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Questioning the Doctrine of Hell and the Fairness of God | Part 1

Matthew Schoenherr
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Questioning the Doctrine of Hell and the Fairness of God | Part 1

In his November 2016 video, “Is HELL REAL or an Invention of the Church?” former Christian pastor and missionary, Joshua Tongol, sounds off on his problems with the doctrine of hell and eternal damnation. He opens with the example of a loved one who doesn’t believe Christianity but still has a loving heart. They die suddenly. “Where are they now?” he asks. Fundamentalists would say, “Hell. Forever. Eternal conscious torment.”

Of course, most Christians trying to be soft in their response would say, “Well, that’s for God to judge.” Theologically speaking, however, most Christian fundamentalists still silently feel—without the salvation prayer (an invention within the past 100 years)—the unregenerate “unsaved” will be going to hell. Even if one says the prayer, without true repentance and a heart-felt desire to pursue Christ, can’t they still be counted as “still-born”?

Tongol poses some tough questions. I was completely unequipped to answer the same questions in my late teens when a Jehovah’s Witness friend fired them at me. My inability to answer these questions in the face of my staunch Catholic upbringing marks my own launch into personal apostasy. That fall would last over two decades before I returned to the faith. The questions:

  • What kind of loving parent would send their children to eternal damnation? For not believing? For having little context for believing?
  • How to reconcile God’s unconditional love and everlasting mercy with eternal damnation? Preachers push this concept often when they posit “God loves you so much, but if you don’t love Him back, you’re going to burn.”
  • If God is omnipresent, how can the common explanation that hell is “existence without God’s presence” hold any water?

My Children Are Destroyed By Lack of Knowledge

When you can’t reckon the gap with logic, folks rebut with, “What does the Bible say?” Well, which Bible? Certain bibles don’t mention the word “hell” at all. Furthermore, the images of hell don’t seem to coincide. Are we talking about the verses that support an eternal hell, the verses that support the destruction of sinners, or the verses that support a temporary hell? So, which is it?

If God is all-knowing, as the Bible affirms, why create people who are simply destined for eternal hell? As a parent, say you’re able to clearly see the future for your children. You see that your next child will have less than 100 years to live on the planet, and then will burn in eternal conscious torment afterwards. Would you still bring them into existence? Our lowly, natural minds would say certainly not. If we can agree that God is way more just, way more loving and way more merciful than we are, it’s safe to assume we don’t have the whole picture.

Does it seem fair to be eternally punished for believing the wrong thing about God? Maybe you’re born in the wrong place, at the wrong time or into the wrong religion. A common response to the remote aborigine who never hears the Gospel is, “Well, God will take that into account then.” Essentially, they’ll be graded on a curve because of their ignorance. So then are missionaries doing a disservice to proclaim the Gospel to indigenous people, placing them in the path of eternal damnation by risking their rejection of Jesus? Why make them responsible and put them at risk? Wouldn’t ignorance over a span of less than 100 years and a higher likelihood of union with the Father be better than risking them making a bad decision and landing in eternal torment? This same argument has been applied to abortion providers, as if abortion simply jettisons the unborn into the lap of God.

Will we really be infinitely punished for finite sin and understanding? This possibility is hard for our fallen minds to swallow. Yet, if we believe the Bible, we can expect God is fair. Not only is He friend and father, but also judge.

And so, the questions continue to brew.

What’s the Big Idea?

Tongol asks, “Does God’s loving pursuit of humanity end at death?” If love is patient, does one’s physical death mark the end of that patience? What of the many who live short lives?

The common retort is, “God gave us all free will. God doesn’t send His people there; we send ourselves.” And if that is true, and it was our free will that landed us in hell, can we not use our free will to get back out of hell? Does our free will stop at physical death? Isn’t the concept of hell dangerously abstract to those with no experience of it?

If the residents of hell (angelic and human) have–through their own free will–resisted the love of God, can God’s love be resisted forever? Wouldn’t even a loving earthly parent try to snatch their child out of eternal torment? If God is love (as Christians claim) why would God do anything less for His children?

