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On the 7th day of Christmas my webmaster dealt to me, a set sevens, with an ace-king kicker.

What better way to demonstrate grace than to take a bad beating on the river during a late night game of Texas hold ’em during a youth lock-in?

Sure, you’ll have to let the kiddies shave your head, but at least you didn’t lose it when you realized you were drawing dead after going all in because you came equipped with your deck of ‘Walking With Jesus’ Playing Cards.

And speaking of betting the house, it’s probably time I complain about all-Flash based web sites (again) – or that is a church and/or charity website whose webmaster wagered the entire user interface and/or navigation on a third-party plug-in technology.

Not that Adobe Flash isn’t popular, but it’s also not without it’s problems including:

• search engine hostile
• tends to break back button technology
• comparatively expensive to maintain
• more labor intensive from a smaller pool of human resources
  (often having to steal from Peter to pay the addicted Paul)
• relatively inflexible to change without a substantive investment in relational database interface
• higher user error rates than simpler forms of navigation
• long load times

Along with the above factors related to Flash itself, I’ve noted some trends in the Church website community when it comes to webmasters suffering ‘flashination‘ as they tend to:

• convert their websites into art projects
• effectively make their home page an ineffective splash page
• be geared exclusively at the 18 to 32 demographic
• attempt to compete with MTV and other media outlets

Perhaps the biggest problem I note with such sites is the trend for Flash-masters to continually “up the ante” with style over substance, in many cases because users quickly bore and/or ignore the gimmickry after the first or second use.

Well that and I often get one or more comments from webmasters – and sometimes their wives – whom have fallen in love with their creation to the point of forgetting that “You are not your user.”

Rule of thumb:  Don’t confuse a church website with … um … marital bliss

On the 6th day of Christmas my (new) webmaster crimped on me, six goose band leggings …

I didn’t think it possible to “jump the shark” with a topic as over-the-top as the 12 Days of Christmas crapola … but it appears that our misconception of culture for Christianity has taken us to new heights in coming off like a buncha babbling idiots.

Case in point, a set of ‘unique “Jesus Saves” goose leg bands‘ available on E-Bay for $12.99.

I don’t have a problem with the message, rather I’m having great difficulties in understanding how effective it is to run out to my local reservoir, tackle a wild goose without getting ‘beaked’ and then banding the poor water fowl’s leg with a context-less message is going to be read by individuals falling into one of four categories:

1. hunters
2. biologists/conservationists
3. unsuspecting drivers
4. unlucky jet pilots

In case you haven’t guessed already, today’s is conversion goals – specifically begging the question:

• What are you trying to say?
• What are your goals of what you’re saying?
• To whom are you saying it?
• How are you saying it?

For example this past November, before I went to Jordan, I learned a little bit of the Arabic language and customs because I knew my message of peace would fall fallow if I didn’t communicate it within the context of the recipient.

In terms of our object lesson, and forgetting about the unsuspecting driver and/or unlucky jet pilot, how do you suppose someone working on behalf of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center feels when they run into one of these cryptic, unregistered and untraceable bands? Do they drop to their knees and repent – or do perhaps they say a few choice words about the amateur (and possibly unpermitted) attempt at gaming the game system to advertise?

My point simply being that “how you say it” – especially online – is as important as what you say; and I’m not talking in terms tickling one’s ears with political correctness. Instead, and for example: two websites with essentially the same information, but two entirely different approaches. You decide for yourself which one gets the job done more effectively:

• Probe Ministries
• Jesus-is-Savior.com

Put another way, you need to decide if your church and/or charity is going to convey a message that allows its recipients to soar like eagles – or present them with a dead goose. The choice is yours.

Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your web developers whom you have outsourced from India have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves cheap plastic pencil toppers.’ – ‘Dude’ronomy 911

On the 5th day of kitschmas my webmaster was struck down by G*d.

Why?

Because of … and let everyone sing together: “5 Jesus pencil toppers.”

I’m sorry folks, but this one bugs me at a variety of levels. In part because it’s just flat-out blasphemy by unbelievers, and those who do worship the Christ, idolatry.

