Going back, when I was a child, my family attended church sporadically.  I can remember sitting in church, and time in Sunday School, but I don’t remember it being a regular thing.  By the time I reached middle school (5th grade for us in Connecticut then), we had stopped going except for Christmas services.

We then moved from Connecticut from Ohio, still didn’t make church a priority, and I happened to become fast friends with a man who is still one of my best friends to this day, Wade Apel.  Wade and his family were very devout Christians, attending church regularly, and he had invited me to go with him on several occasions, and I had always politely declined.

Later on in high school, he talked me into attending a high school Men’s Breakfast where we read through several books.  However, with a very scientific mindset, I had formed a pretty strong deist attitude at that time, and I spent more time fighting and criticizing the books than reading them.  Even though I was getting into some Christian music, I really wasn’t buying into the message.

I then went off to college with little more on my mind than finding a relationship.  Late in the first semester I found a relationship (ironically with a Pastor’s daughter), I was happy, and little else mattered.  However, over that Christmas break, I spent a few weeks down in Florida (one with my family and one with the college swim team), came back, and realized that I hadn’t even thought of my girlfriend while I was gone.  I realized that if I had been able to go a few weeks without thinking about her, she really wasn’t that important to me, and I cut things off with her.

Well, after that I was embarrassed and disgusted with my desperation from the semester before, and combining that with some roommate issues and some great friends I didn’t feel I deserved (and probably a dash of homesickness) I went into a period of mild (self-diagnosed) depression.  The last few weeks of the semester, I took a class that only met on the weekends, and went home for the time in-between.

Returning back home, Wade now invited me to a college student bible study, and I went ahead and tagged along.  The study just happened to be on the Song of Solomon and we went through Tommy Nelson’s video series.  Talk about timing and a wake-up call!  This series not only made me re-think the way I pursued relationships, but just how I treated people in general.  Most importantly, it made God real for me.  He is an active part of our lives, whether we chose to acknowledge Him or not!

I went back to school with a renewed life and enthusiasm (and going back as an RA, no roommates to worry about), and all those friends I didn’t feel I deserved saw it and helped me to nurture it.  I got very involved with the local church, our on-campus ministries, and spent my next three spring breaks traveling the country on mission trips.

I then moved on to Pittsburgh after graduation, and that theme continued.  I ended up meeting my wife (that’s a whole ‘nother funny story) at one of the Christian groups on campus, and I ended up getting involved with the worship team at a local church, eventually becoming the leader of that worship team and a board member before facing some difficult decisions (a whole ‘nother not-so-funny story).

Looking back now, I can see the path that God set me on long ago.  I just didn’t know I was walking it!

Yea…

Did these people just skip the whole Great Commission part of the Bible?  We are called to share the word of God with the rest of the world, not hide away and horde it for ourselves.  Even “This Little Light of Mine” covers those basics.

So, instead of living by the word of God they are claiming to tout, this and other groups like it are simply misappropriating their faith to justify actions rebelling against a government they don’t agree with.  And as a Christian, that both infuriates and frustrates me to no end, and I’d love the opportunity to discuss with them why they are doing what they are doing.

I Shouldn’t Be A Pastor

What a refreshingly honest perspective from a pastor who admits that, at times, he feels as out of place as we all do at times.  I commend you, Bryan, for realizing that, even as a leader, you are not immune to learning and growing.

However, another big reason for the downturn has been my satisfaction with my previous blogging platform.  It was a ColdFusion-based solution (which I have a bias towards being a ColdFusion developer) which was very solid.  However, I had made a number of customizations to it to meet my needs, which make keeping up with new revisions nearly impossible.  So, I have not been able to take advantage of new fixes and functionality, and have not had the time to redo the adjustments I had put together for previous versions.

So, I made the pretty radical decision to completely change platforms for my blog, to a more widely used application that I allows me to make customizations, but still keep up with version changes going forward.

