Church Growth strategies: 'Be IT Savvy: get a website - part two!'

Hauerwas' strapline challenges us all to put off strategies and become authentic:

Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way. 

And one of the ways in which we might make the 'way' found is to by being seen to be attractive, transparent and authentic. When people see integrity and attractive and compelling bundled together in open, honest, welcoming and engaged (and engaging), they want to know more and have a relationship (at best) and feel warmly (at worst) towards, and with, those people!

One of the shop windows on our hearts (apart from the eyes that is) is created by means of a well crafted, honest and attractive website. One of the simplest ways of getting a website can be found by using Wordpress. This is what we call a 'Content Management System' (CMS) - learn the language and you'll look like you're up there with the kids in no time (you can even buy yourself a hoodie and get a skateboard to complete the image). You can do it yourself or pay someone to set the whole thing up for you : The choice is (as always) yours:

What is a CMS all about then?
Exactly what it sounds like:

1. You find yourself a company who will do the web hosting and get yourself a server. Then you install Wordpress onto it (it's a simple process and you are guided on every step - it's a 'one click' process, so no need to panic).

2. You select the 'look and feel' (the Theme) of the site (and there are many to choose from already) and you start to build your site using it. Once you're happy with what you have as a start you upload* it to the server - this is easy too (there are so many guides and walk through available) and then you start to smooth the rough edges and add the features you want.

3. You 'plug in' any special features: members pages, images, photo albums, etc. (you can do this from you uploaded web page which means that once the site is loaded everything else is simply done by selecting the options and installing them by a click of the mouse) and customise the site to reflect your aims for it.

4. You add your content and assign 'rights' and 'roles' to people so that they can add, edit and generally tinker with the content (the words and images and stuff) but cannot change the look and feel or any of the major bits that make it what you want your site to look and feel like!

This is a completely quick and easy (and did I mention cheap) way of not only getting online but also making sure that you have a site that is contains up to date information from the people who own that area. The wardens write the 'from the Wardens' page -  the Vicar writes the 'from the Vicar' page and everyone who contributes to the site has their own little kingdom to keep relevant and worthwhile.

This is every web master's dream come true - currency of information without them having to sit and do the editing! (let me hear you say 'hallelujah!').

This is every church member's dream come true too because some of the biggest complaints I have regarding church websites are to do with being current too. ('Why isn't nnnn on the site' is no longer valid complaint when the members have access to a place for their area of interest to be featured).

This is every church site reader's dream too. I recently visited a site which spoke about a visit to the place from a band I like. 'Coming next Sunday' the front page proclaimed. So I rang about tickets and getting in to the event and was told, 'Oh yeah, that was last week, we need to change the web!'

Too flipping right (wonder who was daft enough to just turn up assuming the information to be current?).

So that's the 'How' sorted for this one - let's take a look at a site I made earlier. It's the site for Tamworth Street Angels and it's a simple site with a few pages and a private area where members can log in to get documents, leave and see reports from nights on the streets and see roots and the like. The whole thing took a couple of hours to select, get a server (and URL) and upload and it's run seamlessly and painlessly for a couple of years now. This is the sort of site that would serve some of the churches who at the moment have music and unnecessary bells, whistles and stuff, extremely well:

Here's the front page:

Click here to visit site

You can see the menu bar which has the almost mandatory 'About us' link and then there are newsletter, two members only areas - users have a password to access them - and a means of being contacted via the site.

Here's a link to the Wordpress site where you will find some of their 'popular' themes on display. Why not click HERE and have a look at the demos to see what you like. (If you type 'church' into the search box you'll find some other ideas. You can also just type 'church web sites Wordpress' into your search engine and have a play with the offerings there (some are free and others are 'paid for' - agin, you're choice: Find what you like and put a copy onto your machine:

1. find a theme

2. download it to your machine (create a folder and download into to that)

3. get a host (you'll need to tell them you want to host a Wordpress site on it because it needs some techie bits running,

4. upload - add plug ins - add content - assign roles - sit back with brew of choice (mine's tea) and await comments (praying that they are all good).

Simple!





