As we close the website series (at least for now), we wanted to add a couple of things that haven’t been highlighted:
Think of your website as telling the story of your church
Your website (and all your communication) tells a story about you, whether you want it to or not. The question is: what story do you want to tell about your church? When you tell a story, the audience is always important. If you were going to tell the story of your family history, it would look different if you were telling your family members, your work colleagues, or a group of ancestry specialists at a conference to learn how to find your family tree.
Think of your website in those terms. And we’ve spent enough time on audience in the series to help you understand that it’s not just your congregation or someone looking for your kind of church. That’s probably the biggest note when you look at OPC church websites. Many OPC sites are telling a good story, but it’s for too small an audience.
Let’s give a concrete example. You could probably summarize the story that many OPC websites are telling something like this: We are a Reformed Church that highly values the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith. We have ministries for men, women, children, and numerous activities throughout the week. We would love for you to visit.
Not a bad story, right? But who is that for? Most likely, that will speak to a (at least somewhat) Reformed Christian who is looking for a church.
What about this story: We are a church that believes Jesus changes people’s lives and unites us to live as a community that helps and encourages one another in living a life that glorifies and enjoys God. We aren’t perfect–far from it. We love to see people explore the Christian faith and what God teaches us in the Bible, but we know that can be intimidating. We are here to help. There are various opportunities to get to know people in the church and explore what Christianity is all about, and we try to make them visitor-friendly and look for those who are new.
Not that you write those words, but that’s the takeaway when someone (especially an outsider) views your site. Now the big question is: how do you do that well? We’ve talked about several examples. If you have questions, please email us: mailto:opchomemissions@gmail.com
Remember the Importance of Culture & Language
Any group has its own culture and language. This is not a problem at all–actually, it’s part of what makes a group strong and desirable. But sometimes we forget how foreign that language and culture can be to an outsider. It’s hard to remember what it was like when you didn’t know what ‘repent’ meant, or sin, or believe in Jesus–let alone deeper concepts.
If we are following the illustration of making our website the ‘front porch of the church’ then we need to think carefully and thoughtfully about how to express our story in a way that doesn’t water things down, but is at least reasonably understandable to an outsider and shows that we know they are entering an entirely new world. There’s a book on evangelism that suggests that an unchurched person entering a serious Bible church today is similar to a pastor rounding up his church members and taking them to a biker bar on a Saturday night. That puts things into perspective.
One idea we’ve come across is for churches to ask outsiders–friends or family who aren’t Christians to look at the website and offer some honest thoughts. They could be written or in a video, or you could sit with them while they talk to you about it, or on a ZOOM or phone call if they are far away. This can be eye-opening and can lead to some interesting conversations with the outsider.
Again, we haven’t been able to cover everything in this series. If you have questions, please email us: mailto:opchomemissions@gmail.com