Most singles would like to date persons that share their own religious beliefs. Others would not just want a Christian site but at times would specify a match to be exactly their religion. Lots of Christian dating sites abound in the web come with different features, costs, ease of use and technical and customer support services. This review of one such site, BigChurch.com, discusses how it specifically caters to Christian singles looking for that soul mate.
Demographics
BigChurch.com members come from all over the world; the site currently boasts of more than half a million members. The site is not only for singles to meet a match with the possibility of marriage but for anyone looking for friendship, dating, bible study partners and even prayer partners. Searching for a match based on your compatibility will depend on your requests such as if you would like to meet a Christian with the same sect or any Christian even with a different sect as you.
Profiles
Profiles are asked on the home page, simply requesting who you are searching for; if you are a man seeking a woman and vice versa. Profiles are simply your screen name, age, address, and if someone is online and you are interested it makes it easy to connect with them and get to know the person right away. But overall the initial profile quality is not very in depth. For singles wanting more information for a match, this information is not all that useful. However, those who are logged in to the site can easily access members who are online and can communicate directly with their choice. The profile that is asked is your name, your Christian denomination, your belief in God, your height, body build, race, and your educational background. A short introduction and a message are requested and you are done. Your login password is sent to your e-mail and then a page is displayed where you pay by credit card. After that you enter the main dating page and choose matches who communicated with you or who you would want to communicate with.
Matching & Searching
The dating network allows you to choose a variety of characteristics you are looking for in a person. Plus, the site matches you to other members with your specifications and notifies you by e-mail.
You can search for matches on any part of the profile; or based on who is online, who have viewed you, quick matches, most popular man or woman viewed, most networked member, most inviting member, or through distance, city and zip code.
Ease of Use
In terms of ease of use, BigChurch.com is user friendly as previously described. The rates of subscription as compared to other sites are a bit higher depending upon discounts. An advantage is that you can pay in your currency if you belong to another country other than the USA, which doesn’t happen in other dating sites. However, there are two types of memberships: Gold and Silver. Silver is much cheaper but your searches and technical support are limited. Full range of services is offered to Gold subscribers. For non-paying members who are categorized as standard members, they cannot communicate with other members but can only preview profiles of other singles. However, if they pay a monthly fee, standard members can contact by other members.
The advantage of this is its ease of use, but its disadvantage lies in that not so much questions are asked, which in turn gives a poor profile quality. A much more in-depth analysis of a person’s personality and character should be done so that a good match can be made. This is very important in a dating site since the persons are not matched face to face.
Extra Features
Other features include blogs, friend network and bible groups, and an interactive magazine by users themselves where other users can interact, add their experiences or comments.
Be Aware
The site has been claimed to have a large number of fake profiles. Imagine a member having a fake match and wonders why there had not been any reply to a communication sent. Thus, it needs to be overhauled so that it works properly.
The site had been criticized widely because it claims to be a Christian Dating site but had been bought by the owner of Penthouse, a pornographic publication. Some claim the money generated from this site supports penthouse pornographic publications.
Summary
In summary, rating this site with 1 as the lowest and 5 as the highest would be the following: the features=3, ease of use=4, profile=2, compatibility matching system=3, search and match system=3, popularity=3 and cost=3. Its overall rating would be 3.
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