I figured I would turn this into a series of entries since the post about worship music generated some buzz.

There’s a scene from the movie ‘Wall Street’ where Gordon Gekko (one of the greatest movie names of all time btw) is showing Bud Fox a portable television he bought for his kid. Considering the movie was filmed in 1986 and took place in 1985, it was a remarkable little piece of technology. Gekko says:

“We’re going into a new age, pal.”

He was right. We’ve gone into a new age with regard to church websites. A church website used to be nothing more than a fancy business card. It contained some basic information, contact info and some pictures here and there. Church websites for the most part were boring and bland and said nothing about the church itself. Many people going to church today were born or just toddlers around the time Gekko was declaring we were going into a new age. Now they’re 24-30, are married and have kids. They’re looking for a church to attend and they’re looking online.

Because they are more tech savvy, they’re going to associate the church website with the church. Real estate experts will tell you that people make a decision on a house 30 seconds from the moment they walk in the door. I would say that it’s a similar decision about whether or not to attend a church when looking online.

I read an interesting piece here that had some numbers in it. My Pastor told me recently that he’s talked with quite a few visitors who said they came to our church after visiting our website.

Brandon Cox (who directed me to the above link and whose church benefits in that he is the Pastor as well as the website designer!) said he has asked visitors about how they found the church and he said as many as 60%-70% have checked out the website before visiting.

Here are three churches in my town of Palm Coast, Florida. Now, I am not in any way looking to demean these churches. I know people that attend these churches and all three of them are great. But their websites really need some work:

First Baptist Church of Palm Coast – As you can see, the design is just not all that good and it looks extremely dated. There’s animated gifs, or no graphics on some pages. There’s mixed fonts and pages that don’t flow very well. They have a link to a blog that hasn’t been updated since November 2008.

Next is Palm Coast Community Church. If you click on the ‘About’ page you’re taken to a page that shows ‘Under Construction – 2008.’ The ministries pages are blank for the most part. The contact page has names with no titles.

There is Lifecoast Church. This is the best of the three, but still contains holes. The links page is blank. The search page is blank. The biggest problem for me is that the links on the left overflow with the text on the pages making it difficult to read.

Finally, there is my church, Parkview Baptist Church. While there is no doubt still room for improvement (and I’m trying to help with that), the first impression is leaps and bounds beyond the other sites listed above. There’s a welcome video from our Pastor as well as a clear link to his personal blog. There’s a ‘Before You Attend’ link that I think is crucial to new visitors. There’s scrolling announcements that are kept up to date. As I said, there’s still room for improvement, but it’s clear that some real effort went into creating this site and I think that is a very good first impression to make with people who are looking online for a church to attend.

Granted, there’s still time for people to not like what they see and hear after they walk in the door, but part of the process is merely getting them to walk in that door.

Do you agree? Is a church website really that important? Your thoughts are welcomed.