The scenario can be irreverently described like this:

Humanity starts with two people who trip over themselves in the garden of Eden and commit all subsequent generations (billions and billions of people) to sin-driven lives, losing most of the Father’s creation to hell. God, being smart and loving, has a plan. He sends His Son to die on the cross to take our sin from us and model the Way, the Truth and the Life, BUT still only a few people will find salvation. “Narrow is the path, but wide is the road to destruction.” (Matthew 7:13)

So, what would be the point to losing most of your creation to the devil; to free will; to sin?

If eternal hell does exist, shouldn’t Christians be more passionate about witnessing to the world? How can we even sleep with millions of people dying everyday with little or no knowledge of the Gospel? Do we not care? Do we not believe in hell? Are we just lazy?

In the Nazi holocaust of World War II, millions of people were tortured and killed. Fair to say most of those were not evangelical Christians. The unsavory question: Should we believe that most of those people are in hell along with their persecutors because they didn’t believe and convert during their time on earth?

Many fundamentalist Protestants may even say Mother Theresa herself has been swept into to hell. As a Catholic, the Protestants may argue she would have been works-based and not operating under grace. But if we believe our eternal salvation hinges upon accepting Christ or saying a salvation prayer before our physical death, isn’t that works? Both contingencies are actually marketed by churches as steps we have to take in order to become “saved.” Does your chance to accept Christ as Lord and Savior end upon physical death?

Retribution, Restoration or Both?

Tongol goes on to ask, “Is true justice retributive or restorative? Is it all about getting what you deserve or is it about restoring a person?” If unending punishment is the solution, then evil is not overcome by love, not overcome by good. In fact, it would appear evil would have won. An eternal hell keeps the cycle of evil and penance going forever. It keeps the cycle of evil demons doing evil things to evil people going forever. If that is the case, there is nothing redemptive in that. Was Jesus’ example to us an example of retributive or restorative love? (Hint: John 3:17 NKJV, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”)

When our Lord stood down the crowd wanting to stone the woman for fornication, most of us agree He disqualified them from casting the first stone. Maybe fewer of us notice that—in doing so—He qualified Himself at the same time. He did not cast stones but simply told her to go and sin no more. (John 8:11)

Do we not know the will of the Father through the life of the Son?

Here is where the opposing comments arise:

  • “It doesn’t matter how you feel on this topic.”
  • “It doesn’t have to make sense.”
  • “While you may not be willing to send people to hell forever, you’re not God.”

“So even people you love may be burning in hell forever,” Tongol says.

Love heals. Love restores. We know the will of the Father through the restorative life of the Son. Did Jesus not teach we are to forgive our neighbor not seven times but seventy-times-seven? Will not a loving, infinite God do even more for us?

Is It Wrong to Even Ask the Question?

Rejecting the notion he is a Christian Universalist (who says everyone is going to heaven,) Tongol makes the point: Once he lands in the afterlife, he “would rather be guilty of overestimating the love of the Universe rather than underestimating it.”

The “Universe”? An apparent nod to pantheism and the notion that the Creator and the creation are all one. While Tongol’s questions are well-constructed, he—like the rest of us—has room to grow in the understanding of God’s character. The Potter is not the clay.

I believe there was way more accomplished through Christ’s atonement than we can intellectually grasp. I believe Jesus taught on hell and that it certainly exists, but my jury is still out on how many will be lost to the grave and how many will be lost to eternal conscious torment or everlasting destruction. (2 Peter 2:9 says, “The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment…”)

Of course, maybe that’s the problem with the whole question. I’m placing questions about salvation into my own court instead of keeping them in God’s. We’re counseled by God’s response to Job and by verses like:

  • Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? (Romans 9:21 NKJV,)
  • And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! (Jeremiah 18:4-6) and
  • Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, “He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (Isaiah 29:16.)

Is it darkened and audacious to even ask questions then? Yes, we are to seek His face and grow in our understanding of His character, but far be it from us to push an “ought” or “should” onto the Father. It is surely a darkened mind that seeks to pass judgment over the methods and intentions of our infinite Father.

