If you’re an internet surfer who Googles the web for information, chances are you’ll come across a litany of websites tailored to the one specific subject you’re looking for. Say for example you search for “poodles” and a bazillion links pop up. So you narrow down your choices to two results. One of the links points to a website that is well-designed, well-built and well-maintained. The other site contains outdated information, looks tacky and was worst of all a free, ad supported website.

Which one of those two websites do you think you’re going to want your information from? The one that contains the accurate information and is well-maintained, but more than likely you’d choose it for the reason it is clean and well-designed.

Now let’s take this concept and apply it to something else. Church, for example. While perusing the interwebs for any and all links to various websites in my former church organization, the Church of God of Prophecy, another litany of results came up. I would say about half of the sites I visited were up to date, and even fewer looked well-designed.

Personally I will not visit a website that is not maintained on a regular basis, much less a church website for that matter.

For example, let’s look at the website for the international headquarters of the COGOP. It has updated news on the front page, which is good, and the design is nice, but alas if you click on some of the ministry departments, some critical information is sorely outdated. This link promotes the Youth Conference that took place half a month ago. Not good…a more professional website would have a recap or photos of the event up by this point.

I won’t even begin on some of the individual COGOP church websites I visited. Let’s just say half of them were built on a free website like ForMinistry or Angelfire.

A church. On a free, ad-supported website that sometimes display ads that shouldn’t be viewed by church folk.

I’m not trying to bash anyone here, but I believe one of the most viable ministries a church can have is its website. To many people who have never visited the church before, a home on the internet can be a first impression. A well-maintained and clean website with no ads, cross-browser compliant and with real photos of real people can work absolute wonders for a church body. But on the other hand, you could have the nicest church building and a wide range of programs, but people speeding by on the info superhighway aren’t going to be interested if the website isn’t as well groomed as the church.

I always maintain that the same amount of work put into the church building, mentally needs to go into a church’s website. And it doesn’t take someone with a bunch of head knowledge to be able to do it either. I don’t see why a church can’t fork over $100 for 30 gigabytes (that’s a TON of space) on a site like DreamHost, or $30 a year even over at WordPress.com for a blog or info space for the church.

And speaking of blogs, a blog is a great way to connect with the public. I’ve always been one for pastoral staff maintaining a public blog to be accessible to anyone who comes in contact with the church over the ‘Net.

All in all, if a church really wants to use an effective tool to grow that doesn’t require knocking on doors, putting signs out on the lawn or even plugging your church to friends in casual conversation — a website is a perfect opportunity. It’s really simple too — buy some webspace, get a good content management system or blog, and please, please fork over the little amount of cash it takes to get webspace. $100 a year is chump change and can be raised by anyone. Spend a little more for a professional designer to work on the church site too.

At any rate, I would love to see churches in general grow, and I think the power of the Internet is a great tool that needs to be harnessed by some bright minds. You can never spend too much on a great ministry that will end up benefiting your church in a HUGE way in the end.