Birds of a Feather: Making a Unified Front of Your Church and Website

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.