Questions Bought by Eternal Conscious Torment

To summarize some of the questions provoked by the doctrine of eternal conscious torment:

  • Are your deceased loved ones exposed to eternal conscious torment for not saying a salvation prayer?
  • What kind of loving parent would send their children to eternal damnation? For not believing? For having little context for believing (e.g. born at the wrong time, in the wrong place or into the wrong religion?)
  • Will we really be infinitely punished for finite sin and understanding?
  • How can we reconcile God’s unconditional love and everlasting mercy with eternal conscious torment?
  • If God is omnipresent, how can the common explanation that hell is “existence without God’s presence” hold any water?
  • Will our loving God sustain spiritual torture for all eternity? The Bible says all are sustained through God. We cannot exist apart from Him.
  • Are the punished granted eternal life as well as the redeemed? According to the doctrine of conscious eternal punishment, they are.
  • If God is all-knowing, why create people who are destined for eternal hell?
  • Does God stop pursuing us upon physical death? Does your chance to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior end upon physical death?
  • Does judgment and subsequent delivery to heaven or hell occur immediately upon physical death? If so, how do we rectify the resurrection and judgment during the Second Coming? (Matthew 25:31-46)
  • If eternal hell does exist, shouldn’t Christians be way more committed to saving the lost than they are?

The doctrine of eternal conscious torment—a stumbling block that brings emotional distance and confusion to believers and unbelievers alike—seems to be far out of character with the Father of unconditional love and unending mercy. Jesus even went to His death without chastising His accusers. “You will be with Me in Paradise,” He told the believing thief.

In our confusion over this issue, are we as wrongly accusing God as the Jews did Jesus?

If I’ve established anything on the doctrine of hell, it is to continue to seek understanding and intimacy, but to do so with a heart hungry for communion—not with a heart rife with intellectual judgment or emotional confusion surrounding my prospects for the afterlife.

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References

Amirault, Gary. Tentmaker. Bible Translations That Do Not Teach Eternal Torment. Retrieved from http://www.tentmaker.org/books/GatesOfHell.html.

Jones, Erik. Life Hope & Truth. What Is Hell? Retrieved from https://lifehopeandtruth.com/life/life-after-death/what-is-hell/.

Tongol, Joshua. YouTube. Is HELL REAL or an Invention of the Church? – Joshua Tongol (Former Pastor/Missionary). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/54KoNT-19Bk.

A Guide to True Peace (Free PDF)

Matthew Schoenherr
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A Guide to True Peace (Free PDF)

Upon first hearing about “A Guide to True Peace” and its influence upon one pastor A.B. Simpson, I did what I always do when seeking an older publication—I tried to find a free copy online. Though it has long been in the public domain, I was surprised I could only find a single rough scan of the 1815 edition. (There was originally an 1813 edition that underwent some refinements and emerged as the 1815 copy.)

Being that the scanned copy of the 1815 edition was rough, smudged and cut off in places, I felt compelled to send it out for transcription into this cleaner, digitized format. When the transcription came back, it too needed work, and so I was blessed with the opportunity to groom this edition line by line. An intimate process, to be sure!

Through this effort, I have come across several typographical errors and places where modern spelling conventions scream for correction, however I have chosen to leave most of these events untouched. These errors were not a result of the transcription process, but were actually found in the 1815 edition itself. My desire is to leave you with a very true copy of that edition, right down to the page separations and Roman numerals.

Having invested time into studying the work of A.B. Simpson, I recognize him as being a man who understood the character of our Creator better than most. If Simpson points to “A Guide to True Peace” as one of the most influential writings in his spiritual walk, you can be sure it offers priceless insight for you as well.

I hope you enjoy this 2017 resetting of “A Guide to True Peace.”

Download “A Guide to True Peace” PDF

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Matthew Schoenherr

A Little About My Spiritual Journey

Matthew Schoenherr
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A Little About My Spiritual Journey

I was born and raised a Catholic. As a child, I always had a close relationship with the Father, though it would many years before I truly understood the deity of Christ or could claim a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. Growing up, I would pray every night before drifting off to sleep. I was the only kid I knew who would occasionally cross the parking lot to the church to sit with God in St. Patrick’s large, empty cathedral while my friends played during recess.

