Media Outreach

A big fear that people have when dealing with the World Wide Web is the fear of losing their privacy. They are worried about identity theft, receiving junk mail/email or even not feeling safe in their own homes because of what people can find out on the internet.

The people in your congregation are not any different. They may be anxious about information being displayed about them on your website. Take the steps now to ensure that you are not making the job of online predators easier.

Password Protected Pages are great for outreach and sharing information about your church with people in the community but help secure your members/visitors information for the eyes of the ones to whom you provide a password.

Some of the things you might include on a Password Protected Page are:

• a list of Deacons/Elders contact information
• Prayer Request list
• Church Directory
• Worship Team Assignments
• Committee Directories
• Calendars for members only
• Internal Blogs

I have seen many churches take advantage of Password Protected pages for their sites and definitely recommend it. There is just some information that everyone in your community doesn’t need to know about, but it would be easier to keep a web page updated than to email every person, every time you update it. This also does something pretty obvious but very important, that sometimes people forget to think about when entering content on the site- it protects the privacy of the members/visitors of your church.

Here is an example of a new site that went live and is taking advantage of a Password Protected Page: Calvary Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland – click on Leadership only and that is as far as you get, as these pages are secure. Calvary Baptist did a great job at thinking about their congregation’s privacy ahead of time- did you?