You Are What Your Website Says You Are

All the core values, mission statements, letters from the director, and pre-packaged messaged a missions agency can create don't hold a candle to the message communicated through their website. Here's why. In order to communicate well with all the different audiences a missions agency interacts with – churches, donors, applicants, home office staff, retirees, and missionaries – most agencies use their website. Websites provide a central repository for information that most audiences can find easily, so they are the logical choice.

Websites also force transparency. This means they have to reflect what's really going on, right now. Reading a mission statement will tell you what the agency is heading toward, or what things inform their decisions. Their website tells you where they are at today.

A missions agency I had contact with in the past is a good example. Their missions statement and core values are inspiring, encouraging, and biblical. They are focused on church planting, and value the church. However, if you check to see what opportunities they have available for people who want to get involved in missions, there are 163 opportunities for people who want to be involved in church planting and 227 for people who want to be involved in MK education.

So in spite of their values, this agency has a present-day focus on MK education.

In a seminar I attended this past week, I heard a lecture about being a change agent within your church or ministry. At the seminar, the speaker emphasized that to learn about what a person values, look at their lifestyle, not the things they say they value. This holds true for missions agencies as well.

From having done some web development, I can assure you that the fastest way to understand a company is to ask them what they want to have on their web page. The information they want to present, how they want to present it, and what things they choose to leave off indicates a great deal about the present state of the company or organization. It is interesting to be a part of this process as someone outside of the company. You get to read their missions statement, and then construct a site that sometimes paints a very different picture of the organization.

What you are actually doing is the indicator of what you believe, not what your core values say you believe, though they may be things you are pursuing.