Google Your Church Before Christmas This Year
Christmas Eve has a funny way of bringing people through church doors who we may not see at any other time of the year. When I was in congregational ministry I remember one man who announced to me on the way out that he had been coming to the church for 50 years. I’d never seen him before. I checked, carefully and tactfully, and determined that he hadn’t missed A CHRISTMAS EVE service at the church in 50 years. The rest of the year? Well…
Christmas Eve still means something to people beyond our usual suspects. Some will be regular attenders bringing family with them. Some may have grown up in church but haven’t attended in years. Some may attend every Christmas Eve. Others may be looking for a church for the first time. And before many of them walk through your physical front door, they’ll probably encounter your digital one.
It’s probably worth visiting your virtual front porch (a.k.a. your website / online platforms before this Advent and Christmas season)
Google your church
Seriously. Open a private or incognito browser window and search the name of your church. Even better, search the way someone who doesn’t already know you might: Christmas Eve church services near me, Christmas Eve services in [your community], Church in [your community].
What do you find? And, perhaps more importantly, what is being communicated?
An outdated website doesn’t necessarily mean an inactive congregation. A Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in six months doesn’t mean nothing is happening. An old event still live on the homepage doesn’t equal a lack of care... But someone encountering your congregation for the first time doesn’t know that.
People only know what you’ve shown them.
Thinks about this time way (thanks to Josh from Between Sundays for covering this in a recent newsletter - subscribe for super practical and enlightening email about Church and digital ministry here.) Below is a portion of his email:
An envelope and a postbox
In 2008, researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands left an envelope hanging half out of a postbox. Through the little address window, you could clearly see a five euro note.
Then they watched who walked past, and who took it.
When the postbox was clean, 13% of passers-by took the envelope.
Then the researchers covered the postbox in graffiti and ran it again.
This time, 27% took it. Twice as many.
And it wasn’t about graffiti specifically.
When they left the postbox clean but scattered litter on the ground around it, almost exactly the same thing happened.
The graffiti didn’t make people do more graffiti, and the litter didn’t make people drop more litter.
Both made people more likely to steal.
One visible sign that nobody was looking after the place completely changed how people treated it.
Signs of neglect change the way people behave.
Your church has graffiti
The research was done on streets, not online. But I’d argue the same effect happens online.
Picture your church’s whole online footprint. The website, the social media, the YouTube channel.
Is it up to date, or is it a little neglected?
The Easter services still on the home page in September.
A “coming soon” page from three years ago.
A staff page with people who have left.
A blog whose last post was in 2021.
A copyright date in the footer from years ago.
A link to an Instagram account nobody has touched since.
Each one is small and seemingly insignificant.
Together, they tell somebody who has never visited that this is a place without much time or care for what it puts out.
"This is a church doing the bare minimum."
And the problem has got worse since 2020.
2020 gave all of us a reason to start using social media properly and to keep our websites current.
But now, six years on, it’s common to open a church’s YouTube channel or Instagram profile and find they stopped posting shortly after everything reopened.
So an outsider genuinely doesn’t know what to expect if they walk through the door. And like that postbox, the church can end up looking as though nobody is looking after it.
I’m not suggesting people will start stealing from you.
But somebody who might have been quite excited about visiting will now feel a lot less sure about it.
Christmas information shouldn’t require detective work
Imagine someone has decided they’d like to attend a Christmas Eve service. What do they need to know before they feel comfortable coming?
Start with the obvious:
When is it?
Don’t make someone dig through your calendar or download a PDF bulletin to discover your Christmas Eve service time.
Where do I go?
Is the address obvious? If your building has multiple entrances, will someone know which door to use?
What kind of service is this?
“Christmas Eve Worship – 7 p.m.” tells me when to arrive. It doesn’t necessarily tell me what I’m coming to. Is it family-friendly? Candlelight? Lessons and Carols? Communion? How long does it usually last?
What about my kids?
Are children welcome throughout the service? Is there a nursery? Is this particularly designed with families in mind? Say so.
What will it actually feel like?
A few current photos can answer questions that paragraphs of website copy cannot. Show people. Show worship. Show the space they’ll actually enter.
And watch your language. Someone who doesn’t regularly attend church may not know what “Lessons and Carols,” “the Sacrament,” “the Narthex” or even some of our denominational shorthand means.
You don’t have to stop being the church. You just need to help people understand what you’re inviting them into.
Look beyond your website
Your website isn’t necessarily the first place someone will encounter you. So check your Google My Business Listing. Check Facebook. Check Instagram. Check YouTube. And any other platforms you might be on.
Do the service times agree?
Does Google Maps take someone to the right place?
Does your most recent social content give someone a reasonably accurate picture of your congregation today?
If you have an account you no longer maintain, does it still need to be linked prominently from your website? And if social media has been quiet lately, you don’t need to suddenly create an elaborate content strategy before Christmas. Start small by pinning a welcoming post with your Christmas information so it’s the first thing someone sees.
Test your Work
Find someone who isn’t responsible for maintaining your church website and ask them to pretend they’re considering attending your church for the first time. Give them five minutes to answer these questions:
Can you find the Christmas Eve service?
Can you figure out where to park?
Can you tell whether children are welcome?
Can you get a sense of what the service will be like?
Is anything confusing?
Ask someone who isn’t deeply embedded in the congregation. Those of us who know our churches well unconsciously fill in an enormous amount of missing information that vistors can’t.
You don’t have to be PERFECT to communicate clearly
This isn’t a call for a website redesign before Christmas - please do not add that to your Fall to-do list. This is just an an invitation to look at your digital presence through the eyes of someone who doesn’t already know you (again - we did a similar post just before Easter). Christmas Eve still means something to many people beyond our usual suspects. It can be a moment when someone decides to cross the threshold of a church building after months, years or perhaps for the first time.
If they’re standing on your digital front porch first, let’s make it a little easier for them to find the door.