6 Ways Churches Fail with their Website

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 12, 2011 in Church Technology, Church Websites, Ekklesia, Featured Articles, Monk Dev | 4 comments

Over the last 5 years I’ve had the privilege of serving numerous churches and organizations to help them translate their mission into a web strategy. We’ve met with the key leadership of some of the largest, fastest growing churches in North America, turn-around churches and church planting networks through our Church Web Strategy Sessions and Communication Roundtables.

Here are the 6 most common ways I’ve seen churches fail when they seek to translate their vision online:

1. Skymall Syndrome – This syndrome often strikes when someone in leadership sees something shiny and (usually) unnecessary, like when while flying we think we need to buy something in the Skymall magazine (confession: I’ve done this once). After seeing this flashy object, a church leader wants it for their church. The failure of this strategy is that often people spend a lot of money on a flashy website but it does not make a substantial impact on their organization. Pretty websites are a waste of time and money because they are not enough. Today, a thought out strategy is essential because a new generation of digital natives are growing up, where the new front-door to your church is the website. When we work with churches we like to see goals created that drive the design/strategy process. For example, one church wants to go from 60% of their church in small groups to 80% and their website design facilitates this. Another church sought new visitors, people visiting the New Visitor info more than doubled based on the redesign and emphasis on this (see screenshots below).

2. Ministry Schizophrenia – Ministry schizophrenia often strikes in larger churches with many ministries. Too many cooks are in the kitchen and they all want their ministry front-and-center. In our strategy sessions, we often uncover that as the senior leadership clarifies their vision/mission that ministries either don’t know how to connect what they do to this or have competing agendas. It’s incredibly powerful when an organization can align their ministry leaders behind the key strategic initiatives of a church. As one person on our team said, “It’s amazing how often an indicator of problems and communication is within the church by looking at the website.” How are you aligning your ministries to work together to achieve what God is calling your church to do?

3. Enough about you, let’s talk about ME – Would you like to join the Elevate ministry? Or how about Oasis? I’m guessing you don’t know what those are. Often churches become too organization focused, designing for internal people & ministry leaders not end users/visitors. How can a new person find what they are looking for without knowing your internal language?

4. The Blind leading the Blind – This occurs when no one has thought through the reason for a website, there is a clear lack of clarity of vision and purpose. Sadly, we’ve seen several churches hand-off the website design process to people who do not have the experience to navigate the complexity and buy-in to lead the vision to succeed. The end result is noise/clutter and unclear direction for the website.

5. Death by Committees – Many churches we’ve come across suffer from this bureaucratic malaise. It seems like by the time you make a decision on the web strategy, because of the process (committees/bureaucracy), what you originally planned is already out of date by the time you finish. The web changes so fast, it requires a more responsive approach. Who can lead in this agile environment? Who is going to ensure you have your Twitter handle or you have a Social Media Policy to respond to criticism?

6. Volunteer Hostage Situation – This is the most dangerous of all the six listed. I cannot tell you how many times we’ve run into this situation (in fact this one will deserve it’s own post to expand further), where a volunteer in the church has control of the website and it leads to failure. Usually it is a techie or key member. If I had a nickel for every time someone shared a story of a church member who managed the website and then moved away, leaving the church in a lurch. Or a techie who programmed something only they could use. We’ve found very few churches who succeed when they have volunteers lead the online communication channel. We often coach communication teams to act as consultants to ministry leaders not gatekeepers. If only one person has control to add content online, churches have a serious bottleneck. Another time a church with a school I know with had a key giver run the website and be unwilling to relinquish control. The school was not able to be found online because of poor programming and code and the website looked like it was from the 90′s in a bad way. When a separate website was built that was able to address several of these shortcomings for their elementary school, it led to an enrollment increase by 1/3 . This leads to tens-of-thousands of dollars each year added to the school budget as they’ve hit capacity on Preschool and Kindergarten since the launch of this new website.

Conclusion: The web no longer is a nice thing to have. Today a presence online has become an essential element of interacting with new people as well as your existing congregation. Churches need a clear leadership plan to establish their vision, align their ministries and build a plan with specific goals in mind. With how fast things are changing, this can’t be a roadmap that becomes obsolete by the time it’s created, it needs to be a learned rhythm that constantly triages the situation to focus on where the church needs to go.

If you need help, we offer a 3-step consulting framework for Church Web Strategy Sessions that address these concerns and give you a way forward based on what we’ve learned leading many organizations successfully through this.

An Exclusive Opportunity for Church Communicators

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jul 20, 2011 in Church, Featured Articles, Leadership, Ministry Design | 1 comment

We’ve been silently working behind the scenes for the past few months at MonkDev, talking with some of the best and brightest in the church communications space. We’ve been planning our latest project, the Church Communicator Roundtable. It’s launching in a week, right before the Echo Conference. This invite-only event is an gathering of church communications practitioners who, simply put, know their stuff. Justin Wise has been hand-selecting people all across the country to bring together a solid set of individuals who know how to influence and not just communicate. We have one spot that we’re opening to the public and I’d like to offer that seat exclusively to you. Want to apply?

As a Dallas Roundtable Member, you’ll receive:

A 30 min Pre-Event Coaching Session
Dinner at the III Forks Restaurant
Lunch at the Aloft Hotel
A Disruptive Learning Event of Important Trends
Key Findings and Best Practices report from the content generated at the Roundtable
A Communication Strategy to Traction Plan Session
Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in the church comm space

Coming to Chicago in the Fall!

