Why You Should Have a Website

What ‘s your web presence? If you don’t have security issues now for your ministry (or if you don’t anticipate that you’ll have them later), you need some kind of web presence. Why? Potential donors will look for you online when they research about giving to you, plus, your current financial partners will appreciate your opening up two-way conversations with them through blogging and social media.

Your web presence may be one page, a website, or a blog. Let’s check out your options.

One Page

If you’re Cru staff you already have a minimum web presence at give.cru.org. You need to make sure this page is always up-to-date with a current photo, your ministry and contact information, and (if at all possible) a changed life story. If anyone is going to donate to you online, you’ll want to have some brief content for them to know you and your ministry. (This article explains how to update your give.cru.org page.)

Separate from the give.cru.org page, a landing page might work well for you as an online business card with links to your social media accounts. (Check out this article about flavors.me.)

Your MPD Website

Have you wanted to set up a website of your own? Many blogs can be organized into a website with pages for resources, giving information, and more. Here’s a few examples to give you some ideas about what you might want to do:

• The Immel Family (GCX / WordPress)
• Keith and Kay Seabourn (WordPress)
• My Generation for Christ (WordPress)
• HongKongUdy (WordPress)
• MikeandSus.org (WordPress.org)
• Roger and Maggie Bruehl (WordPress)
• Daryl and Ceil Wilson (WordPress)

Be sure to choose a blog theme that is “responsive,” which means your website will adjust to the screen size of your readers’ devices so they can easily read your latest news on a phone or tablet or laptop.

What I Recommend about Prayer Letters

Just a word before I go to the next option… unless you have people wanting to download copies of past prayer letters, I suggest you don’t keep your letters in an archive on your website.  Along with that, don’t put your prayer letter on the website and then just a link in an email for your donors to go read it. That’s the “old web.” What people expect now is that you send your content straight to them. I’ll develop this in more detail later in the series.  Here’s the options I do suggest:

• Put the body of the letter in an email (with or without MailChimp)
• Publish your letter as a blog post, sending it through a feed

Consider an eMinistry through Blogging

A blog is a great way to minister to people, especially if you are called to blogging and do well with writing or photography. However, you can’t go wrong if you want a blog that keeps your financial partners up to date with your family and some of your personal reflections.  Often this is what they want most of all, so don’t rule out blogging just for your financial partners and not for cyberspace.

Do you have a hobby or an opinion to share in a blog?  Here’s what Lynn Maynard has to say about starting blogging:

Sus… helped me to set up my website on WordPress and provides on-going tips and encouragement.  She has shown me how to leverage this ministry for MPD and provide spiritual application from everyday situations. I’ve gotten some good feedback from supporters and one church even asked for permission to publish them in their bulletin.

Again, choose a blog theme that’s “responsive.” Here’s a few examples about what you might want to do to blog as a ministry:

• Crocker Chronicle: Thoughts on the intersection of race, religion, politics, ministry, sports and culture (blogspot.com)
• Gary Runn: The Leadership Crossing: Leadership, teams, spiritual life, culture, productivity
• Live with Flair: A choice to find happiness, beauty, and spirituality every single day (blogspot.com)
• Pursuing Heart: Pursuing the heart of God, and everything related to the heart, family, and home (blogspot.com)
• The Sovereign : An evangelistic blog written for post-rapture readers (wordpress.com)
• Fan the Flame : One holy desire to see all of life a’flame with the power of Risen Love (blogspot.com)

As I write about websites in the You-Can-Too series, I’ll be discussing both MPD websites and eMinistry websites. The next website post (about layouts and the look of your website) is currently scheduled for May 6th, so I’ve given you lots of time to sign up for a website of your own before then.

Would you like to share your website with us? Put a link in the comments.

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Visit the Table of Contents for the You-Can-Too series posts. This post is first in the website series.  Keep following the series for posts on databases, communication, websites, and social media.

NOTES: 

• The Blog Tour Is Coming!! eQuipping for eMinistry’s annual blog tour will be starting April 7th.  If you have a blog, send a link to one of your best posts for the tour to e4e at cru.org. Put “e4e blog tour” in the subject line.
• An upcoming post in the You-Can-Too database series of posts will give you an opportunity to see both TntMPD and MPDx in action in their “101” videos.