Our best holiday wishes from our family to yours! May we all reflect upon the greatest gift that was given to us from our graceful Lord at this time thousands of years ago. Rejoice, for the Lord has come!
One question we, as church webmasters, constantly need to be asking ourselves is "Does our website accurately reflect who we are as a church?". For example, if we have a rustic and historic church, we probably don't want our site to have too modern of a feel. The website should be an extention of the church itself, and not a seperate entity.
One thing you can do to help this continuity is to create a similar visual front. One thing I like to do when designing a site is to take my color palette from the decor of the church. While this may not always work for all churches, it can often be a good starting point. Another idea is to try and feature a distinctive attribute of your church, maybe a special cross, spire, door or window, on the website.
A second thing that can be done to improve continuity between these two presences is to try to match up the personality of your site with that of your church. If the way your church website comes across is not reflective on your church, then you aren't really doing your church a service. For example, if someone comes across your website, which has a very relaxed presentation, and someone comes to your church, which has a very formal presentation, they may feel deceived when they did not find what they expected. So, in order to best represent your church, make sure you present an accurate depiction of your church.
The overall atmosphere of your church website is a very important thing to keep in mind as your site grows and progresses. Make sure that your site is a true representation of your church in all aspects. This will not only make the approach to maintaining the site easier, but it will make it a more effective tool for your church.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am a planner. I like to know what I'm doing in advance if at all possible. It doesn't mean I'm not spontaneous or flexible, but for bigger events, I like to know what's going on.
So this may sound like common sense, but make sure you post major events on your site well in advance. If you have things that just kinda pop up into the plans and you want to share them, that's fine. However, please respect us planners out there who like to have things in order.
The other reason you want to post events well in advance is so that a buzz can start about them. Let people have the time to come across them on your site. Let them talk with each other to see who's going. You could have the greatest event ever planned, but if you only let people know about it a few days in advance it probably won't become all it can be!
So make sure you get your events online as soon as you can. Impose submission deadlines if you have to. Just don't let your events suffer from poor promotion!
Have you ever had a conversation with someone and ended up saying more than you wanted? You've probably seen the commercial with a wife and husband talking to a company about internet security while the husband keeps blurting out information he probably doesn't really want people to know. While mildly amusing, the commercial better hilights one of the key concerns of the internet: privacy.
When discussing church websites, there are three main privacy concerns we must address: Names, Photos, and Member Information.
Names is simply on this list because some people can be funny about having even just their name posted online. While most people are more than happy to see their name posted out in cyberspace, some people are afraid that it may be used to gather information on them. So, to be safe, always ask if it's ok for you to use someone's name on your church's website.
Photos can be a tricky item as well. Much like names, most people are more than happy to see their pictures online. They also add to the overall appeal of the website as they show people involved in the church. However, some people may not be as welcoming, so be sure to run it by them real quick and respect people's wishes if they do not want to be included.
Another concern with photos is safety. Try to avoid using photos of people with nametags, especially children, or at least blur the name out. While the likelihood of an individual using the image and name for the purpose of wrongdoing, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Lastly, and probably most relevantly, we also want to protect member information. While an online member directory is a great resource, we do not want to publicly advertise the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of our members for every mass-mailer, telemarketer, and spammer out there. If you do want to place a member directory on the web, please make sure that it is in a secure section of your site (i.e. password protected or only available to approved members registered on your site). Otherwise, you should probably stick with either a printed directory distributed to members or a directory file that can be e-mailed directly to members.
Regardless, be sure to protect the people that you include in your church's website. If they've entrusted you with information or images of themselves, it's your obligation to protect what they've give you to the best of your ability.