The top twelve mistakes pastors make as website owners

1. Allow web masters to handle all complaints and answer all e-mail. If there is something seriously wrong with your website, you won’t hear about it until it’s too late. Web masters care about job security too, they will hide their own mistakes from you if they can.
2. Never reviewing the job effectiveness of staff employees who answer e-mail or take phone calls. These employees can directly sabotage ministry efforts apart from their employer’s knowledge. Many older generations of employees will unwittingly assign jobs on the computer to those staff members that they can not regulate personally because of their own limited experience. There is an age gap between those who know the internet and those who know ministry. Employers must strive to hire trustworthy people for technology jobs that will drive missions on the internet with a positive attitude.
3. Treating blogs or any other form of internet communication with apathy because it is over the internet. There are vast numbers of ordinary people moving across the internet at all times. Many more will read your blogs etc. than will often ever hear you preach.
4. Not submitting your blogs to search engines.
5. Not linking to a multitude of ministry resources just because you do not know the denomination of the individuals. This is not difficult to look up or make a phone call to find out.
6. Not learning to express a variety of emotions in your literary endeavors. Your web visitors will want to see a healthy, well balanced, Christian personality in your sermons, posts and articles. Don’t just post when you are angry, sad or sarcastic. Post about joy, laughter, love and forgiveness too!
7. Pastors don’t always try to anticipate their visitors needs. Sometimes the pastor will not include important things like a profession of faith or the basic doctrinal ideas that he may take for granted in himself. Treat your web traffic as though they have never even met Jesus.
8. Pastors sometimes act on the internet in ways that they would never act in public. But the internet is public, never forget.
9. Some pastors are all work and no fuss. But visitors are looking for family on the internet even if you are already perfectly content with your own. Leave space in your heart for seekers. God may bring someone to your blog that desperately wants to come home. A visitor may very well be a prodigal son, someone’s lost daughter or a child’s wandering parent.
10. Not submitting to the ministry of other Christian workers on the internet. The internet is a giant web community and also a large interactive library system. Articles count for time and eternity here. If you post excellent ones, make them easy for others to find. Also remember that all of us who are for Jesus are employed by Him. Whether we are small and defenseless or gigantic and powerful. We who love and depend on the Savior are part of one large body. We need each other and we must learn to partner together to make this community a better place for everyone.
11. Sometimes Christian authors or ministers are promoting their own books or outreach and forget to include materials that are free on their webpages. Remember the internet is about “draw” traffic. This means that setting up shop alone is not enough to keep visitors interested. People can feel as though all you really want from them is cash. Websites that promote products should also be environments for growth and exploration.
12. New content is necessary for a successful internet ministry. The only way to avoid this is to have so much content that folks can’t absorb everything on your webpages in one visit. However, a note of caution. New content is also a element that causes search engines to rank you. So, even if it is a small new entry that many visitors don’t always see, that new content is very important.

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