The church in America is feeling the same economic pinch that everyone else is, and in the new year many churches will be looking for new ways to attract people to their fellowships without spending a lot of money to do it.  One option that many will investigate is redesigning their home landing page in a blog format.  Instead of having a static landing page, the local church will now have a constant stream of updated information and photos that users can access and be edified by 24-7, 365 days of the year.

Sounds great, right?  I love blogs and blogging!  Hmmm…maybe not so much.  While I do think that a blog could be a great ministry asset, for most churches I find them to be more of a hurt than a help.  There are two main pitfalls in blogging and Web 2.0 that many small to mid-size churches fall into, and unless these pitfalls are specifically addressed, your church’s blog could hurt your online ministry more than promote it.

Diamonds last forever, and so does the internet.  Once something is posted online, it never really ceases to exist.  Those of us who’ve been blogging for a while know this to be the case. Many of us have posted something to our blog in a fit of rage or misplaced concern that has gotten us into a deep pile of trouble.  Even after we take down the offensive or inaccurate post, it still exists in thousands of search engine results, and our rant will cost us significant reputation points.

If your pastor, for example, posts a humorous entry about life on other planets, rest assured it will be discovered and mischaracterized by opponents of your ministry.  You’ll have people chatting online about your ministry as if it were a cult who worship’s Fox Mulder, all because of some innocent satirical words.  Words in the blogosphere must be measured with an excrucitating amount of detail, because they are eternal.

A dead blog draws no flies.  We’ve all seen hundreds of abandoned blogs littering the sides of the information super highway.  Blogging is a lot of work, and most people who start a blog simply don’t have time to keep it up.  While dead personal or business blogs are bad, dead church blogs are even worse.  When a person takes a look at your church’s blog and it hasn’t been updated in six months, the viewer’s immediate assumption is that the organization behind the blog is dead. Chances are, that viewer will never return to your site, much less visit your church.

I’ve found that most pastors are just too busy to keep up with the demands of a blog, and their good intentions in starting a blog fall prey to more pressing demands for their time.  A church blog is an extreme commitment, and without the proper set-up and delegation, it can become a real anvil around the ministry’s neck.

Maybe your church should have a blog after all.  I think that a blog can be a powerful ministry tool, and I do think that more churches should employ this technique in their site design, so I’m not really arguing that you should stick to your old, outdated static ministry page.  What I am saying is that if you do decide to walk the path of Web 2.0, you must be aware of the demands this decision will place on your time and attention.  Please don’t just throw up a blog and forget about it, because it can be a dangerous and hurtful tool if you do not use it effectively.