The Lutheran Church in the Digital Age: SEO, Outreach, and Mission
When you read the Lutheran fathers and the writings from Lutheran Treasures of Old Missouri, you get the impression that the distinctions we make are less emphasized. That is not to say, they don’t make these distinctions, but they aren’t made as emphatically or as decisively. Take, for example, the recent reevaluation of the distinction between preaching and teaching. As I recall being taught or at least thinking post seminary training, that there was a hard-line distinction between preaching (which was for the proclamation of the ‘for you’ nature of the forgiveness of sins) and teaching (which was for the purpose of imparting information about theology Bible, theology, and life). And where even the Lutheran fathers would emphasize the importance of the former in the sermon, it was in no way to the exclusion of the latter. Now, perhaps, I made the mistake of drawing the conclusion of a hard-line distinction, but nevertheless, I wasn’t corrected but by reading the Lutheran fathers.
I think something similar has happened in our emphasis on what I will call domestic ministry (a pastor serving a particular pulpit and altar as a chaplain) and domestic and foreign missions (a pastor or a number of pastors seeking to evangelize a people, plant a church, and cultivate it so that it is ready to support the domestic ministry of a chaplain). In other words, those involved in domestic ministry see themselves not only primarily but almost exclusively as chaplains to the members of a particular pulpit and altar, and not also as a missionary to the people in the community, seeking to find the elect of all nations to cultivate into members of a particular pulpit and altar.
Reading through John Fritz’s book The Practical Missionary (here’s an podcast on the book) disabuses us of that illusion and hardline distinction between being a chaplain and a missionary. Fritz writes:
Every Christian is a missionary; the Christian preacher and pastor is, by virtue of his office, pre-eminently such.
The young preacher and pastor, however, just having been graduated from the theological seminary, has yet one thing to learn if he is to be a successful worker in the Lord's vine-yard: Practical Mission Work. The average seminary graduate has had no practical missionary experience, and he often fails to see and to use the very opportunities which present themselves unto him to learn by practical experience what he later so much needs.
The graduate from the high school and from the commercial college may be brimful of theories, but, in spite of it, he may not make good in the business world; most young men, in fact, never get beyond the common routine of business life. Even so, the graduate from the theological seminary may have a good knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew; may have ranked high in Exegesis, Isagogics and Hermeneutics; and may be able to recite all the rules of Homiletics and of Pastoral Theology; but, in spite of it all, he may be a miserably poor missionary. The reason is not that all the knowledge which he has acquired makes him such and that he would be better off without it, but the reason is that he has not learned to put to practical use what he knows. Only the practical man is the successful man in life, in the church as well as in the business world. The mere theorist does not get very far; he is a failure.” (Fritz, The Practical Missionary,” 3).
This really is a great resource to help one begin to see the opportunities right in front of our faces. Our rich theology is not an excuse for inaction or inactivity, but the real reason, purpose, and zeal to take action. If we don’t look for these opportunities, we can easily become despairing in our outlook, especially as those who serve as chaplains and missionaries in small-town middle America.
But when you begin to enact some of the suggestions in this little book in our day, as opposed to Fritz’s own day, you begin to see that while many things are still the same, some things have changed.
One thing that is different is that Fritz writes as if the Lutheran churches in a locale are newly formed and unknown because of that. My own church is over 125 years old. It is known but unknown. Whereas once we were an easily identifiable spot on the edge of town, we are now really in town and have blended into the landscape, just another piece of furniture. “How then,” as Paul asks in Romans, “shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? . . . So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Roman 10:14–15, 17).
Fritz has all kinds of suggestions, which I commend to you also: signage, canvassing, writing newspaper articles, etc. In our day, there is another way, not in replacement for these other things, but in addition to these other things: the church website and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO is the practice of improving a website's visibility and ranking in search engine results pages like Google, aiming to attract more organic (non-paid) traffic. SEO is how you get visibility in searches for churches in your town or locale. According to Rev. Christopher Jackson of ChurchSEO.io, this is why this is important:
2.2 million searches nationwide are done every month for "churches near me."
50 percent of clicks for local searches are in the map results at the top of the page.
All but a tiny fraction of the remaining clicks go to the top three link results.
Jackson reports, for example: “2,900 searches/month are done for ‘churches in St. Louis.’ 2,400 searches/month are done for ‘Fort Wayne churches.’ Neither Fort Wayne nor St. Louis have LCMS churches on the first page of Google.” He also states that, “80 percent of first time visitors will check out a church's website before visiting. Of the biggest metro areas in the United States, an LCMS church doesn’t show up until you get to Omaha, NE (King of Kings), the 55th largest metro area.”
Perhaps, we could expand upon St. Paul’s questions slightly: “How can they find you if you don’t even show up in where they are searching?”
I’m not suggesting this is some kind of silver bullet and panacea for evagelism. This will not instantly solve unawareness of our churches, nor will it be the only source for changing that. But it will be one step to help those who are seeking to find that we even exist. It’s not as difficult to do as you might suppose. ChurchSEO.io and Rev. Christopher Jackson have a wealth of knowledge and resources to help you. If you want to get started, visit his website and reach out to see what you can do for your congregation.
I enlisted Rev. Jackson to help with my church. He is very easy to work with, responsive to questions, and delivers in a timely manner what he says he will deliver. He has helped my congregation to move from barely being on the first page of a Google search, to being one of the top hits. And I pray that this will translate into people who are searching for the pure gospel to finding it among us, even as we continue to reach out with that gospel to find the elect of all nations who haven’t begun the search.