For all of the thousands of church websites we have built using our Church Website Builder, one thing has been surprisingly absent.
Jesus.
Why Jesus?
We talk a lot about if you are “New Here” or if you want to “Plan A Visit.” But where on our church websites do we clearly explain who Jesus is and why people should care? If you are feeling convicted right now, don’t be. This is something I also fell prey to.
Back in 2014 when I was working for Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia we had a lot of information on our website. We talked about our services, our music, our events, and our ministries. We even talked about our beliefs. But we didn’t talk about who Jesus was to the person that knew nothing and we decided to change that.
We met with our pastoral team and worked out how to deliver the gospel message via a website. We wanted to provide resources for people that we might not be able to meet up with in person depending on their location and we wanted to make it easy for people that make a decision to let us know. Within a year it was apparent that people were looking for this. We saw thousands of decisions being made through a website from people browsing, learning and deciding.
What is the purpose of a church website?
We have to remember the purpose of our websites and this purpose is shifting. It used to be solely about getting people into your building where they would hear about Jesus and make a decision. Now we have the opportunity to lead people to Christ online via the sites.
We have to understand that before someone wants to attend church, they need to know why people attend church.
Quick tip for writing website content for churches.
One quick tip in writing content for your website is to assume that the person knows nothing about Jesus and Christianity. Start there. We talk a lot about “Next Steps” but we can’t forget the first step. The first step is learning. Then comes a decision. Those two steps are the most important ones.
We need more Jesus
Without Jesus, none of what we do as the Church is possible. My hope is that we see more Jesus pages showing up on church websites in the next few years and as a result we see thousands of salvations happening online.