Still, by the time I reached high school, I had little respect for God’s Word and certainly didn’t understand it. But hey, I was going to church twice a week, so I must be in good standing, right?

Around age 18, I experienced my own personal apostasy when a Jehovah’s Witness friend ask me some tough questions I was ill-equipped to answer. She asked me questions like “Why are there no women priests?”, “Did you know the Catholic church helped to fund the pill?” and “Why would a parent of unconditional love condemn their children to fiery, eternal damnation?”

These questions blew apart my fragile Catholic faith (if you can call it that) and I spiraled into an agnostic haze for a couple decades. Through that time, I maintained a loose relationship with the Father, defining Him as was comfortable for me to live for myself in whatever fallen way I chose. I still prayed occasionally (usually when my choices led me to a humbling low,) but Jesus became “a good teacher” and the Holy Spirit was still some mythical power given to the Apostles about 2,000 years ago.

By my early thirties, I found myself married. My wife and I came from two different sides of the spiritual tracks. I was the disaffected Roman Catholic and she was the liberal New Ager. For me, the last straw from the Catholic Church was when the priest (who always read his sermons anyways) played an audio tape from one of the church officials petitioning for money again. Feed their spirits and they’ll feed your coffers, I thought. It was the good excuse I needed to leave the church. We were barely surviving popping out four children in five years anyways, so taking a couple spiritually-nullifying hours every weekend was a luxury I easily dismissed.

As the children grew older, we taught them to pray over meals and at bedtime. We hoped a connection with an ever-present God would bring them emotional stability when Mom and Dad weren’t around for life’s challenges. Spiritually, we plateaued here for a few years.

One day, my stepfather loaned me a book called “The Harbingers” by Christian rabbi, Jonathan Cahn. In it, I saw the very real hand of God on America. As a result of that book, I resolved to commit a couple hours every two weeks to growing my relationship with God by returning to church. Trinity was the closest church I knew, so I gave them a shot. I wasn’t hopeful. Years prior, a friend had loaned me a tape by pastor Brad Mitchell where he actually promoted the Iraq war. Even in my spiritual ignorance, I found war to be completely uncreative, errant and un-Christ-like. Still, I visited Trinity anyways and pastor Marvin Williams delivered a great message that hit me square in the chest. Next, I began bringing my oldest son. Then my wife surprised me by suggesting the whole family attend. We’ve been going to our non-denominational church ever since.

Even though I was attending church service, I was still full of questions. If Jesus says we can do “all these things and greater,” why wasn’t I seeing it in the Church? What about His lost years in the Bible? (Really? Two decades of His life unrecorded?) And what about that whole doctrine of being sent to eternal damnation by a Father who loves unconditionally and with unending mercy?

I began starving to know Jesus’ path. I decided meditation had to be part of the answer. I looked on YouTube for “guided meditation” and found an eastern guru teaching Kriya yoga meditation. I chased this path for about a year until some well-meaning Christians found me on Facebook and YouTube and offered me new information. Still, I hadn’t completely let go of the eastern meditation arc until God placed a spiritual mentor in my life. This Christian man asked me the right questions and pointed out I was trying climb the wall to God without going through the narrow gate of Jesus Christ. Enter my salvation experience and re-baptism.

From here, the regeneration—which had been going on for years by now—heated up. Professionally, my energies shifted away from chasing the Almighty Dollar and toward studying the Lord, His character, His promises and who He calls us to be. Near the end of 2014, I began dismantling my web practice. After over 20 years in the online marketing industry, we had managed to build a solid client list, however something was still.. missing.

The fact is, marketing work doesn’t feed the soul as much as it feeds the ego. And, as my ego became diminished through the spiritual quickening offered by meditation and prayer, I began to realize the ONLY thing in this life that would fulfill me (or any of us) is a deeper relationship with our Creator.

In fact, I think that’s about the only reason we’re here.

