New Communicator Area Churches, Others Across Country See Future In Reaching People Via Cyber Superhighway

It’s a sign of today’s technologically advanced times that people searching for a church don’t even have to leave their homes. More and more churches are making the move to the Web, creating and maintaining sites as a way to connect with the community.

“It’s clearly to reach out,” says the Rev. Ron Johnson of Indian Trail Community Church. The 6-year-old church has about 400 members with an average age of 35, says Johnson. He saw a Web site as a good way to reach the people in his neighborhood who are typically young and computer owners.

It’s a way for people to find out about the church and see what it stands for, says Johnson, and hopefully make them more comfortable with checking it out in person.

“It’s a nonthreatening kind of thing,” says Sam Hunter, church administrator of the Coeur d’Alene Church of the Nazarene.

Any search engine on the Web can produce a list of area church Web sites. Along with basic worship times and staff information, some sites include a mission statement or statement of faith, information on various groups and projects, or essays written by the pastor.

Much information on the site belonging to St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in the Valley is information already available to church members. “It was more to reach out to people who would not have access to the information,” says the Rev. Steve Dublinski.

The Rev. Woody Garvin of First Presbyterian Church agrees. “We’re more interested in communicating with those that we’re not yet reaching.”

Garvin’s church is looking toward the future and acknowledges that the Web is increasingly how people communicate. “It’s a more immediate way for people to see what we are offering at First Pres.”

The site includes information on nearly all aspects of the church and its programs, but Garvin anticipates it must eventually evolve and expand.

“I think it will be a success, but I think we’re just starting to access that means of communication,” he says.

The idea of putting information on the Web has also been incorporated into other parts of the religious community. Sister Patricia Proctor built and maintains a site for the Poor Clare Sisters of Spokane. The colorful and friendly site was recently chosen as the “Hot Site of the Day” by USA Today.

“It was kind of neat,” Proctor says of the recognition.

People can link to other convents around the world, send e-mail cards, submit prayer requests, take a look at the sisters’ daily schedule and go on a virtual tour of the convent.

Besides educating people about its work, Poor Clare hopes to find young women interested in joining the order.

While the site is packed full of information about the Spokane organization, Proctor recognizes it has a world-wide audience. “I tried to make it a more universal site than just us here in Spokane.”

It seems to be working. The order receives prayer requests from around the globe, and Proctor told of hearing from a priest in Japan who has been a Poor Clare chaplain for 43 years there.

Johnson has been contacted from people planning to move to Spokane who found his Indian Trail church on the Web. Once he received an e-mail from a distraught woman in Norway whose husband had left her for another woman. Johnson responded and the two exchanged several messages.

The Web definitely seems to be the way of the future. Just two years ago, only about 10 households in the Coeur d’Alene Church of the Nazarene congregation had Internet access, says Hunter. “Today we’re looking at 50 percent of households with Internet access, and it’s growing every day,” he says.

“Our Web page is doing a job out there for us that no other means of communication does,” he says. “It’s the way people communicate today.”

AT A GLANCE Church Web sites Indian Trail Community Church: www.itcc.net/index.html St. Mary’s Catholic Church: www.pagehouseinc.com/stmarys First Presbyterian Church: www.rwf2000.com/firstpres.html Poor Clare Sisters of Spokane: www.poorclare.org Coeur d’Alene Church of the Nazarene: www.dmi.net/cdanaz