If Jesus Had A Website

You may have noticed that some of my postings have dwindled in the past year.  I had attempted the relaunch of the site, which quickly ended up fizzling because I just hadn’t found the time and energy to keep up with it.  There have been several reasons for that, with the greatest being the additional time and energy that fatherhood demands.

However, another big reason for the downturn has been my satisfaction with my previous blogging platform.  It was a ColdFusion-based solution (which I have a bias towards being a ColdFusion developer) which was very solid.  However, I had made a number of customizations to it to meet my needs, which make keeping up with new revisions nearly impossible.  So, I have not been able to take advantage of new fixes and functionality, and have not had the time to redo the adjustments I had put together for previous versions.

So, I made the pretty radical decision to completely change platforms for my blog, to a more widely used application that I allows me to make customizations, but still keep up with version changes going forward.

However, the one big drawback to this is that I lost all comments on my posts (my new platform did not support importing them from my old platform), which is kind of a downer.  I do still have them all in backups, but have no easy way to tie them into the new setup.

Yet, I think the transition will be worth it.  I’ll have the time to focus more on writing and less on trying to maintain my old hack-and-slash solution, which is what I’d like to do anyway.

Living in a major city, I am often exposed to other cultures and faiths.  I consider this a good thing because learning about the backgrounds and beliefs of others allows me to learn about my own as well.  After all, it's only when we get pushed that we realize where we stand.

Anyway, the other day I was noting how often it is that culture and faith are often wrapped into a single package.  For example, I've heard more than a few non-practicing Jews refer to themselves as “Jewish”.  Technially, they're not “Jewish” if they're not practicing, but “Jewish” is how they define the culture that they were raised with.  Furthermore, most people familiar with Jewish culture would understand that background whether or not the individual still practiced their faith.

That got me to thinking about how the Christian culture is defined.  How are “Christians” generally viewed culturally?  When you call yourself a “Christian” in a room of strangers, what is the first image that pops into their head?  How are “Christians” generally portrayed by the media?

These are legitimate questions to ask, because we need to understand how we are being viewed in order to know how to reach out to others when we speak about our faith.  The answers to these questions reflect where they are coming from, which is likely a far cry from where we are in our faith.

Here are some of my thoughts about how “Christians” are portrayed in general:

• Puritanical – Strict, Witch-Burning, Judgmental Fire and Brimstone Preachers
• Bible-Thumpers – More Interested In Telling You Why You're Sinning Than Reaching Out To Bring Sinners To The Lord
• Naive or Stupid – Can't Accept Or Understand Science (After All, “Christian Scientist” Is An Osymoron, Right?)
• Sissies – Overrun With Hyper-Emotional, Weak Men

These are just a few that come to mind.

How else are we portrayed in the world as Christians?  Are we unfairly stigmatized in relation to other faiths?  How do we go about changing this perception to accurately portray how we live our lives as Christians?

What are your thoughts?

Back in February, my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our first son, Graem.  Here are just a few thoughts I've had in the time since then:

• While the first few months have been a blur thanks to altered schedules
  and getting over the “wow, I'm actually a father” stage, as I now begin
  to see bits and pieces of my son's personality emerge, I begin to think
  about the kind of father I want to be and the values I want to instill
  in my him.
• Has it really been five months already?
• All that time and energy I had to invest in preparing our first home (that we purchased last August) just isn't there any more.  Most days, I wish it was…
• I already miss the long nights of just sitting and holding Graem as an infant when he only slept a few hours at a time.
• When I think back to my upbringing (because I like to think I turned out OK), I see the careful balance of rules, boundaries, and freedoms that my parents set for my siblings and I.  They managed to teach us to say “Please” and “Thank You” without making them chores, and allowed us the freedom to pursue our interests, and now I have to figure out how to turn that around and pass it on to my son.
• We are very thankful for friends who helped us out with some great hand-me-downs.
• It's probably because he's a boy, but even I can get excited about baby clothes.
• Some days are very difficult, and I wish he could just tell us what he needs.
• Thankfully, we are not on our own.  I pray almost daily for God's guidance for both us and him.
• No matter how much he cries or fusses, that smile will always melt my heart…

I'm sure they'll be plenty more to follow…

Wow…it's already been a year, hasn't it?  (Well, at least since I legitimately updated IfJesusHadAWebsite.net.)

The reason?  Well, I simply lost my inspiration for the site.  It had been over a year since I had done any church website work, and it was becoming harder to write from the perspective of the church webmaster.  Week-to-week, I just wasn't sure what to write about any more, and just didn't feel called to keep writing.  So I started to let the blog fade into the background…

That is until a few weeks ago when I got inspired again.  However, the song of inspiration was different this time…

So now, If Jesus Had A Website is relaunching as a Christian life blog, aiming to write about the lives we live and how they are and should be influenced by our faith. 