As 2015 began, this revelation was further reinforced as I pushed out over 400 accounts in a few short months. That was when I truly realized all I had been building for the past 20 years was smoke. It was nothing. Temporal.

Professionally, I no longer take on any new clients whose work does not point others to God. I work as a digital marketing manager at the State of Michigan housing authority for the steady income. At the time of this writing, I have returned to school to pursue a degree in religious ministry.

On the spiritual front, I am growing in my identity in Christ, spiritual discernment and authority. I am studying healing and its place in ministry, and am recognizing the huge importance of spending time in that secret space with Him every day.

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Matthew

Spiritual Warfare: A Warning About Children’s Books

Matthew Schoenherr
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Spiritual Warfare: A Warning About Children’s Books

Around quarter past seven one evening, my oldest son Gabriel holed himself up in the bathroom. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, expecting only a simple nature call. After a while past, I went to check on him. As I neared the restroom, I could hear his mother counseling him from inside. As any nosey parent would do, I listened at the door to see if I could overhear the problem. Seemed he was distressed by a Tolkien-esque series of books he had been reading all weekend.

Eventually, my wife and son emerged from the bathroom. My wife told me my son was going to bed and that I needed to go talk with him. She said she had asked him if he wanted Dad to come in and talk with him, but he had said, “No. Dad will just want to pray and I don’t want to pray.”

Hmm..

I went to his bedroom. The light was off and he was already in bed. I flicked on the light and told him to sit up as I took a seat in his reading chair.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Mom asked me to talk to you.”

“I don’t know, ” he moaned, burying his face into this sheets.

“Nope, that won’t do,” I said. “We’re here and we’re going to have a grown-up conversation.” (Frankly, I might have said “big-kid conversation.”)

Gabriel started rocking a little and he said, “I don’t know, okay!? I am just hearing a voice in my head that says I need to either run away or kill myself!”

“What?”

“Yes! It says I need to run away or kill myself!”

With gravity setting in, I said, “Okay buddy. Now listen. There are three voices we hear in our heads: the Holy Spirit, our flesh, and the Enemy. They all sound like us; they have our voice. I can tell you your flesh doesn’t want you to die and the Holy Spirit doesn’t want you to die. That leaves the Enemy. You need to grow up in this, so I want you to do the praying.”

He nodded, took a breath and tried to begin. Nothing came out. No words. He tried a couple times and each time he would gag as he pressed into the attempt, placing his hand on his throat. Finally, in despair, he cried, “I can’t! I can’t do it!”

Faced with a deepening understanding about the forces at work, I said, “Okay, let me. In the name of Jesus Christ, any demonic activity, listening or watching is to cease immediately. You are to go straight to the feet of Jesus Christ without communicating with anything on the way, never to return here again. Go NOW. You are under contact.”

I gave him a couple moments to simply rock back and forth. Then I asked him, “How do you feel?”

“A little better,” he said.

“Okay. Now pray.”

The floodgates burst open at this point. Gabriel let out peals of anguish and a simple prayer he repeated over and over, “God, help me!” True biblical travailing. I had never seen my son pray with such an earnest heart. He was truly wrecked and pleading for God to rescue him.

I stood up and placed my hand on his back. I prayed, “Holy Spirit, I thank you for setting Gabriel free from whatever was on him tonight. I know you love him and you call him a son. I thank you for raising him up as a young man in God and I love what you’re doing in his heart….” As I continued to pray, I began feeling an ever-so-subtle energy moving from my hand to the back of his shoulders.

I closed my prayer and sat down again. I asked him how he was feeling.

“Better,” he nodded. “A lot better.”

Right about that time, his mother came in. Cracking a joke to break the tension of the moment, she climbed onto the bed behind him and gave him a hug. She suggested he go to sleep now and he agreed, so she kissed him good-night and left the room. As I hovered over him, I looked into his face and said, “You feel better now, don’t you?”

He smiled, still crying, and said yes. “Is it okay that I’m still crying? It feels weird, but I’m really happy.”

I chuckled at him and said, “That’s the love of God you’re feeling right now. The Holy Spirit touched you. It’s very alright. Keep talking to him. Good night, pal. I love you.”

