As my wife and I continue our search for a new church home, I have continued to learn more about different churches and their approaches.  One of the things that I have found a bit alarming is that there don't seem to be many who emphasize learning.

While worship, prayer, ministry and fellowship are essential to being a well-rounded Christian, education in the gospel should be the core of our faith.

To give some background, I've been to several different "styles" of churches.  I've been to ones which have hour-long services where 40 minutes is taken up by the sermon, and I've been to ones which have hour-and-a-half-long services where 25 minutes is taken up by the sermon.  Both can work.  For me, it's always come down to the content that the pastor provides in their sermon.

That's why when I hear a sermon about a handful of verses, which may even be taken out of context, or a very superficial exploration of a Bible chapter, I'm often put off by that church and am less likely to come back.

You might be thinking that I'm forgetting bible studies and adult education classes.  Nope.  While these groups are great for further educating the congregation, that does not mean that sermons should be a "light" version of education in the gospel.  Many people have a hard time generating interest in these groups, and even more have a hard time finding time for them.  Therefore, I would argue that we have to work to educate the congregation as much as possible during the sermon, and then allow bible studies and classes to build upon this in more detail.

After all, Jesus didn't tell people just the basics and ask them to come to a class if they wanted more information.  He went to the masses and shared the Word of God with all of them.  He was trying to reach as many as possible and tell them as much as he could!

Being not too far removed from college, I am well aware that many students who have been raised in the church often struggle when they get out on their own.  The reason is that many of them do not have the proper education about their faith to refute false claims and otherwise defend their faith.  This leads to them questioning their own beliefs, and often being pulled away from God.

This can often be directly tied to the lack of proper education in our churches.  If the point of our schools and universities is to educate students to make them better members of society, shouldn't the point of our churches be to make their congregants better members of the body of Christ?

While reading two different articles/webpages today, I was struck by the dichotomy of evangelism that is posed to Christians. Take the following pages for example:

• Chick-fil-A and Church Marketing takes a look at the passive approach that Chick-fil-A restaurants take. They simply observe the sabbath by being closed on Sundays and strive "to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A", according to their mission statement.

• Wikipedia's Family Force 5 page, which I came across while trying to learn more about the band after hearing them on internet radio, brings up a complaint that Christian-based bands often receive from the Christian community: their lyrics aren't "overtly Christian".

So how are we supposed to act as Christians? Are we to be brazenly Christian and possibly turn people away from the Lord, or are we to passively lead by example and only try to take advantage of the few heart-to-hearts that we get, or is there an effective middle ground?

Ultimately, the decision about this approach rolls over to our congregations and websites. Are they overly preachy, too Christian-centric (and not reaching out to searchers), too flashy or friendly and not faith-driven, or do they manage to balance everything into one quality, effective site?

It's an intersting thought to take into consideration: how do we, and should we, display our faith and evangelize the world?

Being a blogger myself, I am a regular reader of Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net. Well, he's having another writing project, and this post is a direct result of that. While there is a prize, and it would be nice to get, the reason I like participating in his writing projects is that they usually encourage me to break out of my posting patterns and try something new. In that vein, I bring you the top 5 things that I've learned while running this site:

1. This Blogging Gig Ain't Easy - Honestly, when I started this site, I expected it to be pretty easy. I figured one post a week about topics I'm already familiar with would require pretty minimal effort. However, I learned that trying to run a site that makes a difference requires more time, participation, reading and learning on my part than I had ever expected.
2. Patience Is A Virtue - A year and a half ago, I had very modest expectations for this blog. I had hoped that at least a few people would be impacted and work to improve their church or church-related websites. Today, for the first time the blog has hit 100 feed subscribers, and the site is better know than I had ever expected.
3. I Have Great Readers - Since I mentioned the number of subscribers, let me just say that I have great readers, who help provide feedback and insight into the website topics discussed here. I'm also very thankful that everyone was so patient and understanding during my last few months of personal turmoil (even now, I'm still trying to get back on a regular schedule). Your continued support over this time has been very much appreciated.
4. There Is No De Facto Template For Church Websites - Yes, I admit that when I started out, I looked at putting together as a pretty simple equation (something like A + B + C = Church Website). However, I've learned that there are places for a number of different approaches to a church website, depending on community, location, congregation makeup, and a number of other factors. There are basic sections that should be on every one of these sites, but the rest is up for grabs. The important thing with the rest of these sections is to make sure they are implemented as effectively as possible.
5. Running This Site Is Rewarding - Honestly, I've gotten more out of running IfJesusHadAWebsite.net than I had ever expected. I've learned more about site design and implementation, developed more relationships, and had a bigger impact than I could have hoped for. I hope to continue serving the Lord's will for the web for a while to come, because I still feel that he's got a lot in store for all of us!

