church online

Basketball analogies are common among people growing up in Indiana, myself included. We compare most everything to a full-court press, slam dunk, or a variety of basketball terms. The Coronavirus is no exception and is certainly a game-changer for the American Church. Suddenly we find ourselves without the comfortable lead we have always enjoyed. The preparations we make over the next few weeks will have a great impact on the outcome for our church and its congregation.

If you’ve ever stood in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, looked at the hundreds of choices, and then walked away without choosing one, then you’ve experienced analysis paralysis. Options are supposed to be good, right? What happens when they become overwhelming?

Searching online for information about people, places, products, and organizations is commonplace in our digital age. Most of us are doing multiple searches daily or even hourly. Tools like Google Places and Yelp provide valuable information about the establishments we want to visit, like restaurants, stores, schools, and even churches. These tools give searchers a context and a place to refine and narrow their searches as they navigate the vast sea of information online.

There are many studies that track eye movements when people go to a webpage. It helps us to understand what most expect when they go to websites. That’s called the web paradigm. If you break the web paradigm, people won’t understand where things are, and things won’t feel natural to them.

Perhaps you're planning to redesign your church's website this year. You've heard that WordPress is a good solution for churches and now you're ready to look for the right theme. How can you determine which themes are best for you to use? There's more to the equation than just design quality and cost. After all, you know what looks good right away and most WordPress themes are within a reasonable price range.

So you want to connect with your church online. It seems so easy, just about everyone is already there, and you’d really love to feel engaged with your congregation. There’s just one problem… creating and maintaining an online community can be very tricky, not to mention overwhelming. Here are a few rules for you to follow to create a thriving community that wants to engage with you:

The first place most people will go to learn about your church—before even stepping one foot in the door—will be your website. When they get there, are they excited to join your church community in worship or are they running in the opposite direction?

It’s not every day that a company polls their customers and is overwhelmed with positive feedback. That’s exactly what happened when Icon Systems did a...