—

Turns out my wife had been listening at the door for only the last few moments, so I told her all that had happened. She was a little surprised. She agreed with my decree that book series was to no longer come into the house and asked that I sleep on his floor that evening. I told her I was confident there was nothing coming back to him that night, but I agreed anyways, thinking it might do his heart good to see me there when he awoke.

—

That next morning, my wife came into Gabriel’s bedroom to rouse me while he was off eating breakfast. Turns out, he had immediately sought out the books he so quickly cast aside in his despair the night before. When my wife asked him why he thought that was a good idea, he explained, “Oh, well it turns out it wasn’t my voice; it was the Enemy’s!”

Okay. Send him in. We need to talk, obviously.

I hadn’t told him anything about doorways or treacherous media. When he came back in, I explained how certain books, video games, shows, music.. you name it.. can open doors into us if we allow them. “You had a spiritual experience, last night, buddy.” I told him how his flesh was going to try to pull him right back into those old patterns and how it was at odds with a spirit that desires God’s love and light. “Does the message speak life or does it speak death? There is no neutral ground,” I said. I affirmed I might be able to work with the Holy Spirit to get him free of something once but that I couldn’t necessarily keep him free; that was on him. I let him know that now that he had been freed of his spiritual attack, he needed to fill back up with Jesus otherwise he was risking opening himself up to worse oppression. (Matthew 12:43-45)

Gabriel didn’t really like this story, but he understood and accepted it with a pouty face and slumped shoulders.

—

Did Gabriel grow from his experience? Absolutely. A couple days later he handed me Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer,” saying he was uncomfortable with the book because one of the characters received a dead rat for a gift. It was one of several classics his mother brought home from the library in an effort to feed our voracious reader healthier material he would still find interesting. I accepted the book from him, giving him kudos for using his discernment. The following day, Gabriel told me about a book he didn’t pick up at the school library because he recognized it as “spiritually unhealthy” (my words, not his.) He’s getting it.

I feel blessed to have received teaching on the authority of the believer by my church and my studies. Without it, I would have likely tried to reason my son out of his spiritual oppression through natural attempts like logic, mental manipulation, etc.

Glory be to God!

Matthew

UPDATE

Turns out the book series my son was reading was “The Last Dragon Chronicles” by Chris d’Lacey. Apparently, the series grows rife with demonic possession, reincarnation, sorcery and magic. Interesting to note the first book starts off quietly with squirrels and clay statues of dragons. By the time a reader reaches the third book in the 7-book series, per Wikipedia:

“In Fire Star, Gwilanna, the evil sibyl that first starred in Icefire, returns. She plans to reincarnate the last dragon, Gawain, and use him to open a portal to the dragon dimension Ki:mera. If she succeeds, the concentrated fire of all those dragons will be released onto an unstable Arctic, already threatened by global warming and in no need of any more heat to push it over the brink. The wishing dragon G’reth is whisked to another dimension by mysterious forces and brought back with an entity that calls itself the Fain. Meanwhile, David and Zanna are on the trip they won to the Arctic, and David is writing another book, an epic book about dragons, polar bears and a mysterious fire star. But when the book, like the one he wrote before, starts to mirror real life, and when Zanna is kidnapped and presumably killed by polar bears, the expedition is cut short. Back at home, he arrives to find Lucy has been kidnapped by Gwilanna for a ritual to raise the last dragon Gawain. Zanna is proved to be alive and learning the ways of the Inuit in a small village. Then, Gwillana’s plans are revealed by a twist of fate that reunites Liz with her former husband Arthur, who is using a powerful relic of Gawain to affect the flow of time. In the dramatic climax, David, Zanna, Arthur, the Pennykettles and the clay dragons have to side with a polar bear army to stop Gwilanna, as well as a darker evil from the past of Ki:mera and Earth. There is however, a final twist, David is stabbed by one of the Ix controlled humans on the expedition with a shard of ice and supposedly ‘dies.’ (At the end, David reveals that he was not dead, but combined with the dragon, Gawain.)”

