The Coolest Thing I've Seen On A Church Website

| By Scott McClellan | Found in The Web | 16 Comments

parkcc

While checking out the website for Park Community Church in Chicago yesterday, Daniel noticed something interesting. On the site’s prominent “I’m New to Park” page, visitors find these words:

Looking for a church? We understand there’s not a “one size fits all” church for everyone. So here’s a list of other churches you should include in your search.

Wow. That’s the coolest thing I’ve seen on a church website — a local church providing new folks with a list of other local churches to consider. (I’m not saying Park is the first or only church to do this — that really doesn’t matter — I’ve just never seen it before.) By telling me about other churches in the area, Park actually tells me a lot about itself as an organization.

Park Community Church, we applaud you. For everyone else, we’re not mad at you for not posting a similar list on your site … but it’s something you should at least consider. In fact, I’d be interested to hear from you guys on this — Does your church’s site have a list like this? Why or why not?

collideblog-whkids

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/stephenbateman stephenbateman

    Ahh I love it. so classy.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/johndyer John Dyer

    I don't know about churches, but I know this one seminary that helps prospective students choose other seminaries:
    http://www.dts.edu/admissions/feesandexpenses/sem…

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ScottMcClellan ScottMcClellan

    Wow, John. Thanks for that unbiased link.

  • David J

    How serious would they take it?
    Do you list the mosque? The LDS church down the way?
    Well. How about that guy's church where your not 100% sure he's Biblical (just mostly). By excluding him that says just as much. They're also the biggest.
    In principle I like the idea.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/johndyer John Dyer

    I don’t know about churches, but I know this one seminary that helps prospective students choose other seminaries:
    <a href=”http://www.dts.edu/seminarycomparison” target=”_blank”>http://www.dts.edu/seminarycomparison

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ScottMcClellan ScottMcClellan

    Park chose to distinguish their list as "Gospel-centered churches" they "love and support." I'm not sure what their criteria are for those terms, but that's how they made their list. They didn't list every church in Chicago, but that's OK with me. They listed churches they have relationships with and that they're happy to recommend to others, which I think is pretty cool.

  • http://www.avinkline.com Avin Kline

    It is definitely clever, but I'm not sure how it is effective – not saying it isn't, but I just don't see it.

    I suppose it does in communicate to the user that the church is more concerned with the user's life than their own growth – if that's the goal, than it's probably effective.

  • http://www.timschraeder.com Tim Schraeder

    Wow, thanks Scott!

    Adding that little page to our site was an intentional decision and was an idea that I wasn't sure would go over well with our senior leadership, but it did!

    We have many people who are new to the city and we are also aware that we aren't a church for everyone. So, instead of acting like we're the answer we wanted to point people to other churches that we have relationship with and that we support. The heart behind it was that at the end of the day we didn't care so much about people coming to our church as we did people going to A church that would help them grow in their spiritual journey. The churches we've listed are ones we have relationship with and ones we'd have no problem suggesting.

    An unexpected result of listing these churches is that we've heard from a number of people that us doing that made them more convinced that they wanted to come and check us out. Obviously, not why we did it, but definitely a perk.

    At the end of the day we don't see the other churches in the city as our "competition." Our competition is the things that people give their time and energy to outside of the church. So if people find their way to our church or the other church on the corner, we all win.

  • http://www.terracecrawford.com Terrace Crawford

    I've never seen that before either. AWESOME.

    –Terrace Crawford
    http://www.terracecrawford.com
    http://www.twitter.com/terracecrawford

  • http://chicagofree.info Steve L

    I think it shows more of a city-wide tranformational focus and the importance of reaching the city through ALL churches. Good job Park Leaders. Then Chicago can use its global influence to help tranform the world.

  • Mona

    We have a hard enough time getting people to stick around; we're certainly not going to point people away. If the Holy Spirit want our people to attend other churches, He can direct them to (and that appears to be what's happening.) We don't ever want to stand in the way of the Spirit, but at the same time, we don't want to make it any worse than it is.

    Please pray for our pastor, after years of faithful service, we had to sell back one week of his Hawai'i timeshare and get rid of the boat all together.

  • Lonnie

    David, I don't follow…they are also not linking to porn sites. Every church is going to have a worldview that will align with some organizations and differ from others. I think this is way-cool. If they linked to everyone, it would creep me out.

  • http://churchcrunch.com/2009/09/15/looking-for-a-church-how-about-these-instead-of-ours/ Looking for a Church? How About These Instead of Ours? – ChurchCrunch

    [...] this idea first found by Collide Magazine which shows Park Community Church hooking up visitors to their website with alternative locations [...]

  • http://www.praytel.net/blog The Prayer Coach

    While I agree this shows the heart of Park as working with the body of Christ to minister to the Chicago area, this idea can also have an added effect for search. If a Christian moves to the Chicago area, they will search for "Chicago churches." Having a list of churches in the Chicago area will help Park's site come up. Unfortunately, it does not seem that Park has considered SEO as a channel of advertisement.

    Even so, this expression of their heart is of greater worth to God.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ScottMcClellan ScottMcClellan

    Funny.

  • http://www.summitcorpuschristi.com Jonathan Malm

    This is perfect! This made me want to make our own directory for Corpus Christi, TX.