Our church website is pretty much the only way we are getting new visitors.

Sort of sad...but it's just the way it is.

One thing I would ask of any Church with a website-------- Please respond when someone contacts your site. It is amazing that when I do take the time to write a message to a Church website, I often get zero response. I think, "do they even check the site for responses?" Do they even care?

When we were church hunting we looked primarily online, same as any large purchase we make--we explored our options, narrowed it down, and then started visiting around. Saved us a lot of painfully awkward visits like the ones we had to make a decade ago before most churches had websites. You can tell by listening to a few sermons online whether a preacher is a "Flip Flip Ripper" (rip that verse right out of context!) or whether he esteems the Word. That said, we weren't looking for glitz--just straightforward information and audio.

I think church websites as we know them will soon be a thing of the past, atleast for visitors. A pastor friend of mine who planted a new church a couple of years ago simply uses facebook. He's had more success through facebook than I've seen anyone have through a website.

When I was looking for a church, I checked to see what they had in their church library (if they had a church library). If they had books that I considered "heretical" (I know that's very subjective), I stayed clear.

Our church website is connected to Facebook and Twitter. This makes our site well visited.

At a recent meeting of our 12 person board (called a Vestry) we asked the members how they found our church in downtown Detroit. 3 had been there since being children/young adults (pre-internet), 3 were invited by friends, and 4 had found us via our website (other two - one married a member, other moved from another city and his former priest recommended us).

The vast majority of church websites feature the building, the programs, the preaching, and the pastor. There is little to attract the person without a church background who is looking for answers to life's dilemmas, not a place to attend Sunday services.

By providing interactive online gospel presentations, advice columns, editorials, and information on spirituality as it relates to religious faith (since folks are looking for something a little more mystical than religion nowadays), Christians can touch the millions of people who would otherwise never darken the door of a church.

In their Pew Internet and American Life Project, the Pew Research Center found that “Nearly two-thirds of online Americans use the Internet for faith-related reasons. The sixty-four percent of Internet users who perform spiritual and religious activities online represent nearly eighty-two million Americans.”

Among the most popular and important spiritually-related online activities:

• Thirty-eight percent of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual content.
• Thirty-five percent have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays.
• Thirty-two percent have gone online to read news accounts of religious events and affairs.
• Twenty-one percent have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays.
• Seventeen percent have looked for information about where they could attend religious services.
• Seven percent have made or responded to online prayer requests.
• Seven percent have made donations to religious organizations or charities.

These are activities that church websites could incorporate in order to tap into the vast audience many of whom have an intense interest in something called spirituality, but have never connected it to a personal religious faith.