So I participated in a live webcast by Tony Morgan on Thursday afternoon that was very cool and inspiring. I’m very interested in Tony Morgan and NewSpring because I believe they are doing a lot of cool things all in the name of Jesus. Tony Morgan does communication, IT, web and is currently focused on the launch of NewSpring’s internet campus in January. Basically… he has a job that I want! Haha…
Tony Morgan said, and I’m paraphrasing a little, “It bugs me that people would downplay my spiritual gifts… that my gifts have no place in the church… that I should go work in the marketplace and make money for some company. I believe that God has called me to ministry to use marketing strategy to help people come to find Jesus.”
I digress…
As I mentioned in a previous post, Our Saviour’s (the church I work for) is going to be rolling out a new ministry tool in the form of database software in the 1st quarter of 2009. We will be using ACS Technologies. The way it works is really pretty cool… it basically has two components to it; the staff [internal] database and the congregation [external] web access tool. The web access tool will likely appear to many of our members as a slight re-vamp of our website because it will give them the opportunity to “log in” and change their information, as well as keep up-to-date with the ministries that they and their family are involved with. I’ve mentioned most of this before so I’ll move on.
Tony Morgan talked about how churches use their websites. The reality is that the average congregation member does not visit their church’s website very often. The most traffic on a church website is actually going to be prospective members and the “un-churched”, for the sake of this post I’m going to collectively call them the Johnson family. When the Johnsons move into the area and are searching for a new church home, they will likely hit up church websites before they decide to walk through the doors and attend a worship service. Tony Morgan says that the Johnsons are going to be looking for answers to two very simple questions:
1. Are we a fit here?
2. If we are, what’s the next step?
Most church websites have a page for every ministry, and that page likely hasn’t been updated since the website was built. We think that if we give the Johnson family more information about our ministries… that they’ll see how cool we are and want to join. The hard truth is that the more pages we have on our website the more cluttered it looks and it might actually turn the Johnson family away.
NewSpring has made their website friendly towards people that do not go to church! Tony Morgan says that the web is the future of the church for the following reasons:
- It’s cheaper than building a new building or re-building a current one
- It’s easier for people to have online conversation than to make the trip to a physical facility
A web community is not satisfied with a website that just gives out dates and times. They want a website that is going to be dynamic and ever -changing. NewSpring’s web strategy is always “in-flux”. Tony says that you don’t need a new website, you need a better website.
So I believe that there should be “two sides” to a website and that ACS will help us accomplish that. I say that instead of having a page for every ministry we utilize ACS web access tool to get information to members about ministries. We will be able to see what their likes and dislikes are and be able to direct them to ministries that might be of interest to them. This will create a more intentional form of communication than what we currently have available. The part of the website that you see before you log in to the ACS component should remain quite simple and stick with answering the two questions that people look for when they’re looking for a church home, mentioned above.
I learned today that branding has to do with that experience and how people perceive your ministry outside your building(s). We are all busy with the things happening in our lives. We rarely have time to volunteer or get involved with something else because we may already feel stretched between our duties. Tony says the church should be trying to create space in your life, not burden your life. A cluttered website, one filled with a million ministries, is likely going to give the impression that this organization will clutter the Johnson’s lives and might scare them off.
Tony suggests the best way to help the Johnson family see if they are a fit in your church is to show them the worship service, not show them ministries. He says that marketing ministries is the easy way out to get people to come. The Johnsons are more likely to come to worship however if someone they know invites them to your church. If someone builds a relationship with them, establishes trust. That’s something that the church doesn’t have to market… it’s just something that happens when people are infected with Spirit of God by the church. I talked about this concept here.
