Remember the days when we just duplicated everything in the church bulletin on the church website? Church websites were just online brochures.

Then we started encouraging people to connect. We offered ways for people to sign up for a group, volunteer role or an event through the church website.

Then we started offering the experience online. Churches began to stream their services live to give people a chance to experience teaching and worship without being at a physical location.

What’s next?

The rise of the Internet and mobile technology has ushered church communications into a new digital era. As a result, churches have worked hard to create a flawless user experience, engaged social networks and search engine-optimized websites. We’ve come far, but I fear we’ve left people behind. Meet the “unplugged.”

Despite popular belief, the unplugged are not just senior citizens, they are those in our pews who are not regularly visiting the web or aren’t socially engaged online.

So how do we keep up our online strategies while still caring for the unplugged?

I imagine communication as if it were a hub and spokes on a bicycle. A bike has two wheels (online and offline) and is capable of moving us forward. Just like using Facebook, Twitter, email and other tools to bring everyone back to your website, you can use platform announcements, posters, people, etc., to point back to one central hub with all your communication pieces.