Strategic Digital Outreach

Church Websites: A Necessary Outreach?

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.”

Another interesting portion of the article sees a correlation between the size of a congregation and its use of a website:

But as the Ellison study points out, the larger a church’s congregation is, the more likely it is to maintain a website. According to Ellison Research, almost 90 percent of churches that typically have 200 or more people attending worship on Sunday morning have a website. That compares with 60 percent of mid-size churches (100-199 people) and 28 percent of small churches.

The statistic which caught my eye was the fact that only 28 percent of churches under a 100 people have a website. Given my conviction that the role of a church website should be to draw unbelievers into Christian community, and given my further conviction that smaller churches are more adept at demonstrating such community, it seems particularly tragic to me that such a small percentage of these smaller churches have websites.

An approach such as the one outlined here would be an effective one for small churches to consider.

Posted by on 01/08 at 02:03 PM
The Collective Voice!
Add To The Collective Voice!
Comments must be approved by the Strategic Digital Outreach team before they are made public on the site.

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below:


Next entry: More On Ellison Research

Previous entry: ChristianCruz.com

<< Back to main