However, the one big drawback to this is that I lost all comments on my posts (my new platform did not support importing them from my old platform), which is kind of a downer.  I do still have them all in backups, but have no easy way to tie them into the new setup.

Yet, I think the transition will be worth it.  I’ll have the time to focus more on writing and less on trying to maintain my old hack-and-slash solution, which is what I’d like to do anyway.

Anyway, the other day I was noting how often it is that culture and faith are often wrapped into a single package.  For example, I've heard more than a few non-practicing Jews refer to themselves as “Jewish”.  Technially, they're not “Jewish” if they're not practicing, but “Jewish” is how they define the culture that they were raised with.  Furthermore, most people familiar with Jewish culture would understand that background whether or not the individual still practiced their faith.

That got me to thinking about how the Christian culture is defined.  How are “Christians” generally viewed culturally?  When you call yourself a “Christian” in a room of strangers, what is the first image that pops into their head?  How are “Christians” generally portrayed by the media?

These are legitimate questions to ask, because we need to understand how we are being viewed in order to know how to reach out to others when we speak about our faith.  The answers to these questions reflect where they are coming from, which is likely a far cry from where we are in our faith.

Here are some of my thoughts about how “Christians” are portrayed in general:

• Puritanical – Strict, Witch-Burning, Judgmental Fire and Brimstone Preachers
• Bible-Thumpers – More Interested In Telling You Why You're Sinning Than Reaching Out To Bring Sinners To The Lord
• Naive or Stupid – Can't Accept Or Understand Science (After All, “Christian Scientist” Is An Osymoron, Right?)
• Sissies – Overrun With Hyper-Emotional, Weak Men

These are just a few that come to mind.

How else are we portrayed in the world as Christians?  Are we unfairly stigmatized in relation to other faiths?  How do we go about changing this perception to accurately portray how we live our lives as Christians?

What are your thoughts?

• While the first few months have been a blur thanks to altered schedules
  and getting over the “wow, I'm actually a father” stage, as I now begin
  to see bits and pieces of my son's personality emerge, I begin to think
  about the kind of father I want to be and the values I want to instill
  in my him.
• Has it really been five months already?
• All that time and energy I had to invest in preparing our first home (that we purchased last August) just isn't there any more.  Most days, I wish it was…
• I already miss the long nights of just sitting and holding Graem as an infant when he only slept a few hours at a time.
• When I think back to my upbringing (because I like to think I turned out OK), I see the careful balance of rules, boundaries, and freedoms that my parents set for my siblings and I.  They managed to teach us to say “Please” and “Thank You” without making them chores, and allowed us the freedom to pursue our interests, and now I have to figure out how to turn that around and pass it on to my son.
• We are very thankful for friends who helped us out with some great hand-me-downs.
• It's probably because he's a boy, but even I can get excited about baby clothes.
• Some days are very difficult, and I wish he could just tell us what he needs.
• Thankfully, we are not on our own.  I pray almost daily for God's guidance for both us and him.
• No matter how much he cries or fusses, that smile will always melt my heart…

I'm sure they'll be plenty more to follow…

The reason?  Well, I simply lost my inspiration for the site.  It had been over a year since I had done any church website work, and it was becoming harder to write from the perspective of the church webmaster.  Week-to-week, I just wasn't sure what to write about any more, and just didn't feel called to keep writing.  So I started to let the blog fade into the background…

That is until a few weeks ago when I got inspired again.  However, the song of inspiration was different this time…

So now, If Jesus Had A Website is relaunching as a Christian life blog, aiming to write about the lives we live and how they are and should be influenced by our faith. 

Yes, I realize that that is a rather broad topic, but my thoughts range all across the spectrum anyway, so that's probably a good thing for you and I both.  I've also toyed with the idea of bringing in some guest writers as well to help represent a variety of perspectives to the blog and provide more food for thought to us all.

So, welcome to the new If Jesus Had A Website, and I hope you enjoy the new material and perspectives we have coming…

[P.S. - All the old posts are still around, if you're looking for them.  They've been relegated to the archives, but can still be found by searching!]

