Creating Passionate Users recently discussed the problems with products that are so complex that users never learn how to use most of their features. They pose the question, “How many things do you own where you can’t use more than 10% of what they can actually can do?” They discuss how home stereos, cell phones, and digital cameras users have a tendency to stay “stuck” in “Program Mode” - just using the default settings.

But what about your church? How many people attending your church are stuck simply attending? How easy is it for people to get involved in the heart of your church’s community and to use it to its full potential? How useful and valuable is your church in people’s lives?

Creating Passionate Users offers four questions to ask to determine if a company’s product has usability problems. Let’s change those questions to apply to your church so that you can determine how usable your church is.

1. Are we focused too much on “church” rather than the needs of the people our church wants to reach? Is your church offering solutions to its congregation’s problems? Are you giving them something practical, or have you become stuck in meaningless tradition or pursuing obscure dogma? Usable churches try their best to minister to the needs of the people they want to reach.
2. Is our church too hard to use? If your church has poor signage and little organization, it does not make it easy for people to attend or get involved. Even the best organized and designed churches have areas to improve. Don’t reach a point where you are comfortable, but constantly look for ways to better serve people. View your church through the eyes of your guests.
3. Do we encourage/support a church community that emphasizes growing spiritually? Well organized church communities ensure that church members don’t just attend church but apply God’s Word in their lives. A church without community offers no accountability for those who attend to actually apply to their lives what they learn in church. Community motivates users.
4. Do we train our church members how to practically apply what they learn in church and become involved in furthering the church’s vision? Explain to your church how they can apply Biblical truths to their lives, and explain to them how they can become involved in supporting the church’s vision. Preaching the Bible is great, but teaching people how to use it is even better.

PhysicsWeb reported last month that a team of statistical physicists discovered through research that “the average half-life of a news item is just 36 hours, or one and a half days after it is released.”

What does this mean? Well according to the article:

The short life of a news item — combined with random visiting patterns of readers — implies that people could miss a significant fraction of news by not visiting the portal when a new document is first displayed, which is why publishers like to provide e-mail news alerts. The results also show that people read a particular web page not just because it looks interesting but because it can be accessed easily.

Although the average half-life varies for different types of sites, the decay laws identified are likely to be generic because they do not depend on content, but are mainly determined by a user’s visiting and browsing patterns.

So if your church offers weekly news and updates on its website but does not have a weekly newsletter, you may want to consider one to be sure that what you write is actually read. Also, are there any obstacles keeping visitors to your church’s website from easily accessing information?

Special thanks to Emergence Marketing for highlighting the research.

Church Business has recently overhauled their website, unveiling quite a few new and incredible resources for FREE! Features include:

• 2,000 Articles Archived by Topic
• Webinars
• eBooks

Tell all of your pastoral buddies about these resources. The archives look full of great advice.

Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) has teamed up with Bombay Creative to launch a completely new look for Church on the Move’s website. But the look isn’t the only change. The redevelopment is just the first step in Church on the Move’s plan to increase content and usability while strengthening their church’s community at the same time.

The new site also includes podcasting and radio streaming of Pastor Willie George’s teaching. And for those who like free stuff, check out their online store to download some free message MP3s.

Consider this concept presented by James T. Meeks of Salem Baptist Church (Chicago, IL) on the effects of a leader’s speed:

The speed of a leader determines the speed of the team.

If you want your church to do more, begin by looking at your leadership abilities. 

Special thanks to Tim Stevens for highlighting the statement.

Quite a few churches advertise in the newspaper. If your church is one of them, consider the following tips from Jay Levinson and Seth Godin’s The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook:

• Make sure you have a strong headline. If the headline doesn’t grab ‘em, the rest of the ad won’t either.
• Emphasize the word FREE and repeat it when possible.
• Include testimonials.
• You need to ask the reader to react in some manner.
• Borders help small ads act like big ones.
• Always include an address and a phone number so people know where to find you.

You can have the most beautiful and user-friendly website ever, but it is useless if nobody visits it.  Search engines can be a great source of web traffic. In fact, there is even an industry called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that seeks out ways to improve a website’s ranking within search engines.

If you are curious to know how your church’s website measures up in the world of SEO, check out SEOmoz.org’s Page Strength Tool.

The great organization must not only accomodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences.

Marcus Buckingham :: Now, Discover Your Strengths

A great church first learns the personal strengths of its staff and volunteers and then places each individual in an area where his or her strengths will flourish and maximize the church’s potential. That is an efficient church.