Outreach Magazine is running an essay contest for university students asking the question: What is one major spiritual challenge facing my generation today? (BTW, thanks for bringing this to my attention, Dan)

I'm curious to hear what you all have to say about it. I'm sure there are many that we can come up with...but here's one I've been seeing:

From some of my conversations with campus pastors and people in general, I feel that one of the major growing problems is the dwindling of personal relationships. Many students today have had "tools" available to them that allow them to keep from developing many social skills and personal relationships with others, such as video games, computers, texting, and MySpace. The result is an avoidance of emotionally taxing situations, like confrontations.

Family relationships suffer when students are able to avoid communication with their family, such as talking about their day over dinner, in favor of non-personal communication while surfing the internet or playing video games. Even "romantic" relationships then suffer because alternatives like casual sex are preferred over a deeper emotional relationship because they are "easier". At the same time, many are desperate for any kind of personal communication that they look for it in places like online games, like World of Warcraft, where they can talk with others, but only get to know them on a superficial level.

Meanwhile, most of these individuals are in search of some kind of emotional bond, but don't know how to establish or build them. These are those who we need to be reaching out to as a church, and an inviting church website can be a great way to do so. However, it cannot be the work of the website alone, but a combined effort of the foot-in-the-door approach of the website, and the welcoming love of a strong congregation.

Don't get me wrong, as I do play video games and spend time online (obviously ) and they clearly have their benefits, but I have plenty of outlets for "offline" personal communication. Heck, I would rather speak to my friends on the phone than IM them, and I'm definitely not much of a phone guy. The key is a balance, so that we don't lose touch with the world we are living in.

Forgive me if I'm oversimplifying this, but it's a concern I, and others, have been seeing develop. Just one more thing to keep in mind as we go down the line...

What are your thoughts? What is one of the major spiritual challenges facing our/your generation today? And how do we deal with it?

Today, I was doing my typical web surfing, and I came across the Christian vs. Christ-follower post over at Think Christian. Basically, they have a set of three commercials that parody the Mac vs. PC commercials you've probably seen either on the internet or TV. Now, while the commercials are interesting in their own right, they're not the reason I'm pointing you to Think Christian.

The reason for that is way that Think Christian is using an available and popular technology in the embedded YouTube videos, to spark a conversation amongst visitors (and not just a little one...this has over 133 comments right now). And look how little other content the author added: almost none. This is a good way to get things started, especially with content that could potentially be divisive as the readership may not know where the author stands. This allows both sides to more freely have their say than if they already know the discussion will be biased. Very savvy!

Secondly, I'd like you to notice is the date of the post. It went up on November 1st, and there's regular comments that go through today, and will probably go on for a while longer. In this day and age of the internet, that's a long time for regular conversation over a blog post. Usually that means that people are talking about the post elsewhere, either in real life, or in their own blogs. This is the viral effect that we often hear about.

The lesson here is not to be afraid use these resources available to us to stir the pot a little bit to get people talking. After all, we can't start conversations about God if we don't start any conversations in the first place.

I happened to read this article from Jeremy Wood over at BlogMinistry, and felt an obligation to address it myself. I'll let you read his comments yourself, but basically Kevin Denee of The Restored Church of God (which originates from the Worldwide Church of God, which had some questionable doctrine itself) takes blogging to task, basically claiming the majority of blogs as dangerous, vain and rooted out of boredom.

The truth is that most blogs originate for one of two reasons:

1. A Desire To Express One's Self - A lot of people just need an outlet to express themselves.
2. A Desire To Help, Guide, and Inform Others - Sharing expertise to help others be able to do more.

For him to throw blogging under the bus like that shows a lack of understanding of the technology and fear that it will do something to the people. Truthfully, some of his concerns are earnest, but he's pointing the finger in the wrong direction. Blogs and personal homepages can be potentially dangerous if their users do not use them properly, but so can your debit card if you write your pin number on it and start walking around in crowded streets waiving it around. The finger must be pointed at the individual, and not the tool (unfortunately, this seems to be a recurring problem for Christian leaders to blame the "new things" in a world of advancing technology that they may not fully understand).

Yes, there are some blogs which are focused around getting attention or make the mistake of keeping a personal journal in a public forum. But to classify the vast majority of blogs as such shows a real lack of understanding in the power of blogging and social computing in reaching a world that is eager to learn more.

After all, if blogging was as evil as he makes it out to be, I'm pretty sure IJHAW and the numerous constructive Christian blogs out there would not be here today.  But we are here...working to do the will of God.