Gospel Communities on Mission Conference

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Jun 29, 2011 in Church, Church Planting, Featured Articles, Ministry Design | 1 comment

Attend the annual Gospel Communities on Mission Conference in Huntsville, AL. September 14-16, 2011

The GCM Collective hosts our inaugural conference focused on the three vital components of effective ministry today: Gospel, Community and Mission.

You will get to hear from, meet and interact with leaders who are daily practitioners, living in gospel communities on mission in their cities. This is a unique experience that will present the why, what and how-to of starting, leading and multiplying missional communities. Interactive plenary sessions, breakouts and unique training experiences will fill our days both on-site and off.

Big church, small church, multi-site or neighborhood…this event is for every church that seeks to effectively expand the gospel in their context.

Speakers:, Steve Timmis, Jeff Vanderstelt, Caesar Kalinowski, David Fairchild, Drew Goodmanson and Jonathan Dodson.

Early Bird rate ($59) for GCM Collective conference ends Thursday,June 30! Dont miss it!! http://j.mp/iuyGlf

Kaleo Church seeks a Preaching Elder in San Diego, CA

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 23, 2011 in Church, Church Planting | 2 comments

Kaleo Church seeks a preaching pastor/elder to join our team in San Diego, CA. We seek someone who is fluent in the gospel and understands how the gospel is more than the entry into the Christian faith but the very way we grow. Secondly, we seek someone who sees how the gospel forms a community. This person will participate throughout the week in the life of the community where we see being the church as more than an event on Sunday or mid-week. Lastly, we seek someone who has a heart for unbelievers and missional living. This person will agree with the shared values of a missional church community, posted here: http://www.goodmanson.com/church/shared-values-of-missional-church-communities/

The ideal preaching elder will be a gifted communicator of gospel-centered messages and desire shared leadership even though they would be the only paid elder. Further this person will have the ability to develop leaders throughout the community and disciple existing and future missional community leaders at Kaleo Linda Vista Church.

Kaleo is a church planting movement with three local churches in San Diego, CA and is part of Acts 29 Network as well as connected to Soma Communities in Tacoma, WA.

Interested applicants please fill this short form of interest out for the Preaching Elder role.

Faith & Technology

Posted by D. Goodmanson on May 3, 2011 in Church, Church Technology, Culture, Featured Articles, Ministry Technology | 3 comments

I had the opportunity on Easter Sunday to appear on CBS Sunday Morning for a segment on Faith & Technology (link to video). The segment discussed how technology is impacting faith. CBS filmed at the Christian Web Conference, did a day of interviews and then visited Kaleo Church . In the session they filmed, the Future of the Web & Church we had a conversations on several topics related to faith & technology, including:

- Does reading the Bible in a digital format impact our spiritual development? How? Will this change for future generations of ‘digital natives’?
- To what extent can we use online tools in discipleship?
- Would Jesus be on Facebook or other social media? (Note: My position is that he would not.)
- How does our theology of presence impact the future of the church?

Overall, it was a lively conversation and we only got through the above four topics before time ran out (I had a total of 12 I wanted to hit. Ambitious). If you have not attended this conference, I highly recommend it to everyone. I’m amazed at the consistent high quality of thought-provoking conversations.

There are a number of great books now released & coming out addressing faith & tech, that I would encourage you to pick up.

1. The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion – An excellent book on examining how technology impacts our faith & how we as Christians should view it.
Product Description: Even the least technical among us are being pressed from all sides by advances in digital technology. We rely upon computers, cell phones, and the Internet for communication, commerce, and entertainment. Yet even though we live in this ‘instant message’ culture, many of us feel disconnected, and we question if all this technology is really good for our souls. In a manner that’s accessible, thoughtful, and biblical, author Tim Challies addresses questions such as: * How has life—and faith—changed now that everyone is available all the time through mobile phones? * How does our constant connection to these digital devices affect our families and our church communities? * What does it mean that almost two billion humans are connected by the Internet … with hundreds of millions more coming online each year? Providing the reader with a framework they can apply to any technology, Tim Challies explains how and why our society has become reliant on digital technology, what it means for our lives, and how it impacts the Christian faith.

2. From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology
– A view of technology from within the Biblical story of redemption.
Product Description: Where does technology belong in the biblical story of redemption? Believers and unbelievers alike are saturated with technology, yet most give it little if any thought. Consumers buy and upgrade as fast as they can, largely unaware of technology’s subtle yet powerful influence. In a world where technology changes almost daily, many are left to wonder: Should Christians embrace all that is happening? Are there some technologies that we need to avoid? Does the Bible give us any guidance on how to use digital tools and social media?

An experienced Web developer and writer on technology and culture, John Dyer answers these questions and more by walking through the story of the Bible and introducing key ideas about how technology and culture interact. Dyer first analyzes the biblical, theological, and philosophical foundations of technology and then studies several examples that show how technology can influence the spiritual life. For youth pastors, college-aged readers, and anyone interested in understanding how technology fits with faith, From the Garden to the City fills a gap for biblically-informed literature in a technological world.

3. Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith – For the last few years, I’ve been arguing that we need to develop a theology of presence as we become more digital in our encounters and as future generations feel more connected to location & people through technology. Matt hits this topic and others in a timely book
Product Description: Our bodies matter. Christians today sometimes forget this, dangerously ignoring the importance of their physical selves when it comes to technology, sexuality, worship, and even death. Anderson’s book will help readers learn what the Bible says about our bodies and grow to appreciate the importance of embodiment in our spiritual lives. It will also explore generational differences when it comes to how we perceive and use our bodies. Just as Christ’s body was crucial to our salvation, our own bodies are an important part of the complete Christian life.