Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome: our new website – www.ibcz.ch. Fresh design, user-friendly interface, updated information and many pictures. The website can be viewed on any device including smartphone and tablet.
Why change it, you may wonder? After all, the old website served its purpose just as well. To explain I would like to take a little detour from IT and tell you what it is that we do in our family when we expect guests. One thing for sure: it gets pretty busy. Menu has to be planned, shopping has to be done, apartment cleaned, clothes ironed, table set – you get the gist. It’s not about impressing, but showing hospitality – we want our guests to feel comfortable and welcome, we want to show them God’s love. As a church, we do the very same thing – we keep our rooms clean, coffee hot and calendar organised, so that those who come to IBCZ feel welcome and loved. We are the body of Christ, so the standard is pretty high (1 Corinthians 12:27).
Our “home” in the digital world is our website. We want those who visit us online feel welcome, so that they come and visit us in person.
Furthermore, we need to make sure that people who look for a church will find all that they need on our website. We want it to be functional, informative, pleasant to look at, easy to navigate and it has to represent our values. Take a restaurant, for example: if I need to find one, chances are I will look for it online. Most of the time, if their website doesn’t look nice, I would assume the restaurant itself is not that nice either. If I can’t find their opening hours, I might look for another one, just to make sure I won’t be standing next to closed doors. If I can’t check out the menu, I better look for another restaurant, where they do serve my most favourite fish. And if I can’t figure out their price range, I would much rather go somewhere where I know I can afford the dinner.
It’s not about the numbers and user statistics, it’s about people from all over the world finding our church, joining us in worshiping and experiencing our living God. I believe, a good website can contribute to this.
Many people from our church worked on our new website. I would like to use this opportunity and thank everyone who took part and helped me.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
- Bible, 1 Corinthians 10:31
I asked many people in IBCZ how they had found our church and most answered: “through the website”. Natalia and I are one of those. It is my prayer that the new website will not only help people to find our church, but to find Him.