*Uploading - this means putting the stuff onto the server, usually using and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) utility. You put your user name, password and web name into the thing and this connects to your site and lets you push the information onto the server. Using Wordpress there are upload processes which can be activated and used without the need to purchase additional software though.

Church Growth: A growing area?

One of the (many) challenges I have before me is to be found in the area of church growth. 

The problem is that the only substantial growth I'm generally coming across is in people who are looking to examine and produce academic papers on the subject. I have over the past few weeks met a handful for folk, all of whom were 'church growth experts'. This was a claim they substantiated by their post graduate qualifications in the subject and the academic papers they had presented!

Now don't get me wrong, I love academic study, but in conversation this morning I have come to realise a few interesting, and quite challenging (well they were for me but I'm pretty thick!) things too. So let us stop and take stock of things for a moment (before you reach for the sticks, stones and house bricks):

If you were to read a certain book on church growth by some who was doing it you will find people reconciled to God through Jesus (the Christ) enjoying being the people of God and celebrating that reality in the company of those who were both 'near and far off'. It was just like looking at the Church that Acts describes; unity in the Church and enjoying the favour of those who were not followers of 'The Way'.

Interestingly the same person who was running this expression of Church has now moved up the ladder a bit and the same freedoms that saw them establish successful and authentic Church is now replaced by structures, strategies, administrative block(age)s and all the stuff that makes running a number of which bodies manageable. It makes sense that different levels of Church need differing parameters and areas of control - but formalising the informal is sometimes the way to impede or constrict it!

This is perhaps a problem with the planned management training of potential bishops and other senior church staff as found in the Green report. We might have a bunch of people who have all the management tools that the world uses but without that spark that gives life to the dust and makes it live, without the breath of God, the reach, which causes us to soar like an eagle.

Everywhere I look I find Church Growth strategies and yet as one of my heroes, Stanley Hauerwas, says:

Church growth strategies are the death rattle of a church that has lost its way!

But, of course, Church growth is big business and the dual truths that are to be found in the expressions that:

In the the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king!

AND

Hungry men will follow the least likely of people in the hope that bread is to be found in them!

I hear of missional communities and of groups of people who are doing church in a fresh and engaged manner and yet, when I get to meet the people billed as the leaders of these happenings find something small and sometimes very much less that the PR might suggest.

Again, please don't think I'm knocking these - because I am most definitely not - but understand that as wonderful as this glowing embers are, replicating them in every aspect is (I am beginning to think) sheer folly. I have recently read a great piece of academic writing and within it find something successful grasped at, dissected and placed under the rigours of academic investigation and then the component parts are listed. But sadly, just like a flower or animal we have dissected, examined, understood the physiology and then itemised - the reality is that when we come to replicate or re-assemble the blessed thing all we have is something that is dead. We might understand the component parts and the processes but regardless of whatever it is that we have found, the reconstructed entity is dead.

We can scan a living hand and make a 3-D print of it and even though we might work hard to make it look like it is alive, it will never have the life of the original!

We talk of 'Best Practice' and we grasp at 'effective models of Church' and yet in doing so rationalise and construct some sort of Frankenstein-like monster which has the attributes of life but is not only pretty scary but pretty ugly too - and I see the Bride of Christ as something beautiful.

It is underpinned by prayer and enabled and given life by the Holy Spirit.

It is a body who are of one heart and mind, united in their hunger for the word and the love of those around them (close, near and far off) and this makes the what we now call 'missional'.

It is a bunch of people who support each other spiritually and, when the need arises, financially too; a people who pick up the fallen; heal the broken; correct those in error.

Authentic Church contains all of the above (and I'm sure you can all add to the list which is why we are all doing so well). It draws on the opportunities to put tools in the box so that we can build church (Tools like Mission Shaped Introduction and Mission Shaped Ministry and LYCIG* and more besides).

Desperation calls for desperate measures - but we aren't desperate, were assured and rather than worrying about numbers we are concerned with reconciling people to God through the Cross of the Christ and the fulfilment of the calling we have as the people of God.

we are, aren't we?




*LYCIG     Leading Your Church into Growth