Evangelism and Websites

In the new year I will be having a website designed for a new church plant. I've said to the designer that I want the main page to be targeted to non-Christians. That's why this case study interested me:

Some Christians might look at Christian Women Today, notice the comfortable familiar Christian words on front and inner pages: 'prayer', 'repentance', 'saved', etc., and say, "Ah, this is an evangelistic site. This must preach the Gospel."

But no! Christian Women Today is designed for Christians. All those Christian words are 'insider' terms which exclude rather than enlighten. No doubt some non-Christians visit, as they do any site. In fact, Women Today Magazine is the site that has been carefully written for non-Christians. Because both sites have been produced by the same team, and have many similarities, we have a unique opportunity to understand why it is so important to target each audience in a different way.

Actually I'm not sure I see that big of a difference in the two sites - at least on first glance. The editors say that one of the main differences is the words they use (avoiding Christian terminology). I've never bought totally into the argument about Christian words being a language barrier. I think the main thing is simply being sensitive to your audience, and then to provide opportunity to interact. We hope to do the latter by using our website in the context of relationships: We will ask our friends to "check it out" and then follow up with, "What did you think?"