Marketing churches on the Internet: an analysis of the dialogic potential of Christian web sites

The Internet has affected every aspect of society, and religion is no exception. Nearly 28 million Americans use the Internet to supplement their spiritual life by visiting Web sites to communicate with their churches and other congregation members. Online communication with religious organizations can be enhanced by the incorporation of five dialogic loop principles that foster relationship growth. Through a content analysis of randomly sampled Church Web sites from a national database, this study found that Christian churches were laggards in terms of creating an interactive environment for church-goers. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.