Website For Evangelism
To close out this week and give you some weekend food for thought, I thought I'd pass along these ideas from Gospelcom.net, in last months Web Evangelism Bulletin, on ways to make your website an evangelistic tool.
Some are very good, which I've advocated before:
5. Avoid all ‘churchy’ jargon and ‘Christianese’ language throughout the site, especially on the homepage.
While others seem to cross a line between evangelistic and gimicky:
16. Games and fun stuff are attractive and make a site sticky (i.e. encourage repeat visits, because of the interesting and possibly frequently changed content).
As you may have guessed, I may not agree with all of them, but they definitely left we with a lot of thoughts and ideas. Hopefully they'll do the same for you.
Also, make sure you hover over the "More" links to get additional information about a suggestion in a pop-up box. Not a big fan of that design plan, but I didn't want anyone to miss out on the information.
I could see that some sort of game on a kids portion of a website could be alright (if it is a game where they can actually learn something about God or the Bible) but as for games on a church website, I would be quick to disagree.
Yes, games are fun. I went through a Halo 2 phase when I lived at college. However, games really are a waste of time. It does nothing for the betterment of ourselves or others.
I agree that with todays culture, games can at times attract. But I think there ought to be some boundaries as to the methods we use to attract people to our websites and keep them coming back.
In the grand view, we should attract people because of God and because of who He is and what he has done for us. If they are not attracted to that, then once they get bored with the game, they are gone anyway.
Josh,
You're right, games can be a contributing part of the site if they have a purpose and are well done. Otherwise, they are, or at least come across as, just another gimmick. And that's something we want to avoid.
However, I have to admit that I am a gamer myself. Yea, they are a waste for the most part, but I've always enjoyed having friends over and talking while playing. I know at college we introduced more than a few people to Christ in just that way. Now in my adult life, I just find them as a good diversion from a long day. I got a Wii at launch, and let me tell you that a Home Run Derby or Bowling Challenge is a great stress reliever.