So, if you’re seeking a Christian book review on “The Last Dragon Chronicles” by Chris d’Lacey, I can safely recommend against it. Not a good idea for your children to be opening themselves to this kind of spiritual pollution. My son explained the Ix are essentially demons. Avoid this one.

P.S.- Cover art for “Dark Fire”, the fifth book in “The Last Dragon Chronicles,” is pictured as the feature image for this post.

Reference: Wikipedia.org. The Last Dragon Chronicles. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dragon_Chronicles.

 

What the Best Church Websites Have in Common

Matthew Schoenherr
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What the Best Church Websites Have in Common

The web is a crowded place. There are billions of websites, with more coming online every day. Even in smaller niches such as church websites, it can be difficult to stand out. But, some sites do a better job than others of attracting visitors and accomplishing their mission. All of the best websites for churches and faith-based groups have at least four things in common. If you can take these common traits and bring them to your church website you can create a powerful tool to serve not just your community, but also the entire world.

1. Frequently updated content

Church websites that are attracting a lot of visitors and successfully serving congregations are always putting out new content. Web content comes in many different forms. It can be anything from blog posts to videos. The key is to be regularly releasing new information that is inspiring and educational.

Content does several things for a website. One, it gives search engines more ways to index the site. Because web searches on sites like Google are the most common way for new people to find out about your site, it is important to continuously be putting out new content for the search engines to present to people looking for answers.

The second thing that frequently updating content on your church website does is that it increases the engagement with your congregation. Your members know where they can go to get inspired or to find out the latest happenings in the community.

When designing your church website make sure to choose a platform that makes it easy to update your content.

2. Designed for mobile devices

Smartphones are taking over the world. Increasingly people are not going to your site from a desktop computer. Instead, they are visiting it from their tablet or smartphone. If your site is not designed to look nice and work well on mobile devices, you are going to have a harder time attracting visitors and engaging your community.

Website platforms like WordPress make it easy to create church websites that are fully functional on desktops and mobile devices. You don’t want a poorly designed website to limit people’s access to your message. The best church websites are easy to use, no matter what device you are using.

3. Gathers people

The appearance and tone of your website matter to your visitors. Great church websites are welcoming. Everything from the color scheme to the words on the screen are designed to gather people in. Just as many churches have an enthusiastic and friendly greeter by the doors before services and during activities, your homepage is greeting and welcoming people to your online community.

Part of gathering is having a website that loads quickly, is easy to navigate, and makes visitors feel positive and loved.

church website banner ad

4. Hub for digital evangelism

The best church websites are not only an online gathering place for the faithful, but are also hubs for digital evangelism. Information technology has made it possible to spread the word faster and farther than ever before in human history.

A great site allows people to learn more about the faith. It answers common questions and helps shepherd people along the path towards discipleship. Being a hub for digital evangelism means being integrated with social media. It means having shareable content that inspires and teaches.

Part of creating a hub is thinking about the types of questions those searching for spiritual light are asking. It also means creating a place online that people are comfortable sharing with friends and family members who are struggling or curious.

The moral of our story

The best church websites are a careful blend of both technical techniques and shareable spiritual truths. If you want your church site to be both a gathering place for your congregation and a light on the hill to lead people to the safety of the gospel, you need a website that both looks great and makes people feel great when they land on it.

Is the Book of Job a Parable?

Matthew Schoenherr
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Is the Book of Job a Parable?

It may certainly appear the book of Job is written to be a parable, play, fable or legend where we see all the behind-the-scenes discussions along with the playing out of corresponding events. However, the book of Job is an actual account of a man named Job who was tested by God, and—as a result of his trial—comes to a clearer understanding of his Creator.

Even if the account of Job was written as a fable, we know the Word of God is God-breathed, “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), so we know it’s importance would not be diminished. Regardless, we know Job was a real person. Ezekiel 14, verses 14 and 20 refer to Noah, Daniel and Job. We know Daniel was a historical person and a contemporary of Ezekiel’s, therefore we can safely recognize Noah and Job were actual people and therefore their accounts not just stories.

Reference

Answers2Prayer. Retrieved from

 

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