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Web-empowered Ministry: connecting with people through website, social media & more

Reviewed by Dominic Rodger.

These days many people’s first encounter with your Church will be online. They’ve searched the web for a Church in your town, and they’ll stumble across your website. What impression does it make?

Mark Stephenson’s book guides you through the process of creating a website which supports the ministry of your Church. His vision of what web ministry should be goes far beyond a website with the Church address and a statement of belief. His vision is to create a ministry that empowers volunteers, cares for the community, and expands the reach of your Church.

At the heart of his vision for web-empowered ministry is teamwork – since the job is time-consuming and the skills required diverse, a web-empowered ministry is not something that should be undertaken by an individual.

The book includes practical introductions to building a Church website, including some of the technologies you might come across, how to manage graphics, audio and video, and some of the tools you may need. This book emphasises that you can do great things with limited resources, and limited technical expertise: you don’t need to be a programmer to build a website.

One suggestion of his that we tried was to use the web to connect people on mission trips with the Church back home. Our Youth Minister recently visited Lebanon and updated a blog every day. I know many in our Church appreciated being able to read what he was up to, and he also appreciated knowing that people back home were praying for him.

One or two of the things done at Ginghamsburg might not be so applicable to smaller Churches, but all Churches have this in common – we can all participate on the web.  Last year, 30.1 million adults in the UK used the internet every day – it is vital that as Churches we engage with this enormous community. As Mark Stephenson says:

“… we must persist, even when we are not understood or fully supported. Please don’t let naysayers stop you. The opportunity is too important. And it is really fun, too.”