Is Your Ministry Trying to Catch Up or Just Copy?
After having spoken with countless ministries about their web strategy, their product development, and website redesigns, I’ve gotten the feeling that we’ve generally caught the bug of “copy” or “catch up”.
Most ministries have a handful of examples of other ministries that they want to emulate and/or copy and just as many, perhaps, sites that they don’t want to be like. I hear things like this:
Can you help us do what they do?
or
We just don’t want to look like these sites (“sites” = websites that need more help than theirs) but we want to catch up with these guys.
or
Can we have your source code?
…
And the thing is that the heart behind these requests is in the right place; there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a better web strategy or website and if you see something that looks good then rock on, right?
Here are some key considerations though and questions that I ask:
- Do you know if those models and examples are actually being effective at what you think they are attempting to accomplish?
- Why do you think they are being effective? What specifically?
- How important is it that you tie your mission and overall umbrella ministry strategy to your web properties?
- What does success look like for you as a ministry?
You see, the goal is not to necessarily emulate or copy or catch up with other ministries, the goal for you in your next redesign or build out is to match as closely your ministry strategy with your website property. Your site isn’t going to look like or function like other ministries and it shouldn’t because your ministries are different.
Context, history, people, leadership, and target audience all play a part of your next move and it’s going to be different for each ministry.
Finally, the goal is also not to “leap frog the competition,” sotospeak. What competition exactly are we talking about? Do what you do best as a ministry and I firmly believe God will honor that energy and service. I’m not so sure He’s ever enjoyed watching 1st Baptist of Whatever pwn 2nd Baptist of Whatever in a web design contest.
Run well friends!
Buzz it!
Leave a Reply
27 Responses to “Is Your Ministry Trying to Catch Up or Just Copy?”
-
Tweets that mention Is Your Ministry Trying to Catch Up or Just Copy? - ChurchCrunch -- Topsy.com
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Saddington, Kevin Cooper. Kevin Cooper said: RT @human3rror: Is Your Ministry Trying to Catch Up or Just Copy? – http://bit.ly/6Ox17X [...]
-
uberVU - social comments
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by human3rror: Is Your Ministry Trying to Catch Up or Just Copy? – http://bit.ly/6Ox17X...
-
5,879 feedburner + twitter followers
-
-
-
-
A Preview of Wordpress Standard Theme Version 2
Konrad,
right on. love the unity. it's funny how we forget this so easily…
In order to make a harmony we need different notes…we have 1 mission but we all have a particular "sound".Church leaders need to understand the importance of individuality & authenticity. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
oh, i like that. that makes a lot of sense.
+1 Yes, brother, preach it. I get "so and so is doing this" all the time from people outside our strategy team. They mean well, because they want us to succeed. But, what I try to remind them all of is this: we will succeed not based on how we compare to another ministry – we will succeed based on our faithfulness to and stewardship of our particular piece of God's mission – that's the measuring stick we need to be using. My team is always looking at what others do, but only in so far as how it might inform us about our mission track, not where we are in someone's human-made pecking order.
Incidentally, we tell people all the time that "we won't do that, but there is a church down the road that is doing that if you really need that".
I agree with Conrad. We should have one goal: see Christ lifted up high. However, I do believe we should take great precautions to make our ministry unique. We are ONE body but many members–in other words, we do have one purpose but different ways to fulfill that purpose.
I think the whole copycatting boils down to one thing: purpose. "I know my ministry's OVERARCHING purpose, but what is our individual purpose? What makes US unique?" And out that uniqueness comes ways to express it. Granted, it is necessary to imitate. We learn from our parents how to walk, talk, and behave. But after sometime you develop your individuality and personaliy and you do things differently.
So what I'm saying is: we need to copy, in the beginning. But then we need to differentiate as we mature.
Great post!
The message of the gospel is already unique. The church just needs to focus on making the website usable, and filling it with content that ministers to the hearts of the people under their care. Focus on truth, and teaching the truth and tailor the website to make those goals possible for the web; which for me includes being able to communicate the truth easily from our website to feed readers, social websites, etc.
I created our church website in a little over a month with very little background experience. It's not the greatest looking site, but it has the functionality our little church plant needs and it's ministering in a way that's appropriate for us. http://www.veritascc.org
haha can we have your source code. Uhh no.
I actually find it more sad that Churches hold onto their code. I would love to see an open sourcing movement for Church technology.
i don't mind giving away code at all. i do have a problem if they dont change out any of the graphics, including the logo…
Yes, open source all the way. I think the closedness comes from a deeper problem in many congregations. It's not just code we don't like to give away. It's anything. We've got this competitive mindset between chapels… what's up with that? Since when are we to compete?
I like this post and the comments here because they highlight two sides: 1) trying to copy and 2) trying to close off to stay unique. Both are extremes that should be avoided.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Well, there's more… Some churches simply wants to have an online presence so that they can expose them selves and convince the visitors to contribute with a couple of Dollars. Very sad indeed…
I enjoy subscribing to Dilbert. It let's me know one of the things you'll be posting on the next day
Nice one.
seriously. bread and butter.
What i have learned is that when i set goals and have an idea for what I am working on I tend to not copy others.
But when i do not know the direction something is headed I tend to start to look for how others are doing it just because I have not owned it myself.
I think that is the key to this discussion, how much of this is your thing your ideas and the goals fit the needs of your community? If you can ask those questions then I think it leads to you doing your own thing, mainly because your community is not like any other community out there.
hmm. or, you haven't found others who are…?
That could be true as well…at least you haven't found someone who is doing the same thing you are doing so there is no one to copy off of.
I still do think that we copy off of something.
I guess the question is, do you hold to the statement, "there is nothing new under the sun?"
yeah, pretty much.
we're all shadows of something….
That could be true as well…at least you haven't found someone who is doing the same thing you are doing so there is no one to copy off of.
I still do think that we copy off of something.
I guess the question is, do you hold to the statement, "there is nothing new under the sun?"
Very nicely stated. Especially since we are all one Body, the goal should always be one: See Christ lifted high and glorified, so that every man, woman, and child may hear the good news.
Great points!!
Have you ever heard of the term by Edward de Bono : Sur/Petition – creating value monopolies when everyone else is merely competing
So instead of trying to copy or improve on what others are doing – don't leap frog; head in a new direction.
We need to be listening to God and seeking out his vision for the church, instead of trying to hijack what someone else is doing. Unfortunately, it's not easy. It takes us humbling ourselves before God in prayer, it takes time, and it can even take pain to bring us to the point when we are ready to listen. Everyone wants a quick fix, but imagine what it would be like if churches everywhere truly operated in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can at least dream
Good point here. So my question is this; Having just purchased a cloversite… which as you know looks sorta virtually the same as any other cloversite church. Does that mean I'm copying instead of creating myself? Our communications team and I met and decided to go with a cloversite because of the simplicity and the use of negative space to "create space in our lives" which is what the church is called to do… not clutter it. (ahem… Kem Meyer…
). There aren't any other churches in our area that are using a cloversite so when you search for churches in our area… our site will be "different", even though it's the same as other cloversites.
So that's not exactly a question but more me justifying our upcoming move to a cloversite. Thoughts on this ChurchCrunch peeps?