David Black posted on May 24, 2008 20:02
There are so many articles published on the Internet which provide standards for evaluating a website, but my approach will be a bit more personal. I'm sending a number of key school and congregational stakeholders a quick survey with the following questions:
- What should be the goal(s) or purpose(s) of our church/school website?
- In what ways are these goals being met? Be as specific as possible.
- In what ways are these goals not being met? Be as specific as possible.
- Are there any goals or purposes that are not currently incorporated into this site which you think should be included? Explain.
- Share a list of the top five improvements you would like to see with the current church/school website.
- Our congregational purpose statement is listed below. In what specific ways does our site support this purpose statement? In what specific ways might our current site be lacking in properly supporting this purpose statement?
"The purpose of this congregation shall be to give honor and glory to God, to carry out His will, to assist in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world, to manifest the unity of our faith in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, to foster Christian fellowship and love, to extend a helping hand in human need, and administering the sacraments, and by the religious instruction of all its members according to the confessional standard of the Evangelical Lutheran Church."
The thought process behind this is that the current site is primarily the work of a couple of key staff people. But isn't this OUR site as a church and school? I certainly have ideas about what this site should be, as well as some statistical data to support some of my views, but it would be completely myopic to think that I have all the answers for making this site a dynamic driver of ministry.
What do you think? What should be the goal(s) and purpose(s) of a Lutheran church/school website? I would love to hear your opinion to this key question, perhaps generating some more specific discussion that would help us all hone in more clearly on the role of the website in modern ministry communication and outreach. Feel free to share your thoughts as a comment to this post.