http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2005/03/its-time-to-catch-up-ipod-church-finder/ Frustrate. Educate. Motivate. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:01:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2005/03/its-time-to-catch-up-ipod-church-finder/comment-page-1/#comment-684 Eliot Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:09:20 +0000 http://cms.bigbadcollab.com/?p=173#comment-684 Last year when I moved to Plano, Texas, I had the hardest time looking for churches in my area. All of the sites that I found were old, outdated, or useless information. I'm surprised there isn't a Yahoo!-like directory of churches. (And the church websites <a href="http://eliot.landrum.cx/archives/2004/09/15/plano-churches-please-be-healed/" rel="nofollow">weren't much better</a>.) I searched for "church directory" and found http://www.churchangel.com, but goodness, that site looks like it is from the 90s. The best they can provide is address and phone number (ooh.. and look at the hideous scrolling "church link" graphic for churches with websites!). My <a href="http://www.providencecommunity.com/" rel="nofollow">2-year old church</a> isn't on the list. <a href="http://www.worshipquest.org" rel="nofollow">Worship Quest</a> is slightly better (geographically aware, targetted Church advertising on the right side!). But still, the info isn't all that helpful. Knowing the name of a church doesn't tell me too much. (This is nice, while searching by zip code, I "crashed" the website and found a wonderful ColdFusion error screen that only developers should ever see.) An overly designed database driven site isn't necessary. At the very least, all that is neaded is some software like what runs <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia</a> where the burden of editing and maintaining the site is relieved from the owners. Visitors can collaboratively contribute information and provide content. Hmmmm.... Last year when I moved to Plano, Texas, I had the hardest time looking for churches in my area. All of the sites that I found were old, outdated, or useless information. I’m surprised there isn’t a Yahoo!-like directory of churches. (And the church websites weren’t much better.)
I searched for “church directory” and found http://www.churchangel.com, but goodness, that site looks like it is from the 90s. The best they can provide is address and phone number (ooh.. and look at the hideous scrolling “church link” graphic for churches with websites!). My 2-year old church isn’t on the list.
Worship Quest is slightly better (geographically aware, targetted Church advertising on the right side!). But still, the info isn’t all that helpful. Knowing the name of a church doesn’t tell me too much. (This is nice, while searching by zip code, I “crashed” the website and found a wonderful ColdFusion error screen that only developers should ever see.)
An overly designed database driven site isn’t necessary. At the very least, all that is neaded is some software like what runs Wikipedia where the burden of editing and maintaining the site is relieved from the owners. Visitors can collaboratively contribute information and provide content. Hmmmm….

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