“Greater Things” Thursdays #8 – The Lebanon Road Website

Lebanon Road’s theme for 2011 is “Greater Things.” For an introduction to this theme, click here. Each Thursday, we are looking at an area of work where we are striving to do greater things to God’s glory.

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Websites. Most congregations have one. One of the truths about websites, though, is that they are nearly as varied as the congregations themselves. Some are just a homepage with some contact information, while others are elaborate and feature dozens of helpful links and resources.

Lebanon Road’s website is good, and one of our goals for 2010 and 2011 has been to update the site and make it more useful. Thankfully, that is coming about. While some of these changes have been minor, a few are major changes, and more are coming in the near future. [Here is the link to the site.]

One of the really nice features about our website is that is it “clean” and uncluttered. Each page isn’t loaded down with tons of information and dozens of links. Instead, the site is designed to give basic information about each area, so the visitor can see as many pages as possible. Here is a screenshot of our homepage (the black box in the middle is a YouTube video of our yearly theme):

Also, in the last few months, we have made the sermons available online. Within 5 minutes of a sermon being completed, the audio is available on our website for download to listen on the site. Also, some PowerPoints are available.

Through scribd.com, we also upload our bulletin in full color to our “what’s new” page, so anyone can read it. These changes, along with the “general upkeep” of the site, have made it much more useful.

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But greater things are coming! We are looking to put our sermons in iTunes. We are looking for ways to keep the site even more up to date, and to use it in even better ways to promote upcoming events. We are looking into putting some correspondence course lessons on our site, as well as other materials.

If your congregation has a website, use it to its fullest potential. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but do all you can with the site. If nothing else, please make sure it is kept up to date! Nothing is worse than a website with completely outdated material on it.

When done well, a good website encourages newcomers to the community to visit, and it gives them appropriate and helpful information they are looking for as they “research” your congregation. It can truly be an evangelistic tool.