OK, not all stock photos of people are bad. In fact, I think there are actually some really good applications for them (few though they may be). But church websites are no place for stock photos. A lot of this is largely because the VAST majority of stock photos look fake … wait, they are fake! Well, I guess that explains their looks.
Even though they may not be of real people or places associated with the church, they were indeed chosen by the church to represent it on the Net.
The fact remains that stock photos — especially on a church website — appear haughty, fake, plasticine.
Look. I’m not saying that every church needs to go out and get themselves a professional web designer because we all know how expensive that can be. I’m just saying, you’ve got to be careful what kind of image your portraying when you market your church.
But more than that, and I’m really showing my hand here, why market a church at all? When did marketing become part of congregational life? I know when. It happened the day the church began to have bills. On that day, money, profit, and marketing all became part and parcel of the church and would never separate from it again.
I don’t know what the solution is. House churches? Maybe. But can we honestly believe that money or possessions would then magically cease to be an issue? Hardly. I think money will always be an issue as long as we live in a sin-tilted world.
Yet while we Christians are here, in this culture which is so enamored with possessions and the ownership of “things,” we need to be careful just how much of that we let seep into our fellowship. The fact of the matter is church isn’t about worship style, pews or chairs, pulpit of stool, or house church or multimedia megaplex. These things clutter, they convolute, they complicate matters. Church is about people getting together to celebrate a relationship with the risen Lord. That, my friends, is simplicity redefined.
