“Worst Church Website” Part II
September 15, 2006
A few weeks ago, I posted about the Worst Church Website. Many were upset that I was mocking and scoffing at church websites, many of which are probably put together by lay volunteers, something I’m very aware of. However, even if you know next to nothing about web design & development, you can still create a very simple, easy, blog-type layout for a church website. And frankly, many of these church sites look exactly the same as they probably did back in 1996 or whenever they were first created. So, the quest continues for THE WORST church website.
A few days ago Sean Sorenson posted a link to His Word of Truth Ministry, a ministry of Faith Baptist Church (which is 1st runner up to His Word of Truth) in Rustburg, VA. This is perhaps THE WORST church website I’ve ever seen. Again, I’m not saying anything about the content or the ministry of this church (although, believe me,
I have things I could say about the content of this site as well). It’s just a horribly designed website. From the length of the first page, to the Microsoft WordArt, to the large assortment of animated gifs, to the horrible typography. My favorite animated gif is the one on the right.
Anyway, perhaps I am a horrible person. But for many people in today’s culture, what type of “web presence” a church has says a lot about the church, their mission and how they interact with the broader culture today.
So the challenge is on: can anyone find a more poorly-designed church website than His Word of Truth Ministry?
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
September 15th, 2006 at 9:31 am
that .gif is horrible! not just because it promotes the government in the church, but because the flag is above and larger than the cross itself. that .gif certainly display’s that church’s priorities very well…
sad. very sad.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:45 am
that .gif certainly display’s that church’s priorities very well…
No…I think that gif displays that churches priorities very well…
September 15th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Yup, you’re just the chairman of Club Meanie-Meanie.
Anytime a volunteer does anything, it is beyond criticism. Especially if it’s done in public on behalf of the church.
And that’s excellent advice for running a church too.
[/sarcasm]
September 15th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Well, I disagree with the above critique of the critique! Once you go public, volunteer or otherwise, you automatically open yourself up for criticism. The church and its activities, nevermind its beliefs, OUGHT to be critiqued! Humbly I ask: isn’t this how we can learn? It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Being Canadian, I always find the flag/cross thing astonishing, although I’ve seen versions of it plenty of times. I remember one July 4 visiting family in California. We went to their home church. A huge cross dominated the back wall. When the national anthem was sung, a gigantic flag was lowered, covering the cross. My 10 year old son (at the time), exclaimed, “Dad! They’re hiding the cross behind their flag!” Yup! However, personally, I like the dancing angels who say, “hello”. churchpundit.com
September 15th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Yah, it’s a bad site. And the layout’s pretty gross as well…
September 15th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
YUCK! And the Islam comment/photo pisses me off. There are peaceful Muslims who believe in peace in their faith. Ther eis violence in the Bible but i don’t see that on this site.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
that is pretty bad. they don’t even have the gifs centered. some are left aligned. some right aligned. the wordart is nice too.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I was once the volunteer working on the church website (http://www.rpcbowie.org — it’s been redone since I left). My version, IMHO, was nicer than what’s up now, and was made in a Notepad file using a table. I had images from Paintbrush, and created rollovers for the menu, so you could see what was in them.
It wasn’t professional, it was functional, and it looked clean.
The distinction between a good amateur site and a bad one is, in my view, all about design and navigation. If you don’t know how to do all the bells and whistles, then don’t. Put up a table, with the text you want in the center, and maybe a logo at the top. For god’s sake, don’t use any of the pre-fab JPEGs or BMPs that HTML editors give you. (If you don’t think god lives in the sky, why do you need a blue sky background for your church site??)
And yes, what volunteers do can and should be subject to critique–not personal attack, but offers to grow them. A couple of web designers in my church helped me, and showed me new code. I didn’t take it personally (after all, the site was not about ME, but the church). Once a volunteer starts to take well-intentioned and gently spoken criticism personally, it’s time that they step out of that role and see why it is they are so wounded.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
So can a church be doctrinally sound and be busy with the work of helping widows and orphans and seeing to it that money is sent out of the church to have time to spend on a good website?
A website is nice to have but is meaningless when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus. Christians have been sharing Christ for almost 2′000 years without the internet and a fancy website. Some churches I know personally have a fancy and really, and I mean really, nice website but are dead and do not have a vibrant mission or community view.
The Gospel is more important than the look and status of a website. If a website ever replaced the vision and goal of my church to reach people I would be the first to raise cain and leave.
