Mean Dean at Heal Your Church Website is on vacation and has gotten a couple of guests to post some stuff while he's gone. Check out this article from Mike Boyink titled Web Sites Are Easy.
In this excelent article, he makes the case that setting up the site - the mechanics of it - is easy, it's the content that's hard. Why? Becasue we forget that the web isn't about information exchange or moving data back and forth between computers. It's about people exchanging ideas, ultimately it's story telling. He writes:
So here's the core frustration of what's starting to become a personal rant (sorry Dean, you did ask for something I was "passionate about"..;)). In one corner, we have the church website. No, let's not call it a website. Let's call it a "Story Container". A searchable, accessible, readable, always-available, hyperlinked, cross-referenced story container. In the other corner, the Church has the best story. Indeed - The Greatest Story Ever Told. And countless related personal stories - stories of great faith, triumph over addictions, persistence through illness, gain from loss, and undeserved grace.But we go on... presenting our churches like products - telling people why they'll like our church (Relevant! Great Music! Fresh Coffee!) but so rarely simply telling the stories of what our church, our faith, and our God has meant to us, and the true change seen in our lives because of it. What is it going to take to wake the modern church to the power of connecting the two, and filling our websites with our own stories? ....
It's those stories that members need to tell and visitors need to hear. Those stories are going to move people closer to God. And if our church websites aren't moving people closer to God then we're wasting our time.
C'mon. Tell me a story of when God was good to you. Oh..before you start...I'll bet there are other people that would like to hear it too. Can I put it somewhere where they will find it when they need to?
Powerful stuff. time to call my church webmaster. :-)
