Next time someone doesn’t come to your church, ask them what role your church website played in them deciding not to come.

Of course, this isn’t possible because you can’t speak with people who visited your website (or couldn’t find it) and concluded then and there that your church (or church full stop) isn’t for them.

There was a time when it was really dumb for a business not to advertise in the Yellow Pages. This is a time when it’s really dumb for a church not to have a decent web presence.

Decent doesn’t mean expensive.

It doesn’t mean technically complicated.

It doesn’t mean bells, whistles, podcasts, videos and Twitter streams.

It means having a presence on the internet to communicate at least the basic details about your church. When and where the church meets, what happens, and who is welcome. Think of it as a business card that’s available 24/7/365 for anyone in the world (but more likely, people in the surrounding suburbs), with internet access, to learn more about your church.

Basically, it’s about caring for the people who are considering coming to church.

And this is an area where many churches need to catch up.

Marketing guru Seth Godin shares 10 ways organisations can catch up when they’ve let the last 14 years of technology pass them by.

He concludes:

“The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools.

The problem is the will to get good at it.”

He’s right. The tools are there. Most of them cost very little, many cost nothing.

Does your church want to get good at it?