Thanks for your prayers, and if you know of a need for .NET or C# developers in the Pittsburgh area, let me know and I can pass it along to my dad.

Again, I'll be taking the same approach as the previous entries in the series, and I would encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Appearance

• What's done well?
  • Banner Image – I like how the church name and the wheat field image tie together.  It leaves an impression on the visitor.
  • Cleanliness – The presentation of VHC's website is almost a minimalist approach.  Not that it's bland, because it really is a very aesthetically pleasing site, and it really works well.  You're just not inundated with information, but everything you need is readily accessible.  It's just a nice balance of form and function.
• What needs work?
  • Banner Image – Yes, this feature falls in both the plus and minus.  For one, the text is a part of the image (making it unreadable by screen readers and search engines).  Secondly, the image is HUGE, taking up almost the entire screen on a monitor in 800×600 resolution (which, I know, is not the current design standard, but I do want to emphasize just how big it is).
  • Just A Little Plug For Yahoo! – I see this a lot, but I find it simply inexcusable for an organization to use e-mail addresses that don't match their domain name.  I know those are harsh words, but it just appears unprofessional.  It would be like getting a letter from your insurance company with the claims agents personal return address label one it (ya know, the ones with the puppy pictures).  Even if your web host doesn't provide any e-mail accounts with their service, there are free services like Gmail for Your Domain that allow you to set up e-mail addresses under your existing domain name with relative ease.
• Suggestions
  • First, see if there is a way to reduce the size of your banner image without losing the impact of it.
  • Second, use standard HTML text to overlay the banner image so that it is available to screen readers and search engines. 
  • Third, set up e-mails that work under your domain name.

Organization

• What's done well?
• Plain & Simple – It's not fancy.  It's not complicated.  It just works.  It's the KISS principle embodied.
• What needs work?
• Coming Soon? – Can't say that I'm a fan of the Coming Soon! pages.  If a page is not completed, then it should not be linked to on your site.  Feel free to comment it out in your code if you want to keep the link handy, but keep it out of public view.
• I Didn't Even Know I Was Leaving – As you probably remember, I'm not a fan of links that look like internal links that take you to another website.  This time around it's the link for “Victory Academy” that got me.  These links should not be a part of your main links, but maybe broken out into a “Partner Organizations” category that would indicate you are leaving the current site.
• Suggestions
  • Remove the links to unfinished pages until they're ready to “go live”.
  • Like I mentioned above, try to make it clear when a link on your site leads to another site, even if it is affiliated with your church.

Utility

• What's done well?
• Here's What's Going On – How I love seeing service and event information on the main page of a church website.  It might be the primary information that one is looking for when they visit a church website, and it helps to have it readily available.  Nice work!
• Making Use of Tools – The use of the Google Calendar and it's clean integration into the site is very nice.
• What needs work?
• All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go – While the use of the Google Calendar is nice, how come it appears empty?  I had to skip ahead to late May just to find something.  It's probably a good idea to also add your reoccurring events (service times, bible studies, adult education classes, etc.) to the calendar as well.  Otherwise it gives the impresion that not much is going on at the church.
• Where Am I? – I did finally find the location of the church buried in the introduction paragraph and on the Contact Us page, but I question why isn't the entire church address on the site's main page.  It's addition could definitely help when it comes to search engine performance, especially if someone searches for “church in baton rouge”.
• Suggestions
  • Add your reoccurring events to your Google Calendar to make it clear that there's stuff going on at your church.
  • Add your address to at least your main page.  It could easily be added to all pages in the footer section.

While Victory Harvest Church's website doesn't pack a lot of the “WOW!” factor, it is a well-designed, appealing and functional site.  There are a few features which I'd clean up, but overall it's a respectable presence on the web that does a nice job of presenting the church.  It appears that there's more to come, and I hope that those features can be integrated without losing the current balance of the site.