Dean Peters wrote a masterful essay yesterday about how continuing to add solid, fresh content to our websites will result in greater traffic to our websites and to our physical gatherings. I especially liked this excerpt:
Not convinced? Let’s go back and take a look at JesusIsLord.com. For all the ‘love notes’ I received over my original review of this site, it still remains as an uninvested talent in the form of a domain name that might as well be hidden in a tin-can on the ground because it remains focused on leading people to Christ - leaving them to their own devices once they’ve prayed the prayer. There is nothing here that answers the tough questions, just a few hyperlinks that ‘hand-off’ a would-be disciple in the fashion of Jack Chick.
Dean is saying something very important here, and it’s something I’m afraid that web evangelists often forget - relationship is the key to any effective outreach, digital or not. If our websites encourage visitors to pray the prayer of salvation but don’t provide a way for visitors to enter into the community of believers (preferably through face-to-face contact with one or more believers in their local area), then I am afraid I have to doubt the effectiveness of the outreach. As I’ve said over and over again, authentic Christian community is the foundation of all effective outreach (cf. John 17:21-23).
I believe that the internet provides today's church with a historic opportunity .... to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love in ways which could only have been imagined in times past. The objective of this website is to explore the various ways in which today's technology can be used to spread the gospel around the world.
