# Church Websites



## Casey (May 25, 2009)

I'm working on redesigning my congregation's website and I'm looking for some ideas. What is your congregation's website designed to accomplish? What for outsiders and what for members?

If you include a member-only login, what's it for, and does anyone use it? We're thinking of creating a member-only login area for things like a church calendar, but I'm wondering if anyone will actually use it. Do any of your churches have an actual blog? What kind of information is posted on it (besides bulletins and audio sermons)?

Do you use a CMS? If so, which? How has it worked for you? I'm thinking of giving WordPress a go, but am also considering Drupal.

Please feel free to post links to your own congregation's website if you think it's worthy of emulation. 

Thanks!


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## PresbyDane (May 25, 2009)




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## Scottish Lass (May 25, 2009)

ForMinistry has an easy template website design that's fairly user-friendly and can cost as little as nothing ($20 gets a custom domain name). 

You can find ours in my signature. 

We do not have a members-only section--everything we post is open to visitors and members alike. I think I'm going to play around with adding a Google calendar link to it. Tim's blog does link to it as well, though it's hosted separately.


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## CredoFidoSpero (May 25, 2009)

My church's website has the usual information for everyone - where we meet, what we believe, etc. And we also post weekly Bible studies and mp3's of the Sunday sermons for people to download. 

We do have member's only sign in areas. It's a relatively large church, and some of the different ministries use it to post information/schedules/etc. specific to each group. There are also members-only calenders that are set up for comfort ministries where people can sign up if there is a need to provide meals or childcare for families with sudden illness or a death in the family or other circumstances like that.

But I have no idea how the website is set up or hosted.


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## ClayPot (May 25, 2009)

The website should definitely have the churches purpose and beliefs - this is proven to very helpful when people are looking for a new church and many people have visited as a result.

If you church has mp3 sermons that would be good.

We do have a members only section for our church - one of the most useful features actually; we have an online directory that you must login to access. You can find the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the members. This is very helpful and is a great way to facilitate communication among the church body.


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## Casey (May 25, 2009)

Current site: Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church *|* Home

New site in the making: Westminster Presbyterian Church | OPC
(Spent Fri night, most of Sat, and most of today working on this . . . )


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## JonathanHunt (May 25, 2009)

Casey, nobody in our church uses our website, it is all for outsiders.


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## Edward (May 25, 2009)

To answer one of the questions, First Presbyterian Church Jackson MS (PCA) has a blog that can be reached from their website:

The First Presbyterian Church of Jackson Mississippi

First Presbyterian Church - Jackson Mississippi


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## Webservant (May 25, 2009)

I am in the process of redesigning our site, too. It was constructed using FrontPage, and slowly evolved into a mish-mash of hand-coded HTML and php. We will be going to CMS very soon.


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## Curt (May 25, 2009)

We also use ForMinistry for our website at www.CovenantBC.net. We link to our pages at SermonAudio. There's no sign-in, but we have a google calendar, a preaching schedule and some church history.

We also maintain a blog which is for congregation members to barter, borrow, buy and sell. That is by invitation only.


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## Semper Fidelis (May 25, 2009)

I've set up many Church websites using Wordpress:

Central Baptist Church, Okinawa, Japan
Providence Church, Temecula, CA
Hope of Christ Church, Stafford, VA

I like the extensibility of Wordpress as well as the array of supported plugins. I prefer a CMS to straight HTML due to the ease of extending the site. It is pretty obnoxious to have to upload every html file every time you add a page to a site (even if you're using a good template).

The Wordpress CMS also lends itself to adding a Blog or other features (like member's only portions). Whether or not you are using Member's Only sections, the ability to give others posting ability allows you to let others extend the site without having to do all the work for them. Because the editor is WYSIWYG, the contributors have to no virtually nothing about websites and can still keep their section of the site up to date.


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## Scottish Lass (May 25, 2009)

ForMinistry is also WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get--no knowledge of code necessary).


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## Skyler (May 25, 2009)

CaseyBessette said:


> I'm working on redesigning my congregation's website and I'm looking for some ideas. What is your congregation's website designed to accomplish? What for outsiders and what for members?



We don't have one yet, but we're tossing the idea around. At this point, we would have two main uses for it--one, the church calendar; and two, making sermons available for download.



> If you include a member-only login, what's it for, and does anyone use it? We're thinking of creating a member-only login area for things like a church calendar, but I'm wondering if anyone will actually use it. Do any of your churches have an actual blog? What kind of information is posted on it (besides bulletins and audio sermons)?



I could see why the calendar could be kept behind a login--to keep, say, birthdays from being broadcast to casual passersby who may or may not use them for some devious scheme or another. It would seem, though, that keeping it behind a login would be a little too much hassle for the otherwise convenience of having it online. I'd say keep the calendar public, just don't put anything on it you wouldn't want outsiders to be able to see.

This may be different for your case, I don't know.


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## Poimen (May 26, 2009)

Our church site.

Here's why.


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## Webservant (Jun 21, 2009)

Semper Fi/Rich, I want to thank you for your encouragement. Shortly after our exchange, I decided to dive in and learn how to set up a page using WordPress. 

Here is the result (it will go live at the end of June). Aisquith Presbyterian Church


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## Edward (Jun 21, 2009)

Webservant said:


> Semper Fi/Rich, I want to thank you for your encouragement. Shortly after our exchange, I decided to dive in and learn how to set up a page using WordPress.
> 
> Here is the result (it will go live at the end of June). Aisquith Presbyterian Church



Looks nice. You might want to throw in a map or directions, perhaps a note on where visitors might park.


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## Webservant (Jun 21, 2009)

Edward said:


> Webservant said:
> 
> 
> > Semper Fi/Rich, I want to thank you for your encouragement. Shortly after our exchange, I decided to dive in and learn how to set up a page using WordPress.
> ...


I have one of those on our old site (a link to Google Maps). I added it to the new on in the little "Contact Info" sidebar panel. As to parking, LOL, we have no parking lot.


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## Edward (Jun 21, 2009)

Webservant said:


> Edward said:
> 
> 
> > Webservant said:
> ...



An even better reason for something telling folks about the parking situation/possible options. (We are an urban church, as well. Parking is one of the larger problems. We do have maps showing licit locations for on street and off street parking). I see the link to the map now. I missed it the first time through.


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## Curt (Jun 21, 2009)

Edward said:


> Webservant said:
> 
> 
> > Edward said:
> ...



Oh, how I would enjoy having parking problems. We are rural, have a parking lot, and would love to fill it.

The site looks pretty good to me.


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## E Nomine (Jun 21, 2009)

I remember looking at a flashy church website a couple of years ago where the calendar and ministry information was all secret, members-only content. It was a real turn off.


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## Webservant (Jun 21, 2009)

E Nomine said:


> I remember looking at a flashy church website a couple of years ago where the calendar and ministry information was all secret, members-only content. It was a real turn off.


We have a members-only area too, but it's our member directory.


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## CovenantalBaptist (Jun 22, 2009)

Webservant said:


> Semper Fi/Rich, I want to thank you for your encouragement. Shortly after our exchange, I decided to dive in and learn how to set up a page using WordPress.
> 
> Here is the result (it will go live at the end of June). Aisquith Presbyterian Church



Brother Rich,

Which WP theme did you use? It's nice and clean.

Blessings,


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## Webservant (Jun 22, 2009)

CovenantalBaptist said:


> Webservant said:
> 
> 
> > Semper Fi/Rich, I want to thank you for your encouragement. Shortly after our exchange, I decided to dive in and learn how to set up a page using WordPress.
> ...


I agree. The Theme is called Panorama.


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