Kyle Sawyer, 30, of Plaistow, N.H., saw a way for the people at his Haverhill Alliance Church community to get closer without even seeing one another - the Internet.

Haverhill Alliance is one of the first churches in New England to sign on to a growing social networking site for churches called Mychurch.org. It's similar to the popular sites Myspace.com and Facebook.com that allow friends and college students to connect, share photos and stories.

But instead of spreading gossip, this site's spreading the Gospel.

The evangelical community started using the site a few weeks ago and already has 15 members. That's 10 percent of its 150-member church.

"My hope is it's a good avenue, and that people can connect and start communicating - peoople who wouldn't normally communicate," said Sawyer, who has been going to church there since he was 7 years old. "Sunday's church activities can be hectic. You have to rush home and have lunch. It can be challenging for people to connect."

Getting church-goers to have more than the typical exchange in the parking lot after the service was the goal of the site's founders.

It was started a year ago by Joe Suh; his wife, Carol; and three former engineers in their late 20s from Silicon Valley, Calif. Three of them are evangelical Christians, and one of them is Roman Catholic.

Suh, 28, and his wife went to services at River Church, along with 800 other people, but they felt like they didn't really know anyone, he said.

"We started it out of our own need," Suh said. "We only knew a handful of people. The online community strengthens the loose connections made on Sundays."

So they set up Mychurch.org and e-mailed a few people about the site. Within weeks, dozens of people had signed onto the free site, posted photos and left messages about themselves for other members.

Soon, they were having discussions on Bible passages or the weekly sermon through blogs on the site. Suh expanded the site to links to other churches and allowed their members to talk.

"It's a deeper level of engagement in the community," Suh said. "We got to know people much better."

So far, 8,500 churches have signed onto the free site, and 50,000 people are using it. Suh said about 100 churches signed on in a couple of months, and now 100 churches a day sign on to use the program.

Most of its members are nondenominational, but Suh said Catholic and Protestant churches are signing on as well.

The self-funded site is run solely by its founders. Right now, they're looking to cover their costs, Suh said.

There were some bugs with the site early on that they have worked out. The site became the target of scams looking to take advantage of the generosity of the people using it. But Suh said he installed software that sends out alerts to members whenever someone is soliciting something.

Plus, some pastors worried that the online community would replace the offline one - something Suh said isn't happening.

"That's not what we're seeing," he said. "We extend the relationships that we're having and continue having face to face (conversations)."

Sawyer said that's the case at Haverhill Alliance Church.

"It's focused," he said. "It's specifically for people that are into church and into Christianity. You know that people reading are interested in Christianity."

Because it has the ability to link churches in the Haverhill area, Sawyer added West Congregational Church to the site and is hoping members sign on to the service.

"Communication is always a good thing," he said, "whenever you can find ways to foster it."

That's exactly what Suh is hoping for his site as well.

"We'd like to see a much bigger site," he said. "There's a huge potential in networking churches, learning from each other and seeing what other churches across the country are doing."