Blessings,
September 15th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
I guess the question is what is the site for? I’m fine with a website for a church (organization, whatever) acting as a virtual signpost. Instead of the Yellow Pages or Religion section of the newspaper, many people go online to find churches. At minimum, the website should have:
-an address and meeting time
-denominational/doctrinal info
-pastor/elder/teacher names and contacts
Above that, it can act as a portal for the community within and without the church. But that’s extra, in my opinion. And honestly, to create a decent site that has the three things above doesn’t require time out of the mission of the church–and in fact the process of building a site could initate discussions about what the church is for, with regard to the surrounding community.
Those are my thoughts, at least–and they apply to organizations of all sorts, I think, not just churches.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Truth Seeker - you wrote, “So can a church be doctrinally sound and be busy with the work of helping widows and orphans and seeing to it that money is sent out of the church to have time to spend on a good website?”
As CK has been pointing out - a church can do a clean, basic and informative site for little to no money. A church should be helping the widows and the orphans - but the widows and the oprhans should be able to find a local church on the web if they need help.
And I couldn’t disagree with you more when you wrote, “A website is nice to have but is meaningless when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus.” No tool is meaningless when it comes to bearing witness to the gospel. In our culture today, to say that a website is meaningless is like saying that books were meaningless a few years after the invention of the printing press. To say that is to completely disregard culture and the fact that we do live in this world…
September 15th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Two words for that website: Holy Crap!
September 16th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Those really are two of the worst web-sites that I’ve ever seen. I have a hard time believing that there are worse out there, but I’ve been wrong before about these things…
September 16th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Cleave,
Thank you for your response. Even though I understand what you are saying and I have been letting it mull around in my mind, I have to say that I respectively disagree and still stand by statements.
I understand your premise of comparing websites to books and I see your heart in that. But at the same time I think that many Christians retreat to the internet and let that be our method of delivering the word of God instead of going out and meeting people face to face in a real relationship. It is almost impossible to disciple people (which we are called to do) without face to face interaction. Besides its been shown time and time again that people come to Christ more when their is a face to face interaction.
I realize that the internet is a part of world and our culture, but not everything in a culture is necessarily good to share the Gospel through. I see the internet as being a tool to initially meet people and to give them an option to visit a church, but rarely do I see true relationship outside of this medium.
You may disagree with me and I am perfectly okay with it. I just think we rely to much on technology and we hide behind it instead of honestly and authentically reaching out to people in a real relationship. There is nothing like the human touch to tell someone that Christ died for them.
Blessings,
September 16th, 2006 at 11:27 am
Aesthetics matter. I found this post on how slick design may at times be too much to be helpful. See: this post at Subtraction.com.
September 16th, 2006 at 11:54 am
I am all for nice websites, and I do think you can have both - for 4.99 a month you can buy a domain and have wordpress installed for free. That’s pretty cheap and will give you a really nice webpage.
But on the other hand it’s also possible to have something super simple that gets the job done - like the website for our church — http://www.pmcweb.org/
September 16th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Ugly website, but he’s right about the muslim part:
5 churches attacked in Palestinian areas following Pope’s comments on Islam
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/cp_w091615A.xml.html
September 16th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Truthseeker,
I’m not sure that Adam makes any sort of claim that the internet or technology is a substitute for face to face interaction.
On the surface, the search for the worst internet site might seem a bit techno-snobbish, and I struggled with that myself.
However, the church has a responsibility to those who seek to interact with it to communicate well and to articulate its faith tradition whether in print or in cyberspace, not just from the pulpit.
I actually would NOT choose the “winning” website for the award. The theology represented in the site is disturbing. The use of symbols contradicts the theology I uphold. However, the site is strong in the following way: Anyone seeking to understand that particular church and its ministry knows what he or she is getting.
I think a “worst” church website would be theologically ambiguous. Another poor website would be a “bait & switch” website.
A good church website is one that effectively communicates the gospel message and how the church responds to that message.
Grace and peace, to you truthseeker!
September 16th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
I think that if a church wants to be in a committed loving relationship with a poorly designed website we should be accepting about it and not pass judgment. Bad church website?
Fine by me.
September 17th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
That eagle looks like he/she is bumping and grinding. Or something.
September 18th, 2006 at 1:38 am
Yup. Definitely one of my new favorites.
God call all men to be disciples, but not all to be web designers.
6061 visitors though… cleary they have an underground following… we may have discovered the Christian version of Rocky Horror Picture Show…
God bless these guys though!
-T. Pylus
September 28th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
LOL…check this one out…sort of Fox Football meets Baptist Church
http://www.newbirth.org
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:20 am
And the title of the web page is “New Page 1″.
Kinda makes you glad you are not seeing the Old Page 1.