“They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood [or perhaps plastic?]!” – Jeremiah 10:8

Apostate or apostle, this false image of our Lord not only provides everyone with the near perfect example of how commercialism has lead some down a false path – but because this pencil topper is actually not an eraser – this plastic crap also gives us an object lesson in a not as serious sin I sometimes find on church and charity websites: faux navigation.

False navigation can come in a variety of irritating and confusing forms:

• underlining text that isn’t a hyperlink;
• formatting hyperlinks so they blend into the text;
• menu titles that do not match the title of the pages to which they are navigating;
• anchor links that effectively go nowhere; and
• DuHTML-driven drop-down and slide-in menus that don’t work the same across all browsers or user age groups

“All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together.” Isaiah 45:16

The point here is to realize that the primary purpose of any navigation is to get a person from point A to point B as intuitively as possible – that is without several pages and/or hours of instruction.

Here’s a good question to ask yourself regarding website navigation: if it’s not obvious, then perhaps it’s over done?

Oh and for those who’d like to discuss the finer theological points of the aforementioned merchandise, please allow me to direct you to a website I myself just discovered as I researched this item: A Little Leaven: Jesus Pencil Toppers – whose description of this item accurately asserts:

Our internal studies have shown that use of the Jesus Pencil Topper in high school classrooms reduces incidences of cheating by .001%. But, it increases blasphemies by 600%.

Tell’m Mean Dean sent ya!

On the 4th day of Christmas my webmaster brought to me, four neon colored kazoos! Yes folks, even if your singing sounds like an injured cat in a trash can, you can still harmonize with that “Mitt Romney sings your Favorite Carols with the Mormon Tabernacle” album your great aunt bought you back in 1987 when you’re equipped with one of these cheap, plastic “Jesus Loves me kazoos” pictured to the right:

Speaking of the sound of fingernails being dragged down an old, faded chalk board, I’d like to employ today’s “Kitschmas present” as a metaphor for yet another type of annoying surprise that I continue to find on a number of church websites. That is, the earsplitting gift of music – and now videos – that automatically play when the web page loads.

I mean how effective do you think a church website is that ambushes someone within earshot of their boss with some tinny rendition of Peter Schickele’s “The Seasonings” – especially in a work place where there is a sensitivity regarding music downloads and US Copyright Laws?

Fact is that though 47% of the U.S. is now online using some form of broadband, most still dislike the time it takes to load media files – not to mention the unwanted legal headaches such files present.

Fortunately services such as YouTube give content providers the opportunity to act smart by embedding a click-to-play image that we can surround with useful summaries; in turn offering the user the freedom of choice to play or not to play.

A good example is my own post entitled “Dean takes a dive in the dead sea that ‘rocks’” where I take the ‘Nestea Plunge’ into the Dead Sea with a 25lb rock on my chest – but only after providing users a brief description along with the option of clicking the play button – before showing the silly 1.5 minute video.

Point is, so long as you have the rights to the content and feel it contributes to your websites conversion goals, provide it, but in an opt-in format only. Otherwise your love comes across like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal … or in this case, more like some krummy hot-pink kazoo in the key of B#.

On the 3rd day of Christmas my webmaster gave to me, three inflatable nativities (see enumerated image below !-)

Yes folks, nothing bring to life the miraculous birth of our Savior like some pudgy latex airbag glowing in front of your house at night.

Of course I’m being sarcastic. I mean c’mon, what’s more out of context:

1. the comfy inflatable pillow beneath the baby Jesus’ head ¹;
2. the slightly obese Mary and Joseph (apparently no shortage of eats at the inn) ²; or
3. the blizzard like conditions ³?

Obvious anachronisms aside, I’ve actually selected these bloated lawn-blimps to remind us of yet another aspect of church websites that are as equally irritating as the neighbor who positions all three of these flightless dirigibles so that their blinding glow comes pouring into your bedroom window all night.

Yes folks, I’m talking about Image Bloat – a plague so annoying that I’m told it has the potential to turn Internet seekers into flying spaghetti monster worshiping pastafarians due to the long load times of enormous images. Or as Father Flanders put it in his now famous sermon for Sunday, July 13, 2003:

Just because Jesus miraculously turned water into wine doesn’t mean he can miraculously turn your 1280- x 1024-pixel image whose file size is 1.8Mb into an image whose file size is only 74Kb just because you changed the WIDTH= and HEIGHT= attributes to WIDTH=”420″ and HEIGHT=”336″.

