So, full disclosure… my wife works for a website design
company. They do a lot of work for non profit organizations, a lot of those
being churches. While my purpose for writing this post is not to try and get
more churches to buy a website from them, I do hope that if you find that after
reading this post you feel your website is inadequate you might look them up
and see if they can help.
The primary means of communication for the common person in
our culture is the Internet. The primary goal of the Church is presenting the
Gospel. It stands to reason then that a powerful means for the church to
present the gospel to the common person in our culture is through the Internet.
And since we believe that the Gospel is the most important information that
anyone can receive we should then present it with excellence. (Please don’t
read in too deeply to that statement. I’m not trying to say that someone’s
salvation depends on how cool your website is. I’m trying to say that we should
take seriously communicating well the message we’ve been given to present.)
Lets face it... this Internet thing isn't just a fad.
Chances are that we will not wake up tomorrow thinking to ourselves "Wow,
that Internet thing was crazy... I'm glad we're done with that. I prefer to not
be able to communicate (almost) instantly with anyone anywhere. I also prefer
not being able to access (almost) unlimited information about pretty much
anything. It was just a real bother." We’re in the information age, and
the Church should embrace this fact, and praise God, for the most part I think it has.
One of the primary goals of the church is to communicate the
gospel to people in a way that they can understand it. Paul did it at Mars
Hill. The Reformers did it by translating the Word into the common tongue.
Missionaries continue that process by seeking out people who do not have the
Word in their language and by creating translations for them. Jesus did it by
becoming flesh and dwelling among us. He even used the same story telling
method of teaching that Rabbis often used to teach (Parables). Also, Jesus not only communicated in a way that
people could understand, he communicated with excellence.
I’d argue that the Church should seek to use the Internet
effectively to communicate the Gospel.
And I think that poor quality websites and media (audio/video) are ineffective… I think using poor quality stuff does more
damage to some ones understanding of the Gospel then it does to help advance
the Gospel. So, in light of this, I’d
suggest that paying for a high quality website is worth it. Don’t just settle
for your cousin’s fiancé' who kind of knows how to program and has a little
bit of design experience and will do it for free. You’re not helping you church
by putting a bad website up just for the sake of being able to have a website
up.
Also, when it comes to posting media don’t settle for poor recordings that
make the pastor look like the cookie monster and make it hard to understand what the he's even saying. You’re not helping anyone
learn about the Gospel… Chances are that if it’s a poor quality recording
they’re going to turn it off in the first 30 seconds anyway (unless your video is so bad that it's funny and it ends up going viral... then tons of people will watch it and then someone will make a remix of it with a cut scene to a goat screaming). If you really want
to have sermon recordings online do a bit of research, get some new equipment,
train a volunteer to run the thing, and do it right. If you can’t afford to do
it right, don’t do it. Maybe think about posting only audio... but that will take a bit of research, money and training to do good job of too... If you can afford that than think of another way to present the pastor’s sermon
online. Maybe ask him to write out a brief summary of it and post it in a blog or
something. What ever you do, do it well. Don't settle for poor quality media just so that you can say you have media online.
The Internet is a powerful tool for communication. But it is
important to keep it in its place. It is a tool. The Church should never have
the goal of creating something so that it can be posted online. The Church
should have the goal of creating something that can take advantage of the
Internet’s power to communicate the Gospel.
Our goal is communicating the Gospel. Not looking cool to outsiders who
have an appreciation for good website design.
As Father Abraham (Kuyper) used to say, “There’s not a
square inch in the whole domain of human existence (including the internet)
over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not proclaim ‘Mine!’” So lets
use the Internet to proclaim the Gospel. And lets do it well. After all it is the
Gospel. Why wouldn’t we try to communicate it well?
(Also… shameless plug… if you want to check out a great
company, owned and operated by believers, that can help you with improving your
website click here.)
