Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

I recently had to look for a church in a city that was unfamiliar to me, so I decided to do a little research beforehand. Practically every church in the area had a website and so I started pointing and clicking.

Oh, my my my.

I think the single most damning thing I could say was that the homepages for just about half the church websites I visited did not have the service times for Sunday posted on them. Just about as many didn't even have their address immediately to hand.

For me, this is a worse problem than the circa 1995, isn't-it-cute-to-have-a-counter-saying-you've-had-821-visitors web design. Ninety-nine percent of visitors to a church website are probably after two pieces of information: what times are the services and where is it located. They shouldn't have to click through to different pages to find this out. They shouldn't have play explorer to read through reams of text giving the history of the building and every minister to find it. They shouldn't have to play detective and deduce whether they'll get a correct street address if they go to the "contact us" page (only to find the e-mail addresses of the staff).

Too often church website design falls under the type of website I tend to call "mystery meat." You can't find out the most basic information from it, much less information about the character of the community there.

Here's my checklist of mistakes often found on church websites. (I'd include examples except I'm sure the United Church's lawyers would advise against it, for which certain perpetrators should be grateful!):

• Not prominently displaying service times on the home page. Use a separate page if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the 9:30 having a Bible Study and the 11:00 having a communion, but at least say "Service times Sunday Morning 9:30 and 11:00" on your home page
• Not giving the address on the home page (or even as a footer on any page). More detailed instructions could go on a page called "Location", but, again, give the street address and a link to that page (or to a map) on the home page
• Giving way too much information. Some church websites seem to think that what a visitor wants is a 4500-year history of the church and an equally long elaboration on the architecture or any other facet. Web writing is scanned, not read-you should write less, not more.
• Signs of an Abandoned Ship. If your site says it has the latest news and it's from 2004, it's a clear sign you've given up updating it. (Even worse are pages marked "Under Construction"). Either keep the site up-to-date or be less ambitious and get rid of any content that might date the site in any way.
• Navigation that's confusing and counter-intuitive.

In my next entry, I'll try to set out some basic principles for designing a good church website. In the meantime, remember: a church's website is like the front entrance of your church. It should be simple and inviting, drawing people inward.