Archive for November, 2008
The Best Church Website Designers (That I Can Find)
November 22nd, 2008 Categories: Church Marketing
So, you’re not into blogging? You say you want a static website designed by a pro? Here are a few companies that I found that are doing beautiful work:
My Church Website: A lovely portfolio with artistic designs and just enough flash to be interesting. The downside appears to be that they aren’t accepting new clients at this time. Weird.
Elexio.com: The designs look nice. They obviously have talent on the design staff. I don’t know what kind of content managment system they are pushing, so I can’t offer any commentary on that.
OK. I actually give up. I don’t really have the time to sort through all of the ads for template church websites and other nonsense in order to find the truly talented Christian web designers who do fully custom work.
Perhaps this post would be best used as a call-out for anybody who knows of a good Christian web designer, and we can let the consumer be the judge of quality. As for the sites above, I can’t vouch for prices or customer service practices. If you need a Christian blog, you had better be talking to us. Have a great day!
Update:
You must check out Blacksmith Media although you need myspace to view it. Maybe some of the best design I’ve ever seen.
The Church Site Project has produced amazing web sites for Chris Tomlin and The Ramp.
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Surprising Church Plant Statistics
November 16th, 2008 Categories: Church Planting
I was reviewing some research from the Church Plant Survivability and Health Study and I was surprised to find a few interesting facts that affect higher attendance:
- Churches who meet in a school the first year tend to have higher attendance than those who do not.
- Those who meet in a theater in subsequent years tend to have higher attendance.
- Church plants with full-time compensated Pastors have larger attendance.
Not that it matters. When God calls you to do something, statistics are purely academic. Still, it’s interesting that a corellation exists between meeting places and attendance. It’s also interesting that only 68% of churches planted survived beyond their fourth year.
One of the major factors for church survivability is church plant expectations. What it means is that people often get involved with church planting thinking that they will quickly explode in attendance and have a quick ride to the top. The reality is that church plants encounter significant opposition from entrenched denominations, tend to grow more slowly, and often require up to five years to become financially self-sufficient. It’s good to know these things before jumping in with both feet.
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The Whole Seeker-Sensitive “Thing”
November 15th, 2008 Categories: Church Planting
Pastor Greg wrote this post over on the Grace Community Fellowship site a while back which got me thinking; is a church falling into the “trap” of being seeker-sensitive simply because they participate in culturally relevant times of corporate worship?
In the post linked above, the term “seeker-intensive” was coined with the following definition:
A give-it-all-you-got, worship with all your heart, dance, sing, praise, shout it out, fall on your face, love God loud, offend the devil and all other religious spirits, passionate, expressive time of corporate worship!
I like the concept. I think it’s necessary. I also think that it’s almost never executed with any sort of power and authenticity. Morningstar does it quite well. So does IHOP. Everybody else seems to be trying to clone the worship experiences of places like IHOP and Morningstar without much success. I’m not passing judgement, I’m simply making an observation.
I think the root issue in the entire debate centered around the seeker-sensitive church is “what has God called me to do?” The entire purpose for the emergence of the seeker-sensitive model was to keep people coming back long enough to soften their hearts, and then to engage them with the uncompromised gospel. The basic thought was that it takes people several exposures to the gospel before they typically respond. Being culturally relevant, modern, hip, and generally agreeable is the common methodology for accomplishing that end.
I also think that seeker-sensitive models tend to produce me-centric quazi-disciples. So, this creates a conondrum of sorts: I need people in order to make disciples, but if I do just anything to keep people coming back, people will think that it’s all about them. What to do?
The answer might actually exist in a mixture of the program and purpose-driven methodologies. Culturally relevant worship times are not necessarily bad, as long as they serve as a starting point for engaging people who will eventually become rabid, world-beating praise animals. My hypothesis is that people, when continually submerged in the power of the Holy Spirit and given opportunity to enter into structured discipleship, will make the transition over time.
In other words, if you can create a culture of discipleship, then it’s not necessarily bad to devote some energy to filling the seats. What say you?
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