Good News Ministries, the Catholic lay evangelization ministry that founded the Good News Web Designers Association, is based on the principle that "evangelization" is much more than inviting people to become Christian. Evangelization means bringing people deeper into their faith relationship with God and into service in their church. Good News Ministries evangelizes the evangelizers by helping people become more excited about their faith so that they spread their faith.

This meaning of evangelization can be -- and should be -- integrated into all Christian websites.

Let's use the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore as an example and as an idea-generator for your own website: cathedralofmary.org. Besides the standard church info (Mass schedules, an events calendar, list of staff, etc.), the site includes pages and sections that were specifically designed to evangelize, such as:

1. A section on how to discern and get involved in ministry ("The Master Needs You").

2. An invitation to read the scriptures, especially in preparation for Mass.

3. Prayers, such as the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross, with meditations especially written to encourage spiritual growth.

4. Screensavers and wallpaper that evangelize every time the person is at their computer.

5. An invitation to join the church, which answers questions that the visitor might be already wondering about.

6. The story of the parish's patron saint, especially written to inspire people to learn from their example.

7. And everyone's favorite, which gets the most feedback describing how it truly evangelized the visitor, a "Virtual Tour" of the church that is woven with scriptures, invitations to get involved in the parish, inspirations to grow in holiness and go to Confession, to pray, to turn their hearts over to Jesus more fully, and so on.

EXTRA TIPS

Websites for Christian ministries and churches should not be primarily self-promotional nor glorified bulletins. The mission of the Church is to evangelize, and every Christian website should be built with that priority in mind.

The extent to which your website glorifies God indicates to the visitors the extent to which you (or your church) glorify God.

When all is said and done, when your life is over, will your webwork be something you can take to heaven with you? It will, if you have changed lives with it, if you have brought people closer to God through it, if you have touched eternity in it.

Read what Pope John Paul II said about it!