Do you have a blog going on your church website? I have a handful of pastor friends that have not yet jumped into the world of blogging (at least not on their church websites.)  When I ask them why not, here are some of the answers I get:

• I simply don't have the time to add something like this to my to-do list each week.  I'm busy with ministry - I want to spend my time doing things that really matter.
• I don't have enough to say to fill a blog?
• I fear that I would start strong then a few months would go by and visitors to the site would see that the latest post is from sometime last year.
• Once people start commenting on blogs, won't it get out of control really quickly? I fear that we won't be able to manage it all.

What I have told these friends (and what I will tell anyone who asks) is that none of those excuses hold much water.  In fact. there are a few great reasons you need to have a blog on your church website.  Here's the beginning of a list:

1. Foster Communication - A blog is a wonderful way to foster communication with people inside your community and beyond.
2. Subscription Options  - With the options for RSS or email subscriptions, a blog can be an great way to get information (announcements, event info, sermon teasers or reminders, etc) into the hand of the people who care.
3. Help People Find Your Church Online -  That's right, incorporating a blog on your church website is one of the best ways that you can improve your Search Engine Status or Google Ranking.  More on this in a future post...
4. Easy to Setup and Manage - With the tools that are available to you, blogging doesn't take a whole lot of time.  In fact, you can have an amazingly effective blog in just a few minutes each week.

Setup a risk-free 30-day trial and test out the blog feature yourself.  Check out this video tour of the new blog feature at SnapShot Web:

If you have a blog on your church site, we'd love to see it in action (and interact with you there.)  Post it in the comments and we'll take a look.  Have you got other reasons to add to the list?  Post them here as well.

Tommy Foster is the Associate Pastor of Students at First Baptist Church of Mountain Home. He has used SnapShot Web for a few years to power his Student Ministry Website at 180uth.com and his church website at myfbcmh.com. One of the things that Tommy is doing really well on these websites will be noticeable as soon as you visit the home page. On both sites, you will see an eye-catching, layered, and interactive slideshow that will highlight some of the most important things going on in the community. He's using SnapShot's SlideShow feature to pull this off.

Well Done Tommy.

A few years ago a church could get away with having a website that was nothing more than informational – a site that merely answered basic questions about the time and location of the weekly service. A strictly informational website like this is called a “brochure website” because its content is static. It basically serves the same purpose as a tri-fold brochure that you might pick up in a hotel lobby.

The time for brochure websites has come and gone.