Yes, I realize that that is a rather broad topic, but my thoughts range all across the spectrum anyway, so that's probably a good thing for you and I both.  I've also toyed with the idea of bringing in some guest writers as well to help represent a variety of perspectives to the blog and provide more food for thought to us all.

So, welcome to the new If Jesus Had A Website, and I hope you enjoy the new material and perspectives we have coming…

[P.S. - All the old posts are still around, if you're looking for them.  They've been relegated to the archives, but can still be found by searching!]

Once again, I have chosen to participate in Pink For October,
to honor my mother who fought breast cancer bravely, but ultimately
succumbed to it when it metastasized into her brain a year and a half
ago.  I encourage you to do your part in honoring and helping those
many who have been affected by this ailment.

Yesterday, my father lost his job as his company did not get their contract renewed.  Please pray for him, as he's taking it pretty hard, especially with everything that's gone on the last 15 months.  I know he'll land on his feet, but unemployment is never a good place to be in.

Thanks for your prayers, and if you know of a need for .NET or C# developers in the Pittsburgh area, let me know and I can pass it along to my dad.

It may have been a few weeks, but I'm back with the fourth installment in our free website critique series as we take a look at Victory Harvest Church (VHC from hereon out) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Again, I'll be taking the same approach as the previous entries in the series, and I would encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Appearance

• What's done well?
  • Banner Image – I like how the church name and the wheat field image tie together.  It leaves an impression on the visitor.
  • Cleanliness – The presentation of VHC's website is almost a minimalist approach.  Not that it's bland, because it really is a very aesthetically pleasing site, and it really works well.  You're just not inundated with information, but everything you need is readily accessible.  It's just a nice balance of form and function.
• What needs work?
  • Banner Image – Yes, this feature falls in both the plus and minus.  For one, the text is a part of the image (making it unreadable by screen readers and search engines).  Secondly, the image is HUGE, taking up almost the entire screen on a monitor in 800×600 resolution (which, I know, is not the current design standard, but I do want to emphasize just how big it is).
  • Just A Little Plug For Yahoo! – I see this a lot, but I find it simply inexcusable for an organization to use e-mail addresses that don't match their domain name.  I know those are harsh words, but it just appears unprofessional.  It would be like getting a letter from your insurance company with the claims agents personal return address label one it (ya know, the ones with the puppy pictures).  Even if your web host doesn't provide any e-mail accounts with their service, there are free services like Gmail for Your Domain that allow you to set up e-mail addresses under your existing domain name with relative ease.
• Suggestions
  • First, see if there is a way to reduce the size of your banner image without losing the impact of it.
  • Second, use standard HTML text to overlay the banner image so that it is available to screen readers and search engines. 
  • Third, set up e-mails that work under your domain name.

Organization

• What's done well?
• Plain & Simple – It's not fancy.  It's not complicated.  It just works.  It's the KISS principle embodied.
• What needs work?
• Coming Soon? – Can't say that I'm a fan of the Coming Soon! pages.  If a page is not completed, then it should not be linked to on your site.  Feel free to comment it out in your code if you want to keep the link handy, but keep it out of public view.
• I Didn't Even Know I Was Leaving – As you probably remember, I'm not a fan of links that look like internal links that take you to another website.  This time around it's the link for “Victory Academy” that got me.  These links should not be a part of your main links, but maybe broken out into a “Partner Organizations” category that would indicate you are leaving the current site.
• Suggestions
  • Remove the links to unfinished pages until they're ready to “go live”.
  • Like I mentioned above, try to make it clear when a link on your site leads to another site, even if it is affiliated with your church.

Utility

• What's done well?
• Here's What's Going On – How I love seeing service and event information on the main page of a church website.  It might be the primary information that one is looking for when they visit a church website, and it helps to have it readily available.  Nice work!
• Making Use of Tools – The use of the Google Calendar and it's clean integration into the site is very nice.
• What needs work?
• All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go – While the use of the Google Calendar is nice, how come it appears empty?  I had to skip ahead to late May just to find something.  It's probably a good idea to also add your reoccurring events (service times, bible studies, adult education classes, etc.) to the calendar as well.  Otherwise it gives the impresion that not much is going on at the church.
• Where Am I? – I did finally find the location of the church buried in the introduction paragraph and on the Contact Us page, but I question why isn't the entire church address on the site's main page.  It's addition could definitely help when it comes to search engine performance, especially if someone searches for “church in baton rouge”.
• Suggestions
  • Add your reoccurring events to your Google Calendar to make it clear that there's stuff going on at your church.
  • Add your address to at least your main page.  It could easily be added to all pages in the footer section.

While Victory Harvest Church's website doesn't pack a lot of the “WOW!” factor, it is a well-designed, appealing and functional site.  There are a few features which I'd clean up, but overall it's a respectable presence on the web that does a nice job of presenting the church.  It appears that there's more to come, and I hope that those features can be integrated without losing the current balance of the site.

