I have heard many reasons for Christians not stating their faith on their non-faith related websites. Some examples include:

• Not wanting to be seen to be using faith to sell product.
• Worry that a 'Christian' label might adversely affect business.
• Non-approval from business/site co-owners.
• Resellers or home business owners who have limited control over their websites.
• Lack of the time and energy required to include a major Christian presence and resource on a website.
• Fear of evangelism.
• Website restrictions stating that faith may not be expressed.

A more apparent problem is that many people have a limited set of ideas as to what a Christian might include on a non-evangelistic website to share their faith. Less imaginative ideas include:

• A statement of faith.
• A comment noting that the business is Christian owned.
• A call to accept Christ.
• A scripture.

But there are so many other possibilities and ideas, leaving few excuses for not taking the opportunity to use every site, in some way, for God.

I believe in taking every opportunity afforded to share the message of the gospel - why let any opportunity go by? Am I a scarey, in your face, one topic only, heaven and hell preaching guy? No, by no means. 'Taking every opportunity' does not mean demanding that everyone make a final decision; neither does it mean being loud and vocal. It simply means remaining available to God, looking for situations and opportunities where you can allow yourself to be useful to God in the work that he is already doing.

Your website is one such opportunity. Regardless of the product or service you offer, you have people visiting your site who may be ready to be drawn one step closer to receiving Jesus as their personal saviour. No, you do not have to be actively promoting your faith, but you can passively open up opportunities for God to do what he does best in other peoples hearts.

The problem is that we often make the mistake of selecting Christian content for our site based on our own perspective as a Christian site owner, rather than thinking about who our visitors are. Common mistakes include:

• Feeling that we need to prove or classify our faith. If you are in business, selling product or service in the secular market, you do not need a statement of faith or to somehow prove your faith. God knows your heart, and so do you.
• Thinking that if we are to mention Christianity then we must demand a choice of accepting Christ or not. God calls people to himself, not us. And for some people, this journey is long, and for others it is short. We must simply be willing to help everyone move one step further along in their personal journey.
• Linking to numerous Christian search engines, directories and sites. It is not bad to link to other Christian sites, but some thought can be put into this as discussed below.

Lets now discuss a couple of simple ideas that could be used on business sites to help further the Kingdom of God. Not for your own benefit, but for God and for others.

• Your Testimony
  You do not need to include a long story of how you became a Christian. How about just a few short words on some aspect of your relationship with God that you think might be beneficial to others? Even just a short testimony of God's goodness is enough for some to find Christ. You do not need an agenda - I find that those who appear to just live a Godly life, telling normal life stories, and only seem to mention their faith in passing (a nearly assumed minor point) seem to have a much bigger influence and affect beyond what I would normally expect.

• The Word of God
  We seem to have some strange unwritten law in the church stating that only once someone is a Christian, can they then learn about God, his ways, and secrets for living. Yet there are some subjects that society is crying out for answers about; answers that God has. Why should they need to be Christians to hear the secrets of God? And if God is in his word, and his word is true, then surely people will find him as we share what God thinks. John C. Maxwell's usage of this is a great example. He teaches the Biblical principles of the subjects he chooses to write about, yet without pushing Christianity or saying "God says this". He happily uses examples from his own life showing his faith, but his focus is to present good (God) ideas to anyone who is interested rather than to push God on people.
• Smart Linking
  We all know that we need other websites to link to ours to increase our popularity, and that we in turn must link to others to help promote them. But, we need to be a little more smarter when choosing who we link to. Unless you have a Christian Information website, I doubt that your visitors will be interested in Christian Search Engines, Directories, or popularity counters. So why not be creative; find a couple of really good, informative sites, created for non-Christians, presenting information that they should be finding instead of the equivalent secular sites. Yes, you may enjoy sites created specifically for Christians, but what percentage of the visitors to your site are Christian? Not only may some of your visitors actually find something useful and informative, but you will be helping to raise the profile of quality Christian sites that should be appearing higher in the search engines.
• Extra Smart Linking
  I have already stressed that you do not need to push Christianity, or make a big statement about being a Christian, but instead to just share God's word. I have also said that linking to Christian sites, which present information that you feel your visitors might be interested in, is better than linking to sites which have information meant specifically for Christians. But what about those of us who do not want to (or are unable to) express our faith on our websites. Again, there are plenty of good Christian websites out there which are not pushing Christianity, or even proclaiming it obviously, but are focused on helping people in the various areas of their lives, trying to address societies biggest questions and issues (e.g. family, relationship and sexuality related information). Why not find a couple of great non-profit, society-improving oriented, Christian sites and link to them? But first make sure that you think about what sort of people might be visiting your site and what their needs or interests might be. Some ideas for sites that you might want to link to include sites that address Godly principles for family life and bringing up children, making relationships work, information on religion, how to find a partner (dating), finding a destiny, etc, etc...
• Make an Advert
  As a final idea (I am sure that there are many more) for those of you who are a little more adventurous and have some spare time, why not create an animated advert, rather than simply including an existing graphical link? You could make the advert say what you want, tailoring it to the sorts of visitors your site often receives, and sending appropriate candidates to the Christian site of your choice. If you do decide to create your own advert to link to another site, you should approach that site for their approval before using your advert to link to them.

This article has done a poor job of convincing you to link to CBD-Search (a Christian directory / search engine) but that was never my intention as I am more interested in spreading the Kingdom of God, and promoting sites and people who are already doing things well for the Kingdom, instead of trying to compete with them.

Lets choose today, to use every opportunity that we are given to help people on their path towards Jesus.