As a Christian and especially someone who is trying to promote building ministries online, I found the information in Darren’s article very interesting, so I thought I’d like to share with you some ideas on how you can use your website and or social media accounts to accommodate the members in your church or ministry.

I think if we look outside the box and try to think about how we can best serve our brothers and sisters, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from what I’m about to share with you.

The image below is a screen shot taken from www.ruderfinn.com, What your looking at is simply a graph explaining what people do with their time spent on the Internet.

If you look at it closely, you will notice some very interesting stats.

Basically, the darker areas, closer to the edge of the wheel are the more popular reasons why people go online.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 reasons for people spending time online…

• Pass Time 100%
• Educate Self 96%
• Connect 92%
• Research 89%
• Share 86%
• Be Entertained 82%
• Keep Informed 79%
• Discuss 76%
• Be Part Of A Community 72%
• Escape 66%

If these stats are correct and I’m assuming they are, how can we use this information as a means to serve in our own online ministries and outreach?

With the exception of “Passing Time” which is a fairly vague description, the remaining reasons give us some information to work with.

First off, lets take a look at “Educate Self 96%“, the second highest reason why people are going online.

How can we promote Self Education in an online church environment? I know that my church runs various courses throughout the year, Could we have an online version of those courses that we could run in a membership site format while the offline course is not being actively taught in a class room environment.

This would help open up the ministry to a global audience, and not just limit the teaching materials to the local church members, it could also become an addition source of income for the ministry.

The next on the list is “Connect 92%“, People want to stay connected, can we give the members of our churches a safe environment where they can connect and be in fellowship with one another?

One idea could be, have a forum set up on your site, another could be, have a direct link to a Google or Facebook group, Or you could let people add their twitter I.D’s to a particular part of your site, sought of like a who’s using twitter directory, so any one in the church can find and follow each other using Twitter.

You could add an entire category to your site about “Research 89%” and it could also tie into the “Educate self” idea, ask for feedback from the members in your church about specific products and resources they have found useful and list them on a blog post, or in your forum.

By having an environment where the members of your church can tell others about valuable resources, you are also providing an opportunity for them to “Share 86%” any good resources or products that they find helpful.

Entertained comes in at 82%, so how can we entertain? Video, Audio and Pictures, are all great ways to share entertaining content. I know I get a laugh out of those humorous church signs you see pop up from time to time, and every one likes a good joke, So why not throw in a joke or two to help people lighten up and enjoy a good laugh every now and then.

Keeping informed is next at 76%, how are you taking advantage of the web when it comes to keeping your church members up to date and informed, This is why I love the idea of using blogs for your church websites, it is so easy to add new post’s each week about what’s happening in the life of the church, and especially with RSS already inbuilt into your blog platform, it makes it even easier for you to deliver the weekly church newsletters out to your members, giving them the option to stay up to date with the latest church news via an RSS reader.

Another great way to keep people informed is through Twitter, and of course email.

And the remaining three, Discuss 76%, Be Part Of A Community 72%, and Escape 66% all alude to being involved with fellowship and having the abilitry to communicate with others.

Is there any wonder why Facebook and twitter are becoming so incredibly popular, the creators of these sites have learned what people want and are giving it to them, How can we do the same, the information is there, we just need to sit down and figure out how we can give people want they want.

The ideas expressed in this article are only Ideas, I can’t guarrantee they will work for every single church environment, but if we stop to think about what these statistics represent and how we, the church are addressing these obvious human desires, i’m sure we will start to see an improvement in the way we communicate and build relationships in this everchanging world, because we can’t continue to ignore the power of the web in terms of connecting and staying in touch with one another.

More On This Topic...

• Why Your Church Should Be On Facebook.
• My Top 5 Ways For Churches To Use Twitter
• Finding Your Own Voice
• Using Twitter For Your Charity Fundraising