Churches are FINALLY beginning to recognize the power of the Internet for their ministry. What was once just a matter of engage well with your community and invite people face-to-face to church, send out flyers for events, and make sure Sunday morning has enough seats for the congregation has been completely revolutionized. Now it is about online marketing, digital evangelism and discipleship, and connecting regularly with people through emails, social media, and your blog.
Of course, if you are not new to church technology, this is nothing new. The issue is more about how to do this well. We have some ideas for you.
5 Web Tools For Your Ministry
One of the most difficult parts about church technology is not maintaining what you already have, but coming up with new things for your church to implement, getting staff on board, and then finding out how to do it well so that it betters ministry. We want to help you out with the first two points and get you on track to expand your ministry. The third part of that list, what tools you will use, is fully covered by Radiant Web Tools. Every item we list below is something that they can do to get your church well on their way to making a bigger impact for the kingdom online.
- Your Own Homebase Website
This would have everything you need, including the forms for your church activities, a sign-up form for anything you want that automatically keeps a database of emails for later use, a blog to communicate your church’s heart, and a place to store all of the church video sermons. - Your Own Church App
While a responsive website is important and something that should be a part of every church’s website, an app is the perfect tool for your ministry. Not only do people always carry their phone with them, thus eliminating the need to print bulletins, it also is a great way to direct them to your website, give them access to small group information and prayer group times, sermons to watch or listen to later, and all of this can be done without needing to download it every time they need to look something up (and therefore not killing your church’s Internet every Sunday). - Your Own Way To Online Giving
There are numerous stats that say a church that invests in online giving will see increase in tithing and year-end revenue. Think about it, a family goes out of town, but can still give. A college student does not carry around case, but they can do their trusty debit card. Perfect for helping find ways for your congregation to give. - Your Own Newsletter Module
Too many churches are still creating newsletters through publisher and then sending them out via their mailing client. Then people get blacklisted, forgotten to be added to the list, or simply annoyed by the process. A great newsletter engine is your solution. - Your Own Great Website Design
A terrible website is definitely awful to look at. But that is not even the bad part of a bad website design. A terrible navigation can make people not want to come to your site. No SEO features make you hidden from search engines. Unstructured content can get people lost in the confusion and frustrated. No responsive website design makes your website look terrible on a mobile device. A great website design can fix all of these problems and more.
This is definitely not a comprehensive list. I’d love to hear from you. What are some web tools that you think every church should at least look at getting so that they can do better ministry in the twenty-first century?
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