It's Time To Catch Up: iPod Church Finder | Church Marketing Sucks Church Marketing Sucks

It’s Time To Catch Up: iPod Church Finder

March 8, 2005 by Andy Havens

In a well written, pithy press release, the “Irish Pubs Directory” people announced that you can now download the iPod version of their list and ratings:

“You won’t always have access to the web when you’re travelling, especially at the exact moment you’re looking for a pub. That’s why we are making it possible for you to take the directory with you.Now you can have the directory of pubs along with descriptions and ratings always to hand. Never waste time looking for that perfect Irish pub again! You can choose from two versions…our popular PDA Directory and our new iPod Guide. Both versions contain the pubs, descriptions, ratings and more. All at hand when you need them.”

I’ve got nothing against Irish pubs. But why is it I can now find an Irish pub (with reviews!), a Buffalo Wild Wings (with menu!), a Kinkos/FedEx (with service listings!)in 10 seconds, but I can’t find a complete listing of Methodist churches in Columbus, Ohio that tells me which has traditional vs. contemporary services? Or if any has childcare? Or a choir? Or nursery school? Or Bible study? Or… Or… Or…

Wake up and smell the electrons. I don’t care what your denomination is. When the “Irish Pubs Directory” is better organized and has better Internet and electronic, portable, personalized marketing than any and all of the major Christian denominations, there’s some serious catching up to do.

Eliot
March 8, 2005

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 All of the sites that I found were old, outdated, or useless information.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….

| Permalink