SouthSideLife.com
is the website of Church on the SouthSide, located in Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
"Want to know what's playing at the movies this weekend? Now move your cursor to the right and find out who Jesus is."
For Cam Hall, webmaster of SouthSideLife.com, it's not about showcasing the many wonders of their church (even though it's a great one); Hall wants to offer every visitor to SouthSideLife.com an opportunity to meet Jesus online.
It's a matter of meeting the felt needs, while addressing the real needs. "We wanted to come up with a website that would draw people and get them to want to read more," he explains.
At first, the idea of having a website for their church seemed impossible. "But I realized the Internet would be an effective way to reach out to tell people not only about our church, but also who Jesus Christ is," says Hall.
Church on the SouthSide, however, found a partner in TruthMedia, the Internet ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, Canada, and suddenly the impossible dream became very real. In September 2002 SouthSideLife.com was launched.
"TruthMedia has made it really easy for someone who doesn't have the expertise to put up a website," says Hall.
According to Dennis Fierbach, director of Internet Ministries at Campus Crusade for Christ, Canada, a site like SouthsideLife.com does a good job of doing ministry. "It allows the congregation to not only have an impact in the community, but through the Internet, a church can have a global ministry," says Fierbach.
For Hall, the global impact of their ministry came as a surprise, however. "It's amazing. It does reach around the world," says Hall. "I've really underestimated it."
Although the majority of traffic comes from the United States and Canada, SouthSideLife.com also gets regular visits from the UK, Australia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
"Last week we got a message from a lady in Nigeria who recommitted her life to Christ," says the youth pastor turned webmaster. In the same week, someone wrote in from Tanzania asking for help.
Not too shabby for a church on the other side of the world!
Statistics
Since SouthSideLife.com launched in September 2002, numbers have been increasing steadily. A significant statistic for this site is that each unique visitor, between launch and now, has spent an average of 10 minutes on the site, looking at an average of 13 pages. As for traffic, in January, there were 3,600 visits from 1,500 people and the 13 testimonies on the site were read 421 times.
Every member a minister
By telling their life stories, church members can have an impact online.
One of the elderly members of SouthSideLife.com recently wrote up her testimony. Her sister who lives in Switzerland went onto the website to read it, and then had the testimony translated into German. Now she's handing out copies of her sister's testimony to all her friends in Switzerland.
What it takes
To date, there are nine people working on the site - two church staff and seven church member volunteers. These volunteers include writers, photographers, researchers, administrators, designers and regular folk with a passion for ministry with a difference.
"It's not easy, but it's worthwhile. And it's a great medium," says Cam Hall, youth pastor and webmaster of SouthSideLife.com.
Youth impact
Currently the youth section is the most popular destination for visitors to SouthSideLife.com. It features the latest pictures from previous youth meetings and makes it easy for students to tell their friends: "Hey, there's a goofy picture of me on our website. Go check it out." The picture then leads to a testimony and an opportunity to respond to the love of Jesus Christ right there and then.
"It's been a great avenue for a lot of our youth," says Cam Hall. "They get on our message board and the chat room. It's given them a better sense of community."
Proof of the Pudding
"Our experience has proven to me that the Internet is an effective tool. It's a legitimate way to reach people," says Cam Hall. "Through the results we've seen, we're 100 percent confident that investing time and money in this route has been worthwhile."
Developments for the future
Based on this SouthSideLife.com prototype, CCC's
TruthMedia team are
working on a web-based, database-driven templated system that will enable any church (and any church staff member with
basic web surfing skills) in the world to have their own evangelistic church website, using the best of Campus Crusade's
online web evangelism and discipleship content, community and interactive tools.
