I was thinking of opening a section on the Christian Hub for congregational websites. Remember, the Hub is a listing, through RSS links, of Christian and Biblical links by churches of Christ. But I despair of finding usable links. Why do so many get excluded? Here's why:
- Most church websites have no RSS feed. The number of sites that do is small. Is there some unspoken law among us that you can't do a church site that others can pick up and share across the web? Most sites I see are cobbled together. Thought seems to be given to getting it set up, little or none about how to share it.
- Most church sites aren't updated regularly, so they're stale. Many are maintained by busy preachers whose schedules understandably keep them in more urgent tasks. (One wonders if the pile of abandoned sites is due to frequent preacher moves.) If a site isn't updated, minimally, once a week, you can forget it.
- Most church sites have restricted content, by which is meant content that concerns the local congregation almost exclusively, such as announcements and prayer lists. This is good and well, depending on what the website's objectives are, but doesn't really help those who are looking for edifying material.
Churches should pay attention to their websites. They're as important, if not more so, than the sign out front. Make it shareable, by using RSS feed, and keep it updated frequently with content of interest to all.
Help this despairing man.