Back in 1996, we were making arrangements to open an annex of an existing language school. One of the things that I decided to do was to put up a website. Admittedly, I was a bit ahead of my time in Argentina; Internet use was not yet widespread there. Still, I felt there would be some prestige in having a website.
There weren’t a lot of design programs available to me. I ended up buying a book on HTML and coding the site “by hand.” It was far from beautiful, but it was functional. And it allowed us to advertise that we had a website, a mark of prestige at that time.
Things have changed greatly, but the need to have a website is still there, especially for churches. And there are lots of tools to make having a website a reasonably simple process. I want to spend some time over the next few days discussing church websites.
As we begin, let me ask you: what do you look for in a church website? What would you hope to find there? What shouldn’t be on a site? What advice would you give to a church that doesn’t have a site or that is looking to redo its site?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
I maintain my church’s Web sites (there is a main one for the entire church; separate sites for children’s ministry and teen ministry, plus others). The main site is divided into public and password-protected member areas. The members area contains archives of the church bulletin, a pictorial directory, private prayer requests, and our hospital log.
All other information – including adult ed curricula and LIFE Group materials, minister’s bulletin article, news events, elders’ statements, information about church leaders and missionaries, Spanish language outreaches, photo galleries, sermon outlines/MP3s and calendar – is open to the public.
I also help maintain a Twitter page, Facebook page and – as of yesterday – a Google Plus presence.
At minimum, a church Web site should contain address, Google or other map to the address, worship times, phone numbers and contact information or contact form. If the church wants to be more ambitious with the site, it really needs to be maintained and kept up to date.
That’s the most egregious infraction of Web etiquette that I see on church Web sites: home pages crammed with outdated information, sometimes by months and years.
Keith, I agree with you about the need for updating. There’s nothing wrong with creating a “billboard” site that merely gives general information, but if you’re going to refer to specifics, you’d better have someone who will do regular updates.
Agree with Keith about what minimally should be on a website. As someone who was recently seeking a church home, keep in mind that now, depending on where the church is located, many people will use the website as their “first impression experience” as opposed to actually walking in the building. You first want to be very clear about what your church is about and who you are targeting: people like me, who will likely wind up at some church and you hope that it is that one, or people that are not regular church goers and won’t know the lingo.
Then you need to decide what language to include. This took a team of people at my former church several times to decide: do you want to highlight various ministries within the church? Explain what the church is about and stands for? Leadership? Current topics of study or classes (yes, always updated), etc…
A word about “password protected” spots. My personal opinion is that the only part of the website that should be password protected is the member directory. Why can’t a visitor/ potential member check out a past bulletin to see what activities take place? I understand the need for a private hospital list, etc…. but I don’t get why the bulletin is under lock and key (like it is at my current congregation).
Sarah, I agree with you – but our bulletin is protected because in it we publish the addresses of folks (new members, sick, folks who ask for prayers) so that cards can easily be sent to them. It’s a policy that predates me!
Keith,
I wonder about either:
(1) Creating an Internet-friendly version of your bulletin (this can be fairly simple or quite difficult, depending on how the bulletin is prepared);
(2) Publishing an Internet-friendly version once a month if the above is impractical.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Thanks, Sarah, that’s very helpful input. I think churches need to spend more time thinking about how to make the website friendly to insiders and outsiders alike.
I agree that updating is probably the biggest key to an effective web presence, and the discussion about explaining the church’s mission is also important. I think we sometimes have the tendency to explain our activities (what we do) before we explain our mission (why we do it). Weekly or annual events that everyone in the congregation might know by a certain name will still need to be explained on a website.
One of the things we are discussing about our website is how to increase traffic. Have any of you used facebook ads that link to the church’s website? I have heard they are inexpensive and easy to specify, and I was just wondering if anyone had experience with them.
Andrew,
Great point about our tendency to overemphasize activities.
As I continue looking at this, I’ll try and spend some time on attracting visitors.
Grace and peace,
Tim