The Gospel On-Line
Evangelism Through the Internet

Introduction

How to establish a web site for your congregation

"Please pray for my little four-year-old niece. She's having brain surgery next week." Pastor Johnson blinked at the computer screen in front of her and read more of the e-mail message that appeared there, containing details of the little girl's condition and the extent of the surgery. This computerized electronic message was from someone this pastor had never met--probably never would meet. It had been sent from hundreds of miles away, in the middle of the night, as a plea for prayer. Because e-mail automatically carries a return address, she could reply and reach out with a word of hope. As she read her e-mail that morning and pondered her response, Pastor Johnson realized that she never would have had this opportunity if her church had not become involved in a form of computerized ministry, a congregational homepage.

The author of this electronic message was able to send it because, while browsing the World-Wide Web from her home computer, she had encountered the homepage of the congregation Pastor Johnson serves. The World-Wide Web is a relatively new way of utilizing the Internet, the enormous network of networks that allows computers to exchange information across town, across the country, and across the oceans. "The Web," as users often refer to it, makes use of electronically reproduced graphics and photographs, as well as words, to present information in ways that can be far more attractive than the usual, text-only computer file. Further, the Web arranges the words and visual images in what is known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Unlike a book or magazine article that is designed to be read from beginning to end, hypertext takes advantage of the computer's unique way of storing and retrieving information. It allows the user to read the material in whatever order seems best. By using the computer's "mouse," or other pointing device, the user indicates what concepts he or she desires to know more about, and the computer displays those sections instantly. An increasing number of congregations are establishing a "presence" on the World-Wide Web by creating such HTML files, or "homepages," about their congregation, thus making it available to the growing public of computer users.

Will having a homepage on the Web increase your congregation's membership and bring droves of computer users to your Sunday worship services? Don't count on it! But like the church building itself, or the sign standing by the road out in front, a Web page establishes a visible "place" for your congregation in the computer world of "cyberspace." The Web provides yet another avenue for presenting to the public who you are and what you do as a congregation. It can also serve as a valuable center of information about your congregation, its people, and its programs, both for folks outside, as well as for your own members. An attractive, regularly updated, comprehensive calendar of events, for example, can both peak the interest of the casual outside observer, as well as keep members informed.

Getting Started

Step One: Locating an Internet Service Provider

The first step in establishing your congregation on the Web is to locate a server, or Internet Service Provider (ISP) that will make your homepage available to the public. The server is the physical computer where your homepage and associated computer files will be stored, and from which users will be able to access them via the Web. Large institutions, such as multi-national corporations or universities, will have their own server with a high-speed connection direct to the Internet. A congregation probably will not find it cost effective to purchase all of that hardware. Instead, you will find a business or organization that will make its server available to you, either as a public service, or for a fee. America Online is an example of a very large, nationwide commercial service provider that will host your homepage for a fee. But they may not be the best place to start. Instead, search for a bargain. Your local computer store or a computer club (often called a "users group") can be a good place to begin your investigation. In a number of cities, small local service providers may allow your church to establish a homepage for fees far lower than the nationwide services, or even at no cost at all.

In Cedar Falls, Iowa, for example, a group of volunteers has formed a non-profit organization for the purpose of providing Internet access to the community. The goal of the organization is not only to allow citizens to access the Internet cheaply, but also to allow businesses, schools, hospitals, churches, and other groups to present Cedar Falls to the world via the Web. It's no accident that three ELCA congregations in Cedar Falls were among the first in the country to establish homepages!

Another alternative is the ELCA's "LutherWeb" service. This service provider is very cost-competitive, and a LutherWeb account automatically gives your congregation space for a homepage, as well as the opportunity to participate in LutherLink, the ELCA's electronic conference system.

Your service provider will most likely provide an account for on-line service along with the agreement to host your homepage. They may even provide the necessary software. If not, find someone in your congregation or your community who can help you gather what is necessary to use the Web yourself.

Step Two: Communication equipment - modems and software

You will need a modem, a device that connects your computer to the telephone line, or a DSL line, which connects through the phone line. Slower speed modems are fine for e-mail and other text-based applications, but the Web utilizes graphics and other large files that load very slowly at the lower speeds. You will also need browser software installed on your computer. "Netscape Navigator" has become the standard browser for many users, and it is available in Macintosh, Windows, and OS/2 versions at a reasonable cost. A number of simple browsers are available free for the downloading on the Internet. Also required is a "dialer" or "socket" software that controls your modem and establishes the connection to the server that the browser needs. If you do not know which operating system your computer uses (Mac, Windows, or OS/2) or if you aren't comfortable installing the software on your machine, again, your service provider, users group, computer shop, or a technically-inclined church member will be most helpful. The Web is designed to be very simple and intuitive to use. Unfortunately, the same intuitive ease has not yet been achieved by the developers of the necessary hardware and software. Installation is not difficult, but one small mistake can create a frustrating impasse.

