Church Planter Profile: Michael Clary of Cincinnati’s Christ The King Church

On Wednesday, March 13 Sojourn Network is conducting our next Faithmapping Micro-Conference in Cincinnati, hosted by member church Christ The King. Pastors, worship leaders and church planters will learn how Sojourn Network can help them plant and grow strong churches, especially in the context of Cincinnati, northern Kentucky and nearby cities.

In this audio interview, I talked with Michael Clary, pastor and founder of the multi-site Christ The King Church. You’ll learn:

• Why Pastor Michael Clary chose to plant Christ The King Church in Cincinnati
• Why did they launch second campus in northern Kentucky rather than plant a new church?
• Why should experienced pastors attend the Faithmapping micro-conference?

Listen on the audio player below, or download from iTunes.

The Biggest Mistake On Your Church Website Homepage

Churches, unfortunately, make a lot of mistakes on their websites — particularly the home page: For instance:

• Cheesy clip art
• Photos of smiling faces … who have never actually been to your church
• Sensory overload – every bell and whistle that every staff member could dream of

But one issue flabbergasts me. I can’t tell you how many church websites I’ve visited that had one certain problem. And this isn’t a matter of including the wrong thing on your home page. It’s about what some of you are leaving out:

Your Location And Service Time(s)

Your church website is like your billboard, and like the old Yellow Pages listing. People may be checking out your website for lots of things, but for sure you need them to know where and when you meet. Don’t make them hunt all over your website to find this information.

Include contact information too — email, office phone number and your major social media accounts.

The Multi-Campus Conundrum

What if you’re a multi-site church? What if it’s not feasible to include the street address and service times for every campus on your home page?

We had this problem at Sojourn Community Church, where I am Director of Communications. Our solution was to create a major tab header called Locations And Service Times. This is one of several main headers that appears on every page of our site, not just the home page. Clicking on our Locations And Service Times tab takes you to a page with complete listings for each of our four campuses, as well as a customized Google map of the entire Louisville/Southern Indiana area, with markers showing each of our campuses.When users click on a marker, they can get directions to that campus from their own address.

If you’re a multi-site church, have you chosen another way to communicate your individual campus service times and locations?

Include Your City

Some church websites list their street address but not their city or even state. The reasoning might be, “People in our town already know what town they’re in. They just need our street address.”

The first problem with this is you’re shooting yourself in the foot with Google and other search engines. For instance, if you’re a church in Boston, you want people to be able to type “Boston churches” into a search engine and find you. Make sure you mention Boston on your website.

The second problem is that we live in a mobile society, where people move often and where they have friends and family in many locations. So let’s say I am looking at a church website — maybe I arrived there from a link on Twitter (a friend posted the link to the most recent sermon by this church’s pastor). The sermon is great and the website leads me to believe this is a good, gospel-centered church.

Then I notice the church is located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. No way! I was just talking to my cousin on Facebook, who is moving to Cedar Rapids next month and will be looking for a home church. Now I can send her the link to this church website.

But what if “Cedar Rapids” wasn’t listed on the site, or at least wasn’t listed on any main page? What if the only address listing was “123 Main Street”? There is a 123 Main Street everywhere. Now my cousin still doesn’t have a head start on finding a good church in Cedar Rapids.

Not good.

Church Communications: When Your Church Relocates, pt. 1

Churches relocate more than you think. In fact, your church may relocate someday. If so, you’ve got two primary communication challenges:

• Communicating the church move to your church members and regular attendees (the congregation)
• Communicating the church move to your neighbors (the community)

Let’s get to the basics of how to communicate “Our church is moving to a new location” to each of those audiences, in a two part series. We’ll use my church (Sojourn Community Church, in Louisville, KY) for examples. Since we’re a multi-site church, with four campuses around the Louisville region, we can provide multiple case studies. Today, we’ll talk about communications with the outside community in your new (or soon-to-be) neighborhood:

“Our Church Is Moving!” How To Communicate Effectively To The Outside Community

Residents of southern Indiana have always been a part of Sojourn’s membership. New Albany is the largest of several Indiana towns in the Louisville area, separated from the city by the Ohio River (we locals call this region “Kentuckiana”).

Within the past year, our Indiana community groups reached “critical mass” and we began looking for a facility in or near downtown New Albany. We scouted several buildings and came close to buying one, but then the perfect opportunity arose: a former school building that had just shut down the previous year. The 36,0000 square foot building looked great, and the asking price was right, so we closed the deal (press release here).

Problem: Many New Albany residents are still upset at the closing of Silver Street Elementary School in 2010.
Just last week I spoke with a man whose family had attended the school for five generations. Emotional ties run deep, and this man represents many residents who don’t feel the school district should have closed the school and sold the property.