A plea for parish websites

[Matrona]

Forgive me for ranting a bit, but this has been driving me insane.

I've had it up to here (picture me standing with my hand high above my head) with outdated parish websites! I'm going to be doing some traveling in the near future and have been visiting various parish websites to get liturgy times and so forth. Instead, I find parishes like these, which shall remain nameless:

- Parishes that have moved but still have their old address on their website
- Parishes that do not give you their address or directions, merely providing a (defunct) link to Mapquest.
- Parishes that still list deceased clergy as active
- Parishes that still list apostate(!) clergy as active... even with the apostate's still-functional, still-going-to-that-particular-person, email address! Great idea for an Orthodox parish to tell visitors to contact an apostate for information about Orthodoxy, don't you think?!
- Parishes that have changed liturgy times dramatically still have the old time listed.
- Parishes that ask you to "call for times for weekday services" but the number reaches an answering machine that (you guessed it) has no, or outdated, dates and times on its message. Not much help if the feast day is the next day, folks.
- Parishes that have a "feast day calendar" listed that turns out to be from Great Lent... in 2002. Yes, I'm serious.
- Parishes whose "photos" page links to photos of their parishioners on vacation somewhere that has nothing to do with the parish or worshipping there... and without any photos of the parish itself.

Your parish's website is its portal to the world, and makes your parish's first impression in the minds of Orthodox coming from out of town (like me, baby) and visitors who might be considering Orthodoxy. A lousy outdated website is just another way of saying, "Nobody cares at this parish."

Not every parish needs to have a snazzy website with engaging articles written by your overworked priest and a live streaming webcam feed that updates every parishioner and visitor to the second on what's going on at your parish. All you need is a bit of web space somewhere that gives out the following:

- Parish name and location (including accurate directions) with a phone number/email address for the parish and its office hours (when people can call and talk to a human)
- Regular service times (e.g. "Sunday Divine Liturgy at 10:00 AM")
- Feast day service times (e.g. in late December/January, I want to be able to see "February 2, 2008 - Liturgy for the Presentation of our Lord at 8:00 AM")
- If you can, a photograph of your parish's exterior, to help people find it.
- Updated information - if you cancel services or change their time, put this on your website ASAP, don't assume "everybody knows" just because you called and emailed everyone in the parish.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'll be pleased to read them. This has been bothering me for a long time but I finally snapped today. I mean, updating your parish's darned website is one of the easiest things in the world you can do to reach out to your community: all you need is one of those site-builder programs or the teensiest knowledge of HTML to give your parish a web presence. I have seen just one too many parishes with a website no one has bothered to update in five years, and I have to wonder why they still bother giving out the address and printing it on their letterhead! GRR! Rant over!

 

[nutroll]

As someone with a website of my own, I agree that it is easy to update, but oftentimes I go long periods of time without doing so because I am busy with other things, and don't prioritize like I should. I think it is one of the most important things that a parish can do, however, because it really does impact whether they will have visitors who may or may not become members at some point in time.

There is a parish near me that I attended a few times for feast days. My church does mostly evening liturgies for feast days, and there have been a few times where I had something that evening that couldn't be moved. So I would go to this other church the next morning, rather than just canceling what I had to do. Their website has the times for their services, and so I would always check their website the night before to make sure that liturgies were still at the same time. The last time I did this however, was (I think) on the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, and I checked the website, saw that everything was the same, in the morning, I headed over there, and the doors were closed, and the lights were out. I have no idea whether they had an evening liturgy the night before, or whether the priest was out of town, or the church was being fumigated, or if they were on pilgrimage to another church or monastery. So I haven't tried since. Instead, I will cancel whatever plans I have and just go to my church the night before. I really don't like missing one of the Great Feasts of the Church because a website isn't updated.

That being said, I think we're lucky that some churches have websites at all considering that we still have some parishes that don't have indoor plumbing.

 

[Chocolatesa]

I agree... I recently went to a church nearby that had the Liturgy listed as being at 10:30am, when I got there the sign on the door said 10:00am. So much for showing up on time. I went anyways and it was nice, I couldn't tell if they had just started or not though as I'm not familiar enough with the Liturgy. I'll just call the priest to make sure for next time. Hopefully the phone number will be correct.

 

[Matrona]

As someone with a website of my own, I agree that it is easy to update, but oftentimes I go long periods of time without doing so because I am busy with other things, and don't prioritize like I should. I think it is one of the most important things that a parish can do, however, because it really does impact whether they will have visitors who may or may not become members at some point in time.

Yes, but your website is your personal website, whereas a parish typically has at least a few people who could share website-updating responsibilities.

The last time I did this however, was (I think) on the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, and I checked the website, saw that everything was the same, in the morning, I headed over there, and the doors were closed, and the lights were out. I have no idea whether they had an evening liturgy the night before, or whether the priest was out of town, or the church was being fumigated, or if they were on pilgrimage to another church or monastery. So I haven't tried since. Instead, I will cancel whatever plans I have and just go to my church the night before. I really don't like missing one of the Great Feasts of the Church because a website isn't updated.

My "pinch-hitter" parish is very diligent about updating its schedules, and for that I'm glad, because it's usually my only option for feast day liturgies.

That being said, I think we're lucky that some churches have websites at all considering that we still have some parishes that don't have indoor plumbing.

Well that is true. But they could still put a sign out front with dates and times and so forth.

 

[nutroll]

Yes, but your website is your personal website, whereas a parish typically has at least a few people who could share website-updating responsibilities.

You know that's true, and I just had a look at my parish's website, and it has needed an update since about July. I was told the other day that someone was keeping it updated, evidently that is not the case. Perhaps I will have to volunteer to do this. Although, I think this also brings up another good point, which is that parishioners seldom go to their own church's website, since they get a bulletin every week, and most church sites aren't filled with great things to read. Maybe we need some outsiders to email and say, why don't you update your site?

Well that is true. But they could still put a sign out front with dates and times and so forth.

It is interesting to think that there are churches with signs in front of the church, and an outhouse out back. It really shows that the priority is getting people to worship, rather than making people comfortable.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

My priest is a computer geek, so thankfully we don't have that problem.

And I agree, Matrona, out-of-date websites are frustrating, and pretty useless.

Mary

 

[Kvikklunsj]

I think it's probably part of a bigger lack of communication. A few months ago I decided to finally visit an Orthodox church, so I looked in the phone book to see what's around here. There are three Orthodox parishes in my city, two of which were worth considering since the other is kind of run down and I don't think there are many people who go there.

One parish is like half an hour from here, but the other is less than 10 minutes from my house so that was the first one I looked into. Looked them up online, and they didn't have a website. I figured I'd drive by the church then sometime to take a look at it and see when the services are on the sign out front...so I did that, only to find they didn't even have a sign so I didn't know when the services were. Then I called their phone number that night and their voicemail message only gave the priest's number in case of emergency, no times or any kind of information. Needless to say, I wasn't interested in doing any more work to try and visit a place that doesn't seem too interested in communicating with the people around them...