Technology and the Church (part 2)

I said that today's post would discuss some specific ways you or your church can use technology to enhance your ministry.  But since I have already written about RSS and Twitter, you can just go back and read those posts.  I will focus today on your church website. So here's the question - Is your church website important?

The answer is yes and no.

Yes it is important, because it demonstrates to both your church members and prospective members that you are not complete luddites.  Why on earth would people assume that the church is made up of luddites?  Let's have a look at David Kinnaman's unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters.  This book is written around a survey of the unchurched and their views of the church.

Number 6 on the list is that the church is out of touch with reality. Now, we know this not to be true, every member of every church lives in the real world.  We have the same struggles and difficulties as everyone else.  We just have our faith to carry us through these difficulties.   But the fact is, everything has a website.  Every book, movie, elementary school, hospital and teenager has a website.  If a church does not have one, they are somehow disconnected from the reality of the world.

Number 4 on the list is that the church is old-fashioned.  Read the previous paragraph.  What better way to prove the old-fashionedness of your church than to be stuck in an era before the internet.

I said that the answer to this question was yes and no, so let's briefly deal with the no.  In reality, no website is going to bring hordes of people to your church.  The lack of a website will certainly turn people off, but even the greatest church website ever will not bring people to your church.

Interested people will visit your website and they will want to learn as much about you as possible.  I personally believe that they would rather visit your website and learn about you anonymously than to be visited on Tuesday night as part of church visitation.

So what must any good church website include?

Who we are What we believe Info on Church programs Directions Staff information Current Information

By far, the most important of these is current info. Having a badly out of date church website may be worse than not having a church website.

Feel free to tell me in the comments how wrong I am. That your church is awesome without a website, or that the church website is directly responsible for doubling your church size.

The Most Hypocritical Blog Post Ever

Today’s topic is hypocrisy.

I’ll start by asking a question, what exactly is hypocrisy? Is it a difference between teaching and action? Or is it a difference between belief and action, or is it something else?

If I struggle with a particular sin, is it hypocritical to tell others it’s wrong?

Let’s use the example of the sin I cannot hide. All you need to do is look at the banner on this blog to see that I clearly am engaged in very poor stewardship of my body. My weight is a problem. I believe that it is a sin. In fact, I know it’s wrong to be obese. So the question I have is, do I become a hypocrite for saying so, when clearly it is a problem I struggle with? If this is hypocrisy, then what is my option? Do I have to pretend that it’s okay? Am I barred from ever speaking on the subject? What about related questions? Can I not tell my youth it's wrong to smoke because it destroys their bodies? Am I stuck in some sort of unending question mark loop?

To restate the question - can I acknowledge a sin and at the same time struggle with it?

I have often said that everyone is a hypocrite in some way. Usually there is something that we say we believe, but we live in a way inconsistent with that belief. For example, if I say that I love fishing but I haven’t fished in 2 years, (I’m definitely not talking about myself now) does that make me a hypocrite, a liar, or just somebody with a poor sense of what I like. (Just for the record, everybody finds time to do what they want to do.) Maybe that’s too trivial to be hypocrisy. Maybe I say I am committed to conservation and I do many good things for the planet, but I’m just not willing to take that extra step and switch to the cloth grocery bags, because they are expensive and stupid looking. I’m not quite sure that that is in fact hypocrisy.

Feel free to chime in on this one.

This topic is brought on because I am reading unChristian so far, a great book by the way.