If Jesus Had A Website

One of the popular trends today is the use of pre-packaged systems. For many individuals, these come in the form of the ever-popular Blog. However, for community development on the internet, the package is known as a Content Management System (CMS).

Unlike a Blog, which is intended to be updated and maintained by a single person and tends to have a very limited feature set, a good CMS is designed around input and feedback from a community of users and typically has an expandable set of features. Now, as with any other package deal, there are advantages and disadvantages of using a CMS.

CMS packages can be really useful because they take care of the bulk of the web site code for you in some programming or scripting language like PHP, ASP or ColdFusion. Most CMS packages are based around a "news" module, where allowed users can post stories or announcements, and then have other modules (for major items) and blocks (for minor items) to compliment that news. Most good CMS packages also support additional modules and blocks that can be developed either by the main CMS developer or third party developers. Most CMS packages try to offer as many web-based customizations as possible in order to help you create the site you desire.

The greatest feature of a CMS is that it will provide a pre-made web interface for adding, editing and updating information on your website. Some will even provide nice buttons and programs that properly format "news" so that the writer doesn't even need to know any HTML. And as webmasters, we all know that helps make our job easier if we can show someone else how to handle updates easily.

However, even though most CMS packages try to allow for customization, it is often difficult to achieve the look you'd like without knowing some of the code that the CMS is written in. If you don't know it, then you may have to settle for a variation of the main template of the CMS. Often, this is undesirable, as we don't want our site to look "just like everyone else's". Under this same pitfall of not knowing the code, you may also not be able to provide some features for your site unless someone else has already written them. For church websites, a common desired module that can be hard to find for most CMSs is a bible module. So you'd either have to find someone to do it for you, or just wait until someone else finally does it.

One other drawback of a CMS is that even with coding expertise, it can take a long time to configure many of the settings of the CMS to fit what you need to do. For many church websites, this involves "hiding" many of the features you don't plan to use and adding third party modules and blocks that may not go smoothly.

Even though there are some drawbacks to CMS packages, they are often a great building block for a church website. If you're interested in using a CMS, check out Kombiz or CMSWatch and try to find a CMS in a language you know or want to learn (or at least one that has high praises from non-programmers if you're not interested in learning a language). For each CMS, you should be able to find it's niche on the web for help as you need it. Try some of them out…they might be just what you were looking for!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We all have much to be thankful for, for the Lord our God has blessed us fully. Let us pray that the Lord continues to guide our hands and steps so that we can walk more closely and faithfully in His will. Take the time today to enjoy food and family, and be sure to take some time to thank Him for all he has provided you with.

I'd like to take just a minute to highlight a new feature that's been added to the site: User Comments. Now when you view a story, you'll see a place to add your comments, suggestions, and experiences. We welcome your insight and feedback as we work to create a community environment for all church web developers.

In the second part of a series on website content, we will discuss questions that arrise based from the premise "If Jesus Had A Website…" in order to better analyze approaches and expectations of church website content.

When we asked "Why would Jesus have a website?", we found that that there were two main purposes for having a website:

1. Creating a place for existing members to keep up-to-date on church events, announcements, and other information.
2. Reaching out to non-members.

Keeping both these purposes in mind, we must also carefully decide what sections we would like to have in our website. To begin with, there are some key sections that should always be addressed on a church website:

• Welcome - Every church should have a greeting section to their website, and it should probably be the first thing a visitor to your website reads. Typically, this welcome is directed towards non-members, but it's probably a good idea to keep it light and informal to make it inviting to all.
• Contact Information - Members and non-members alike will need to have access to contact information, including, but not limited to, the church's address (street and mailing if needed), phone number, and e-mail. Directions and a map are strongly recommeded as well.
• Church History – You should probably include a brief history of your church for non-members. Some people like to know what kind of environment they are getting into, and the church history is a good way to see that. Is it a new, budding church, or is it long established as part of the community? What are the major milestones in the history church? Just as each church is different, each visitor to your site is looking for different things in a church, so present them with the information they need to make an informed decision whether your church is the right one for them.
• Ministries – A listing of ministries that your church provides or is involved in, along with a brief discription, is an essential tool for both members and non-members. For members, it provides a directory of different services provided by the church as well as groups to get involved with. For non-members, a collection of your church's ministries is a clear indicator of the priorities and passions of the church.
• Pastor's Page - Every church website needs a place for the current pastor/reverend/father/etc. to introduce themselves to non-members who may be curious about your church's leadership. In the case of a change in this leadership, this page can also be important for existing members as well. Encourage your pastor to make this space their own.
• Vision Statement – Once you've covered where your church as been and where you are now, it's important to address where your church is going. What are the ideals of your ministries? What role does your church want to play in the community? What services would you like to provide as a church in the future? Again, these can be key points for a non-member who is looking for a new church, or someone who unsaved in search of Truth. These also provide a defined set of goals for members of the church to refer to as well.

