What led you to visit our church?

The question began as an innocent conversation starter. I ask guests questions about themselves and their families. I do my best to get to know them, and to make the conversation about them. But, at some point, my curiosity gets the best of me. Out of the dozens of churches near them, what was the main factor that prompted them to try our church?

The answer still surprises me. “We visited the church’s website.”

We now hear that response from approximately seven out of ten first-time guests. Guests use Google to search for local churches, and they look at different church websites. They see the church sign driving by, and decided to look up the website. They hear a conversation about the church, and check it out by visiting the website. They are undecided about which church to visit, so they visit the website to check the service times and to see how long the drive would be.

Pause for a moment. Take in the reality of this objective and anecdotal research. Read these words again, this time very carefully: Seven out of ten guests will go to a church website as a determinative factor in where they will choose to visit.

While the website may not be the sole determinative factor, it’s a determinative factor seven out of ten times.

In other words, if you aren’t focusing resources and time on your church website, you are thumbing your nose at the Great Commission. And that’s not an overstatement. A church with a lousy website is committing the sin of Great Commission negligence.

It’s never been easier and more affordable to have a quality website as it is today. And your potential webmaster may be someone who is still a teenager!

Thom S. Rainer, Becoming a Welcoming Church (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2018).

If your church needs a website, I’d recommend you contact my son, Dustin Hunt http://webdesignwillow.com/