"The IEC provides a regular forum for many of the foremost leaders in digital evangelism to discuss and promote projects and/or alliances which foster the fulfillment of the Great Commission globally through the Internet."

Dr. Allan Beeber
Director, WorldLINC, Global Media Outreach
Campus Crusade for Christ, Intl.

Member -- IEC Executive Committee 

 





 
January 2007 IEC Newsletter
Stimulating and accelerating web evangelism within the worldwide Body of Christ
 

Church Site Assessment Tool
By Tony Whittaker   Helping Churches Move Forward IED
"Week in, week out, more visitors turn up at our church on a Sunday because of the website, than anything else," writes a growing church near London. A church’s website is its public 'shop window' for the community, and increasingly strategic. Though it is hard to find precise figures, there are probably 200,000 English language church sites around the world, with many more in other languages.

Sadly, it doesn't take much research to discover that many church websites are, intentionally or not, written mostly for their members. Or at best, written for other Christians. Such sites may contain little that is enticing - or even comprehensible - to a non- Christian.

New Tool
Internet Evangelism Day has therefore released a new tool: a self-assessment questionnaire for church sites. This tool helps a church to analyze their website by looking at a range of factors that can make it effective, with a special emphasis on being user-friendly to non-Christians: http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site- design.php

The tool leads a church through questions on:

  • site design and usability
  • people-centered welcome
  • being easy to find on search engines
  • how to locate the church building
  • email follow-up
  • integration into wider church strategy
Many of the questions are directed at the following two issues:

Two neglected key elements for a church site

1. 'Church is people'
We all mentally assent to this. The Greek 'ekklesia' means 'group of people.' But many church sites are not really people-centered at all. They merely describe the weekly program. Frequently, the only photo on the homepage is the church building.

If 'church is people.' then the most prominent homepage photo should be people's faces. And ideally, there should be some 'meet the members' pages too. These will probably not be full testimonies, but enticing, not-too-serious profiles of a cross-section of different members. After all, if a church site wants to say 'come and join us,' then it needs to show who 'us' really is!

2. Testing
Few church sites seem to go through a proper usability testing procedure. This can be done on two levels:

a) General usability
Find several volunteers who are web users of only modest experience and unfamiliar with your site. They are typical of many people in your community who use the web without being experts. Seat the volunteer in front of your church website, and ask him or her to find specific information within the site. They should give you a running commentary on what they are seeing and doing, and the problems they are encountering. Do not prompt or help them in any way! This will soon reveal aspects of the site which though plain and obvious to you, are not easy for a first-time visitor. To them, it's rather like trying to find an item of food in a strange supermarket, or visiting a new city as a first-time tourist. Take notes (even an audio recording), and you will soon find the weaknesses in the site menu, links, text or structure.

b) Reaction of willing non-believers
This is similar to usability testing, but your testers must not be believers, because you are asking them to comment on their overall perception of the site for:

  • sense of welcome to an outsider
  • use of churchy language which they either do not understand, or feel to be off-putting.
Ask them to give a brutally-honest running commentary, or a brief written report if they prefer.

Their reaction to the site is likely to be somewhere along a spectrum. At the good end, we hope for a conclusion something like: "This church is about people, and I already feel that I am starting to know and like some of them. I sense that they will welcome me in a friendly unpressurized way, just as I am, any time I am ready to visit. There is a range of activities I can choose from."

At the other extreme, we may hear words like: "This church only seems to portray itself in terms of a formal program of weekly meetings. It does not tell me anything about the people there. So I am not sure that I would be really welcome. Even if I did visit, it might be very much on their terms. Much of the language is 'insider Christianese' too."

Most church sites will fall somewhere between these two positions. The challenge is to learn to listen, and then find ways to move the site further along this spectrum.

Repurposing Your Site
The IE Day team does not want churches to be discouraged or condemned by this checklist tool! Any website should undergo continual improvement. It is our hope and prayer that the tool will highlight aspects that can be developed, to be more user- friendly and accessible to outsiders in the community.

Your church website can help you to touch lives for Jesus.

Editors Note: 29 April is the 2007 Internet Evangelism Day. Go to www. InternetEvangelismDay.com for more information

The Word in Welsh
Source: Bible Society of the UK and Wales   Bible In Welsh
The Gospel of Mark is available for download free of charge to MP3 players. With over 500,000 Welsh speakers there is a great need to make the Bible available in a format with which they can engage. The Podcast is a taste of great things to come as plans to release downloadable versions of the entire New Testament are underway. To download the Gospel of Mark in Welsh go to: www.beiblcymraeg.org/yllaismp3.
Teens and Social Networking Websites
Source: Pew Internet Project   Pew Internet
More than half (55%) of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites, according to a new national survey of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The survey also finds that older teens, particularly girls, are more likely to use these sites. For girls, social networking sites are primarily places to reinforce pre-existing friendships; for boys, the networks also provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends.

A social networking site is an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users. In the past five years, such sites have rocketed from a niche activity into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of internet users. The explosive growth in the popularity of these sites has generated concerns among some parents, school officials, and government leaders about the potential risks posed to young people when personal information is made available in such a public setting.

Among the key findings:

  • 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 55% have used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.
  • 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible to all Internet users.
  • 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day, 22% visit several times a day.
  • Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social networking sites and created online profiles; 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of older boys, and 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older boys have done so.
"There is a widespread notion that every American teenager is using social networks, and that they're plastering personal information over their profiles for anyone and everyone to read," says Amanda Lenhart. "These findings add nuance to that story - not every teenager is using a social networking website, and of those that do, more than half of them have in some way restricted access to their profile."

Teens say social networking sites help them manage their friendships:

  • 91% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently, while 82% use the sites to stay in touch with friends they rarely see in person.
  • 72% of all social networking teens use the sites to make plans with friends; 49% use the sites to make new friends.
  • Older boys who use social networking sites (ages 15-17) are more likely than girls of the same age to say that they use social networking sites to make new friends (60% vs. 46%).
  • Just 17% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to flirt.
  • Older boys who use social networking sites are more than twice as likely as older girls to say they use the sites to flirt; 29% report this compared with just 13% of older girls.
The Pew Internet Project is a non-profit, non- partisan initiative of the Pew Research Center that produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care, and civic/political life. Support for the non-profit Pew Internet Project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/198/re port_display.asp

Internet and Culture News & Information

 
 

Contact the IEC



 

 
Internet Evangelism Coalition, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton, IL 60187 USA
Email: iec@webevangelism.com | Phone: 630.752.5156 | Fax: 630.752.5916