Well, you may have noticed that I haven't had many updates to the site recently, and I've gotten a little behind on the critiques. Don't worry, I'm still working on them, and they're coming soon. I've just been a little distracted…

Spring has finally come to Pittsburgh, and I've definitely been taking advantage of it to the detriment of my blogging time. My dog has definitely appreciated the long walks though!

Internet Evangelism Day is coming up in just two short weeks, and it's time to start thinking about how we can promote the use of the Internet in evangelism.

Granted, the best and most effective way to evangelize is to create strong personal relationships that can be used as a basis for discussing God and our faith.  However, the development of the social elements on the web have made it easier for us to harness the technology of the Internet and build these relationships, sometimes with people we've never met in real life.

I'd encourage you to work with your church to either add an announcement in your service, or put a flyer (PDF) in your bulletin, highlighting the different ways the Internet can be used to spread the love of God throughout cyberspace.

Well, it's time for the third entry in our free website critique series, this time we're looking at the site of Metropolitan Baptist Church (a.k.a. The Met) in Houston, Texas.

Again, I'll be taking the same approach as the previous entries, and I would encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Appearance

• What's done well?
  • Design – The Met has an extremely attractive design and layout that is easy to follow, and that gives it a very professional appearance.  It's definitely a lot slicker looking than I could hope to make on my own.
  • Coherence – The site also sticks to it's theme throughout the site, with little to no deviation.  All the images fit the styling of the site, but stand up on their own.  They manage to pull off the trick of being noticed, but not standing out.
• What needs work?
  • Ummm…
• Suggestions
  • Honestly, the site is amazing looking (and actually one of the reasons I chose to critique it).  They've taken the extra steps to make sure everything works together, and all uses of tools like Flash are well integrated and definitely add to the site.

Organization

• What's done well?
  • Divide & Conquer – Like Christ The King, the breakdown of main menu topics with sub-topics is clear and easy to follow.
  • Topic Volatility – Over a span of several visits, it's easy to see that The Met's main page gets updated frequently.  On their page, they have links to events that are around the corner, and future events that need to be addressed now (i.e. camp and VBS).  I'm sure keeping the information current both assists members and keeps them coming back to see what else is going on.
• What needs work?
  • Menu Consistency – I know, I already gave props to the menu in general, but the “Ministries” portion doesn't sit right with me.  While the rest of the menu items are links, this one isn't, and causes a big, black drop-down menu that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the stylings of the site.
  • We Really Want You To Listen – While having links in the footer of each page to the church's contacts and calendar of events is probably both pertinent and useful, I think the other three links for sermon audio on each page is a little much.  These should probably stick to your Media Library page.
  • Did I Stay Or Did I Go? – Two things I noticed about the “Quick Links” sidebar that I noticed on most pages:  (1) Not all the links stay within the site, even though it looks like they should (mainly the Rehobeth links) and (2) the links in this section often take me to pages that do not contain the page I came from in their “Quick Links”.  For better overall site flow, I'd use the policy of “if I can get there through a link, I should be able to get back through a link”.
• Suggestions
  • Work on a few of the organizational inconsistencies you seem to have in the site.  In the end, they'll make for a better navigational flow to your site as a whole.

Utility

• What's done well?
  • There's Something Going On – No visitor can miss that there's a lot going on, and it definitely seems to be a focus of the church to promote these happenings.  It shows a liveliness and vibrancy for the church that I hope it fulfills in real life.
  • Event Details – Not only are there dates, times and locations for events, but there are also individual pages with descriptions and details on them.  That's a feature I really appreciate.
• What needs work?
  • Image Bloat – While the site is very visually appealing, it does suffer from some apparent image bloat.  Most of the header images in the site's sub-sections (like The Weekend page) loaded up very slowly for me, and I'm using a cable modem connection.  The image file sizes don't seem too awful, so I'm not sure if it's the images themselves or your web host, but something likely needs to be addressed.  I can only imagine the experience on a dial-up connection, which you still have to account for.
  • PDF Links – Yes, this is nitpicky, and I've mentioned it previously: If one of your links requires a special plug-in, like a PDF document, then it should be noted in or by the link.  To me “download the…insert” is not descriptive enough, as the link could be to an image, text document, or any other kind of file.
  • What About My Scroll Wheel? – Another picky thing, but the scrollbar on the News & Events section on the main page doesn't work with my mouse's scroll wheel.  While not a deal-killer, it's an inconvenience to someone like me who uses it frequently.  In addition, if you tab through the links in that section, the content moves while the scrollbar does not.
• Suggestions
  • Most importantly, take a look at the load times for the images on your site and how to improve them without sacrificing image quality.  This will improve the experience for all visitors.

Metropolitan Baptist Church has a fantastic website that is extremely appealing and functional.  It's a goal we should all strive for.  But it still has a few flaws floating around, which is a nice reminder to us all that our jobs are never done.  There's always work to be done when it comes to our church websites.