Most of the time here at IJHAW, we spend our time examining how we can make our web sites more effective. However, there are things we can do which, despite all the bells and whistles we can add, can make a church website completely useless. Pardon my tongu-in-cheek humor.

• Don't Post Your Service Times - After all, why would anyone want to know when the service started?
• Don't Post Your Location/Address - This is especially ineffective for churches that do not have their own buildings.
• Don't Post Any Contact Information - If they really want to get a hold of you, they can just use the phone book, right? No chance they'd just move on to the next church website.
• Use A "My First Website" Design - No, this doesn't make it look like we're not even trying, or that we're completely behind the times.
• Write About What Your Church Won't Stand For - Nothing oozes love like singling out all the things your church hates.
• Have Broken Links - Because people can just look at the Status Bar and figure out where the link was supposed to go.
• Have Music Playing In The Background - If they don't like the same music you do, then you don't want them at your church anyway.
• Don't Keep Your Website Content Up-to-Date - Surely, visitors will realize that you just don't have the time to get them information.
• Don't Even Bother Having A Website - We like our members like we like our Senators, over 30!

Remember all the little things that you look for in a website when putting your site together. While the above list was meant to be funny, I have seen real cases of each! Making sure you take care of all the details will help to ensure that your website is a more effective tool for your church.

The coexistence of business and religion has always been an interesting one, especially for the Christian businessperson. Many people have a hard time seeing a person striving to make money and do God's will at the same time, but that doesn't mean it cannot be accomplished. In fact, I've met several people who have been blessed with both a passion for God and great business sense.

However, there are also the cases when things go awry. I stumbled across one apparrent case of this a few weeks ago when I found ChurchShoppers.com. This is a site designed to help match people up with churches if they are switching churches or moving to a new area. The site appears well-intentioned for the most part, even including a belief statement, but it's then littered with advertisements. Ok, that I can deal with as it's become pretty commonplace on the web.

The real kicker to me was that if you want to have your church listed, you have to pay a $69.97 introductory fee for a basic listing, with another $149.97 each year thereafter to remain listed. And this is for a minimal listing. Their premier listing runs $99.97/200.97. All this for a service which doesn't do any more than allow churches to list contact info and leave some basic information about themselves.

Now, if they actually sent someone out to attend a service and provide some useful feedback for users, the listing may be worth the price. For now, this is simply gouging for a service that would be less effective than making sure your church website is listed in Google.

Honestly, the site may have been started with the best of intentions, but is has seemingly lost its way of promoting the kingdom of God in favor of the mighty dollar.

The lesson to learn from this is that when you partner up with a buisness (Christian or not), make sure you take the time to learn a little about those you are getting involved with. Otherwise, you may find out too late that the "Christian" business you've chosen may be working both for your cause and against it.

This past weekend, I was given the opportunity to have a very unique experience. I was asked to preach before our congregation while our pastor was out of town at a wedding. Let me tell you, it gave me a new respect for all that a pastor needs to take care of.

Fortunately, I had several weeks to prepare for my sermon, but it still took up a lot of time to put it together. And then there was the whole public speaking aspect, which I haven't had to do since I led recitations in graduate school. Let me tell you that flow is no easy task.

And I didn't even have to worry about getting calls at home for prayer, making any hospital visits or any number of other pastoral responsibilities.

What I'm getting at is reiterating how important it is to have specific roles when it comes to the church website. In smaller churches where there is only one pastor (which happens to be most churches), we cannot expect the pastor to find the time for one more thing to worry about. If the pastor would like a blog, then more power to 'em, but expecting them to take on the responsibility of providing the church website's content is probably too much to ask.

So, I encourage you once again to spread the responsibilities among several people if at all possible. Once all the cogs are in place, it's much easier to function as a well-oiled machine.

I wanted to pass along this really good article from Jim Walton over at Church Tech Matters where he talks about the perceptions of those who "work with computers" and how not everyone who fits that description is the right person for specific tasks within the church (i.e. site design, web applications, tech support).

So, if you are a pastor or other leader in a church, there is a fairly good chance that you are not that technical and there is nothing wrong with that. But, how can you find the right kind of technical expertise? The truth is, being a computer guy does not mean expert at everything technical. There are different kinds of programmers, plus a graphics person is not necessarily a network administrator too and a network administrator may not be skilled at desktop support or PC troubleshooting.

Each of us has a level of expertise within our computing knowledge, and it's something that important to make clear when we are recruited for specific tasks. For example, I'd do great as a web application developer or database administrator, but I'd make a lousy graphic designer (as may be evident by my MS Paint based site logo).

Check out the rest of Jim's thoughts in his article 10 Feet Tall and Bulletproof.......Really?