. I was fairly enamored of these cubes and thought they would lend themselves to a good logo treatment, so a few days ago, I started playing around and it wasn't long before I came up with the simple logo you now see in the masthead.
2. A New Sidebar Design. The new logo sparked some ideas for a cleaner sidebar, primarily through repeating the cube motif in the various sidebar headings. I also have wanted to bring the feed icon up higher in the sidebar and give it more prominence.
3. LinkedIn. In keeping with a desire to concentrate more on consulting than actual nuts-and-bolts design work (more on that in a moment), I decided to beef up my LinkedIn profile (largely following the encouragement of Guy Kawasaki in his blog article LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover) and add a link to that profile in the sidebar. While I've greatly improved the content in my profile, the largest deficiency is definitely the relative lack of connections! So if you are a LinkedIn member and you would like to connect, please feel free to send me an invitation!

4. I feel a little bit like Bob Dole. On May 15, 1996, at the outset of his presidential campaign, Bob Dole announced his retirement from the U.S. Senate with these words, "So today I announce that I will forego the privileges not only of the office of the majority leader but of the United States Senate itself, from which I resign effective on or before June 11th. And I will then stand before you without office or authority, a private citizen, a Kansan, an American, just a man."

   I still remember listening to that stunning announcement and thinking what a huge risk he was taking in giving up the power and trappings of his position for an uncertain fate at the hands of the American voters. I feel a little bit like him.

   I've said on more than one occasion (both publicly on this blog and in private conversations with friends) that I feel my strengths lie more in the area of web strategy than in actual design and coding of websites. And yet I have continued to some extent to do just that — design and code websites for churches and ministries. Several weeks ago, however, I decided to take a risk and stop coding and designing so that I could give myself entirely to consulting with churches and ministries regarding online strategy (internet marketing, usability, writing, etc.) as well as to some personal publishing projects of my own.

   The risk in that is that the coding and design of websites was helping pay my family's bills. Now, "I stand before you" as a simple strategist and not a designer/coder. And I'm not sure that online strategy consulting (especially to churches and ministries) will be able to help pay the bills.

   Several weeks ago, some readers may have noticed that I added a section to the sidebar of this blog entitled "We Recommend." In that section, I have listed (currently) six web development firms who I recommend that churches and ministries consider contracting with to develop new or improve existing websites. All of these firms are owned by Christians and all are excellent designers and coders. If you need web development, I would strongly encourage you to contact one or more of these companies.

5. New Projects. For as long as I can remember, the "Projects" section of the sidebar on this site has included only one website — ChristianCruz.com, a local portal for believers living in Santa Cruz County. With this "mini-relaunch" of the Strategic Digital Outreach website, I have added two additional websites — ProdigalGod.com (definitely a work in progress) and ChristianScreenSavers.com.
6. Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and Valid CSS. When I first began this blog, I set up the content management system and page layouts very quickly. I always meant to work on the code so that it would validate, but I never seemed to get around to it. But this weekend, I decided that I would bring the site up to standards compliance (especially since I talk about the importance of standards compliance on this site from time to time), and I'm happy to report that I've been able to do so.

I have not been posting a lot over the past couple of months. One resource which I should have mentioned earlier is the new Church Site Design Checklist from the Internet Evangelism Day website.

Your church website has enormous potential as part of your outreach strategy to reach into your community. However, not all churches understand how to design a site that will do this effectively. This self-assessment questionnaire can help you assess your site, and find new ideas or areas that could perhaps be modified.

When I first learned about the checklist, I worked through the questions with a particular church website in mind — a website I had developed a couple of years ago which was not as outreach-oriented as I would have liked to see it. I was pleased to see that the checklist seemed to rate the website just about where I would put it on a scale between being not outreach-oriented at all and being very outreach-oriented. Obviously, my opinion is not the final word on whether or not a church website is effective in terms of outreach to unbelievers, but it was good to see that the checklist seems like it will be helpful to churches.