In other words, one of the big problems I see with so many church websites are poorly optimized graphics – so let me make this point very loud and clear:

Reducing the height and width attributes of the <IMG> tag does not, I repeat DOES NOT, physically reduce the physical size of the file. Nor does it reduce the size of the image via “color reduction.”

But rather than bore you with the math behind shaving minutes of download time to seconds by a little bit of optimization and color reduction, I’m just going to suggest 2 free solutions that will help get you started in the right direction:

• Quick Thumbnail: a software as a service that helps you resize images online
• IrfanView: a client application that also helps you both resize and crop your images

Either one will help you get the job done, and help you avoid overweight images that impede your visitors browsers slower than the idiot driving in front of you at 5mph to see some 12-foot inflatable Nativity scene that is equipped with a squeaky MIDI rendition of “Let it Snow!”

Yes folks, it’s day two of our 12 step … I mean 12 day bloganalia of Jesus junk, that crufty commercialized crap that so cheapens our faith, to the point of giving us equally crummy websites. With that, let us all sing in roaring voice:

On the second day of Christmas my webmaster bought for me,  two translucent acrylic night lights!

Y’know, when Jesus proclaimed in John 8:12  that He is the light of the world, I don’t quite think he was referring to the tacky frosted plastic Jesus night light even if the latter does serve “as a calming and restful bedside nightlight.”

And regardless of one’s opinion regarding the mother of God, I’m not so sure reducing Mary to an electronic appliance is all that great of a reminder of her part in the Annunciation and birth of our Savior either.

Here’s my point: in both your nocturnal illuminations and your church website, take care of the image you present of Christ in pictures, sermons and videos.

As such may be the only Jesus a seeker sees and remembers, make sure it’s not an el cheapo vision.

On the first day of Christmas my webmaster bought for me, an “Away In A Manger Collectible Baby Jesus Pageant Lifelike Doll.”

Yes folks with Christmas 12 days from today it is time to take some time out from web design and enjoy the spirit of the season. And what better way to do that then to give coverage to the carnival of “kristian kitsch” that so corrupts our over-commercialized culture with a series I’m calling:

The 12 Days of Jesus Junk

Now for many of you newer readers here, Jesus Junk is a term I sometimes use here to describe the ultra-cheap clip-art and gimmicks that we sometimes find on well-meaning but cut-rate-looking church and charity websites. Y’know, like that clichéd gold lamé animated gif of a spinning cross that screams “everything I know about website design I learned from Strong Bad!“.

Anyway, for some holiday fun, I figure why not poke some fun at the gift-shop culture that some times creeps into our website design – by highlighting some of the more hilarious examples of junk sold in the name of Jesus.

For example, today’s example which is pitched with the following description:

It’s time for the Christmas Pageant, and everyone has a part to play, even this sweet baby boy – he’s playing the Baby Jesus! This very special lifelike collectible Baby Jesus pageant doll was created by renowned doll artist Waltraud Hanl exclusively for Ashton-Drake.

What a unique way to bring the inspiring story of the Nativity to life for your family and friends!This collectible vinyl doll is expertly crafted, with soft RealTouchâ„¢ vinyl skin, reddish-brown hand-applied hair, and realistic fingernails and toenails. He’s dressed in a Christmas pageant “costume” of red cotton fabric with gold trim, and arrives in his own little manger made of real wood, complete with straw! Just imagine the happiness he’ll bring to your home! Order Now!

Now having sung a few operas and performed in variety of plays, I can certainly agree that it is far easier to work with an inanimate doll over a live baby any day. That said, I think this particular item is being a bit oversold as stage lights, swaddling cloth and story lines generally make the differences between a $220 and $22 doll unnoticeable.

I suggest the same may be true with those who get hung up on expensive overkill on their church websites, like hiring someone to get your message out in an all in Flash-based website, where more text-centric HTML will do.

Seeya tomorrow for more “enlightening” items of interest.