Composing ministry descriptions that are both informative and inspiring to visitors of your church website is a bit of a balancing act.
It’s also easier to accomplish than you think.
Why you need content for brains AND hearts
Tim Peters, a church communications advocate, coach, and leader, published a short but insightful article on his blog about the two types of essential website content.
To make your church website engaging to any audience, you must publish brain content and heart content.
As Tim points out,
Brain content is informative and knowledge driven. Heart content is inspiring and emotional. These two are not at odds with each other; rather, they work together to give visitors a total experience. Each serves a specific purpose.
He goes on to offer some great examples of both types.
Now, maybe you’ve got the brain content covered. Most churches do. But, what about the heart content?
I’d venture to say most small-church communicators would admit that consistently producing, adding, and updating their website with warm, heart-tugging content is one of their biggest challenges.
I can certainly admit, it’s a challenge for me.
If that’s you, too, and your church website is missing heart content, what’s needed is a simple way to kick-start production, right?
Here’s an idea! And the good news: you can use content that’s already on your website.
The secret sauce for inspiring ministry descriptions
It’s no surprise that Tim included Ministry Descriptions in his list of “brain content” examples. Brain content is commonly used to construct ministry description pages.
However, one of his “heart content” points focused on the need to communicate how your church helps people grow spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. That point made me think about, well, ministries.
So, why not start by expanding your ministry descriptions. Heart content is the secret sauce.
Don’t stop at merely describing a ministry in your church. Make your ministry descriptions head-filling AND heart-tugging by describing the benefits people receive by connecting.
How to do it
Begin by breaking down a ministry description into a list of features.
Think of ministry features as the who, what, when, where, of your ministry descriptions. The benefits of the ministry are the why.
An easy way to talk about the benefits they’ll receive is to answer the question, “Why is this so great?” for each feature you list.
For example, say your website describes a feature of your youth ministry like this: “Youth (who) meet together in the Fellowship Center (where) every Tuesday evening at 6:30pm (when) for games and fellowship, and then break up into middle and senior high groups for age appropriate Bible study (what).”
That’s all brain content. Head stuff. Informative, but not too captivating.
Now, add the secret sauce—the heart content. Why is this so great? Your answer might be something like,
Connecting here is AWESOME, because getting together for fun and learning encourages teens to grow relationally and socially. They also become skilled at applying God’s principles to the issues they face in their everyday lives–at home, at school, everywhere!
BOOYAH! Here’s what you’re really offering them!
Here’s why they want to be a part of your congregation. This is what they’ll get: not merely access to a youth ministry, but an opportunity to see their teens grow relationally and socially, and become skilled at applying godly principles to every-day life.
What parent wouldn’t want THOSE BENEFITS for their kids (and for themselves)?
So to recap…
[process_steps type=”vertical” size=”small” number=”5″] [process_step title=”Step 1″ icon=”desktop”]Check out Tim’s article: Church Website Content Checklist[/process_step] [process_step title=”Step 2″ icon=”search”]Carefully review the pages of your website, especially the pages where your ministry descriptions live.[/process_step] [process_step title=”Step 3″ icon=”list-ol”]Break down each ministry description into a list of features of that ministry. [/process_step] [process_step title=”Step 4″ icon=”edit”]For each feature, answer the question, “Why is this so great?” [/process_step] [process_step title=”Step 5″ icon=”heart-o”]Assemble the pieces into a new ministry description that’s both informative AND inspiring. [/process_step] [/process_steps]
Now it’s your turn
Do your ministry descriptions inspire people to connect? Share your ideas (and methods). Leave a comment!
Image Credit: Paxson Woelber | Flickr cc