ChurchBIT (a group of people who are involved in and passionate about how to use technology for the church) Here are some suggestions from discussions about ways to enhance a church website.
(1) Use stories in your community. Eg. Watermark Testimonies
(2) Allow people to participate in 'journal- like' responsive writing. Eg. a church 'reading through the Bible' plan (http://www.jointhejourney.com/).
The Journey" is a church-wide bible reading plan. Each day everyone who has joined the journey gets an email with a devotional that has been written by a member of the church. This has been going for about 3 years and I have seen a lot of fruit from this approach. This approach has fostered great discussion within our Body. With everyone reading the same passage everyday, there have been several opportunities for questions/difference perspectives. I like the continuity that this approach provides.I also think that the daily emails serve us a eAccountabilityPartner reminding you to get in the Word that day. Our church has a bi-monthly meeting that allows people to ask questions/process what they are reading in the "Journey."
(3) Find the right social networking sites to participate in. Eg. The Rock ISU
Our ministry (rockisu.com ) is focused primarily on college students at Iowa State University. We have a reputation for "out advertising Coca-cola" as far as flyers, etc, but we rarely see visitors show up simply because they saw a flyer. Flyers tend to act as a name-recognition driver (ask most people around our campus of 28,000, and they have heard of the Rock, even though our average attendance is only "130-give-or-take-20"), and event reminder for most people.
However, advertising events using Facebook, there have been several times we've seen folks with no other connection come to check The Rock out.
In the next couple of weeks, I am going to lead an advertising charge using Facebook, and attempt to track results by measuring average attendance over a couple of weeks and comparing it with pre-advertising numbers. I'm also going to try to randomly sample new folks to get an idea of how they heard about the event.
Join ChurchBit to participate in these discussions. Members include the founders of Church Marketing Sucks , Godbit, MyChurch Blog Ministry, Beta Church, Strategic Digital Outreach, Ekklesia 360, and the list goes on…