Step Three: Looking at other websites

Once you have all of these tools in place, before establishing your own presence, you'll want to use them to look around the Web and become familiar with the basic concept of hypertext. A great place to start would be the homepage of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, from which you may also visit dozens of congregational Websites. Looking at these will give you some ideas of what you want your own homepage to look like. You can find the ELCA homepage at the address, or Uniform Resource Locator (URL), of http://www.elca.org

Step Four: Creating your homepage

The next step is to find someone who can create the necessary computer files and become the "author" of your congregational homepage. Your service provider can probably suggest someone who is in the business of writing homepages. Some service providers, particularly the small, local ones mentioned above, may even provide such a service for you for free, or for a reasonable fee. But before you stretch your budget, look around! There may be someone in your congregation who is familiar with the HyperText Mark-up Language or HTML code the computer requires. Often the best computer experts in your congregation will be your kids. Ask them to develop your homepage. Your homepage author might even be you! The HTML code is simple and straightforward, so if you are reasonably comfortable with computers, consider buying one of the many HTML guide books available, or finding an HTML workshop being conducted in your area, and giving it a try. Your first effort need not be fancy or complex--in fact, there are some advantages to keeping it simple: A complex page with dozens of photographs will require considerable time to load onto the user's computer. Some users may lose patience and move on before they ever actually see your masterpiece.

Issues to Consider

Deciding why and for whom

Be careful, however--don't get ahead of yourself. Before you begin anything, stop to consider what you want your presence on the World-Wide Web to be about. This is an all-important task that too many congregations (and others creating Web homepages) often overlook! Gather your evangelism team or some other group with a heart for the Gospel and for your congregation, and do some serious thinking:

• Who is the audience for this communication? Who do we anticipate will see our homepage, and what sort of persons are they? Remember that the Web really is world wide. A church in the Midwest recently received an e-mail response to its homepage from a college student in Japan, wanting more information on Christianity. That was not the audience they had anticipated! The Web user population is growing and changing rapidly, but one recent survey suggested that the average Web user today is a white male, age 35, college educated, married, and with above-average income. Therefore consider what sort of specific people, among the larger group of computer users, you would like to attract to your homepage.
• Next, consider what you might say about your church that this particular audience would find interesting or exciting. If your target audience is a woman with school-age children, you probably don't want to use most of your space highlighting your programs for men and seniors. Likewise, you might think your organist does a bang-up job on Bach preludes, but if your identified audience is more into Rock-'n'-Roll, you won't want your organist to be the headline attraction. Try to put yourself in the place of a person who represents the audience you are trying to reach. Look at your congregation from that person's perspective. Determine what that person would find attractive about your church, and highlight those attributes as the central theme.
• Finally, be open to feedback and re-evaluation. Plan a homepage that can be updated regularly, and adjust it according to the ways you find users utilizing it. The most interesting sites on the World-Wide Web are those on which the user can find something new and different on each visit. You won't have the resources to update your page hour-by-hour, as some of the commercial sites do. Nevertheless, keeping an updated calendar of congregational activities available is only a once a month task. At the very least, use your homepage to call attention to special events, such as Rally Sunday in the fall, special Christmas services, Lenten activities, Easter worship, Vacation Bible School, etc. These features will make your homepage useful as a tool for internal communication, to keep your present members informed, as well as a tool for external communication. One congregation advertises the fact that parts of its weekly newsletter are placed on its Web site a couple days before the newsletter arrives in members' mailboxes. This encourages members to look to the homepage for the latest congregational news, which can be had instantly, without waiting for the Postal Service!

The power of the medium

As you consider the design of your homepage, be sure to take advantage of the unique features of the computer medium. This is not just a brochure that appears on a screen rather than on paper! Web users are visually oriented, rather than text oriented. Be sure to take advantage of the opportunity for users to become interactively involved through the use of photos, graphics, and links--an instruction in a hypertext document to jump to some other file, homepage, etc. Also, build in the opportunity for interaction, not just with your Web site, but with real humans. Include a link to an e-mail address that allows the user an avenue for feedback. One of the things that makes computer-mediated communication special is the fact that it is two-way communication. Unlike the sign that sits in front of your church building, or a commercial message on radio or television, your Web page is a means by which the reader can talk back to you! Nearly all browsers will respond to an e-mail link by instantly popping up a window on the user's computer screen in which the user may type a note, as the woman with the prayer request for the little girl did. Of course you'll want to make sure that someone from your congregation checks that mail frequently and responds to any received notes promptly. By opening the door to two-way communication, you create the opportunity to engage the user in online conversation, and to use the computer medium for real person-to-person ministry. Even if the user is half a world away, be open to the possibilities for evangelism. True evangelism is about bringing individuals to Christ and the Church, not necessarily about adding numbers to your own congregation's rolls! You may never meet the person who responds to your Web page--they may never join your church. But you may help move them toward another congregation in their local area, or simply do some good "public relations" work for the whole Body of Christ!

Step Five: Getting the word out

Once you have created your homepage, one final step remains--getting the internet address (URL) out to people so that they will know it's there and how to get to it. Certainly, you'll want to include your URL in your other congregational communications, such as bulletins, newsletters, brochures, and advertisements. If you don't think this is worthwhile, just thumb through any magazine today and see how many of the ads include URLs in the fine print! You'll also want to "advertise" your site on the Web itself. Be sure to send e-mail to the ELCA Web site, and let them know the URL of your homepage so that they may add it to the many links they maintain to ELCA congregations. Of course, your page will include a link to the ELCA's page, too, and perhaps to others, like the homepage for The Lutheran magazine. You'll also want to register your homepage on several of the World-Wide Web search engines (indexing services), such as "WebCrawler," "Yahoo," and "Lycos," so that users searching for Web resources can find you. Also, use one of those search engines to see if your city, town, or county has a homepage with hypertext links to institutions in your community, and ask them to include your church among those links. If you need help, you can contact the Department for Information Technology of the ELCA at (800) 638-3522 or send e-mail to wanhelp@elca.org. Get the word out to any place on the Web where members of your target audience may be looking. After all, your presence on the Web is about reaching those users with the Good News!

Writer: Mark Johns, Editor: Richard Webb