Wow. 

I thought I knew how to launch websites.  I know the technology cold.  I can ramble on for any length of time about databases, style sheets, RSS feeds, blogging, commenting and the like.

But I’m glad there are other people who can see straight through the technology to the heart of a community web site.

If you’ve visited Boyink.com before you probably know that I’ve been working on a new website for my church for some time.  Two years this week, actually (it’s a good thing God never revealed to me that it would take that long - I’d have never taken the project on).

While technically RidgePoint.org has been “live” since November 10, 2003, I’ve never felt that the site was “officially” launched because we had never heavily promoted it to the folks coming to Ridge Point.  This “soft launch” approach was an effort to get the staff comfortable with the site and it’s capabilities before getting a large amount of traffic.  It’s also hard to find time during a service to fit something like a site launch in - and we wanted it to make sense in the context of the topic as well.

This weekend the right combination of available time and proper context came up, and they brought up the site on a large screen at the front of the auditorium.  The pastor gave a high level overview of the home page, and showed the email list subscription area, etc.

But then they did something that caught me totally off-guard.  The topic this weekend was prayer, and the busiest part of the site has been the Prayer Forum.  But rather than just show the forum and explain how it works, they had members of the worship team on take turns reading from an especially long and powerful thread, started by a mother whose child was just diagnosed with a form of skin cancer.

I sat there with tears in my eyes as the technology of the site was replaced by the faces and voices of the people using it, supporting and praying for this mother and family.

Thanks, Ridge Point, for reminding me once again that technology is just a tool.  It was a site launch to remember.