Make sure these sections are a part of your site, as they include the information that is most likely to be requested by a visitor to your site.

While this information builds a good structure for your website, if only this information were available it would seem kind of barren. In the next segment of this series, we'll discuss some of the other sections you may also want to include in your website that can provide a sense of liveliness to your church's site. Stay tuned!

Once you've decided how you want to approach your church's website, the next major decision to make is where you want to host the site. There are many (thousands, if not millions) of web site providers that range from free to pricey, each with a different set of features. With so many options, it can be difficult to choose the right one for your church's needs. However, here are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Avoid "free" hosts like Geocities and Tripod - While these hosts are great for basic "beginner" personal sites, they are not good for professional sites for two reasons. For one, they do not have a very rich feature set, which will make hosting a dynamic site almost impossible. Secondly, and most importantly, they place ads on the site in order to provide their free service. And as we previously discussed, there can be a number of drawbacks to advertisements appearing on a church web page.

   

• Evaluate your needs - If you want to put together a full featured dynamic website, make sure your host includes some kind of database and scripting or programming language. If you plan on sharing a lot of photos or audio files of sermons, you'll want to choose a provider who can give you lot of disk space (to store the files) and bandwidth (to transfer the files). Whatever it is you plan on doing with your site, make sure that the host you choose can handle all aspects of that plan.

   

• But don't go overboard – Don't spend the money on things you don't need. For example, if your church is small, you shouldn't spend the money for features you can't or won't use. Most churches should be able to provide for their website hosting needs for $5-25 per month. Also, beware of hidden fees, like setup fees. No host should charge you for setting up your site unless they help provide the design and layout of your site.

   

• Check the rep – Lastly, make sure you take some time to investigate any web host before signing up with them. Some hosts will make all sorts of claims, but are unable to fullfill them. Personally, I take the time to Google any web host before I'll consider using them (either by name or URL). There are many message boards and review sites out there where people share their experiences with different providers, so make sure others have had good experiences before committing your time and money.

   

While finding a solid web host may be like finding a needle in a haystack, with a little consideration and research you can find the one that works best for you.

Ads are everywhere on the web now, and can be as much of a nuisance as a help at times. Ads are put on websites for all kinds of reasons. Some people use them to try and make a living, while others use the ads to pay for basic site fees so that they can provide free services (like this site).

And now that advertisements have permeated the vast majority of the internet, it would be easy and almost natural to try to put them on your site. However, if you are talking about a church website, then this becomes a very dangerous road to walk for several reasons:

1. Most churches are non-profit organizations - by placing advertisements on your page you may cause visitors to question the church's priorities
2. The church is an outreach tool - just as with many outreach tools, it costs time and money to be effective. The main focus of the site should be what the church can give to visitors, and not what it can get from them.
3. Ads may not always provide appropriate content – since many ads are now "context sensitive", meaning that they try to pick good advertisements based on the content of your site. However, certain keywords can trigger ads for illicit websites, and this reputation risk is on that is not worth taking.

While I have only come across a few church websites that have encountered this problem, it's something that I'm sure has crossed many a webmaster's mind. In the end, the use of advertisements just "looks bad" for a church for so many reasons. They really are something to be avoided.

Have you ever left a carton of milk in the fridge for a while, and then one day you go to enjoy a big bowl of your favorite cereal when you see that the milk is well past expired?

We've all done it before…and we've all gone ahead and chucked that carton and run out to the store to get some new milk. What we found was no good, so we had to go in search of what we wanted somewhere else.

We can apply this same train of thought to the events on church websites. It's great when they're fresh, but once they expire nobody wants to be near them.

I've heard it said before that it's better to have no specific dates on a church website at all than to have dates that have long passed, and I completely agree. The reason for this is simple: old dates give the impression that a church is inactive. If a church isn't doing anything, then why would anyone be interested in attending.

Now, your church may be thriving and alive with fellowship and outreach, but if the dates on your site do not reflect that, then it looks bad for the church. From the point of view of the average web surfer, the church might as well not exist because it looks dead. Instead, we would prefer that the website reflects the activity, and not have the website reflect inactivity.

So, never underestimate the importance of your role as a datekeeper for your church's website. Your work is an important reflection of the role of the church in people's lives and in the community. This is extremely important when it comes to attracting new parishoners and believers, and if they don't find it in your site they'll either find it elsewhere or stop looking at all. After all, who wants to go to a church that doesn't seem to be doing anything?