Website Brochure

[wbcderek]

Greetings,

At our church we provide a visitor's packet that spotlights our various ministries (Youth, Small groups, Seniors, Childrens, etc). To help spotlight our new website and hopefully to gain some volunteers I would like to create one for our website. Was wondering if anyone had anything along these lines that they would be willing to share, and also some input on areas that you feel your site visitors feel are most important.

Derek

[mrbelfry]

I've never done a brochure advertising our website but was hoping to do something soon for our church newsletter/magazine when I relaunch.

In my opinion the most useful things you can put on your site is the church address, contact numbers and the service times. Make these nice and prominent on your homepage. We've had families come to our church simply because they were able to tell where we were and what times we met. I cannot over emphasise how important I think these details are!

Our pastor is always saying "make it idiot proof" - don't make your visitors work to hard for basic information. You could have great pages on youth ministry which may not be relevant to over 50's and vice versa but everyone will need to know what time you meet and where. Hope this helps

[wbcderek]

I understand what needs to be on the website, but when you're trying to draw traffic to the site to see all of the necessities the question is, "What are the people looking for...?"

I know one of the key things that our site use that I believe is a draw is the ability to submit prayer requests 24/7. If they want to do this anonymously they have that ability and we then forward that on to our prayer team.

Another feature that I assume people would like to be able to utilize is our church calendar, of course that makes the difficulty that it has to be kept up-to-date.

Another feature that will hopefully catch on for us is the online directory. If this catches on we hope to use this in place of the old fashion printed directories that always seem to be out of date.

Highlighting these features and hopefully getting some people that will also want to begin assisting with the site will make the brochure worthwhile.

If after all is said and done our web ministry can assist someone getting connected than it's all worth while.

Derek

[flutem3]

I understand what needs to be on the website, but when you're trying to draw traffic to the site to see all of the necessities the question is, "What are the people looking for...?"

I know one of the key things that our site use that I believe is a draw is the ability to submit prayer requests 24/7. If they want to do this anonymously they have that ability and we then forward that on to our prayer team.

Another feature that I assume people would like to be able to utilize is our church calendar, of course that makes the difficulty that it has to be kept up-to-date.

Another feature that will hopefully catch on for us is the online directory. If this catches on we hope to use this in place of the old fashion printed directories that always seem to be out of date.:) Derek, no matter what happens building a website is worth doing...if only for yourself. What a joy it is to work with the church website, the Scriptures, the people I contact, etc. and the website has reconnected me to the church. I cannot get in the church because of masses of steps so I have been on the outside for many years.

I think pulling people into a website is one of the most difficult tasks we have. We can preach to the congregation so to speak, but I would like to reach beyond them if possible. I don't really know if it is. But I keep trying.

We have a prayer page on which the prayers are anonymous. It is used, at this time, very little. Part of the reason in my opinion is that people think their name is going to end up on a website some place. That, of course, is not true. We need to do a lot of teaching about the use of the email prayer.

I like the idea of an online directory. I assume you would have it password protected, correct. We are in the perfect position for extensive outreach/evangelizing or whatever term you wish to use. But the difficulty as I see it is to get people who might really benefit (which is all of us really) from learning about the Word of God to stop on our websites. I don't think most of us address that well. I think the most terrific situation would be for a person to become a Christian because of landing on a Christian website which actually would teach the person about Christ and God with the passion of a fine teacher. What a wonderful thing that would be!!! And we would probably never know it. I guess the best we can do is keep on keeping on...and pray like crazy. Learning a few skills helps too.

[David Gillaspey]

In my opinion the most useful things you can put on your site is the church address, contact numbers and the service times. Make these nice and prominent on your homepage. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

But as I've stated on this forum several times before, a large percentage of church websites don't include this basic information on the home page.

And it's not just about where your church is located, but also about where it's not located. Visitors to your site could live in the same city, but they might also be from the next state or province, or even from another country. Maybe they thought your church was the Grace Chapel (for example) in their city. But your church is actually the Grace Chapel in another city in another state entirely. Make it easy for visitors to figure out if your church is close enough to visit, or too far away. Respect their time.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[David Gillaspey]

I understand what needs to be on the website, but when you're trying to draw traffic to the site to see all of the necessities the question is, "What are the people looking for...?" [SNIP]What I'm hearing in this statement is, what do members what on the church website? If you listen only to members, you'll end up with a website focused only on the needs of members, not on unchurched people (in my opinion).

So, consider also gathering together some unchurched people and ask them what they would like to see on a church website. Include both moderns and postmoderns (that is, baby boomers and Gen-Xers).

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[wbcderek]

So, consider also gathering together some unchurched people and ask them what they would like to see on a church website. Include both moderns and postmoderns (that is, baby boomers and Gen-Xers).
I think that is an excellent idea but I'm not sure I know how to effectively do that. I may be trying to make it more difficult than you were actually meaning but this isn't something I've done before, getting a focus group so to say.

But my interest is now certainly piqued(is that even the right usage???) My thought is the larger your group the more accurate the results, would anyone else like to get together to create a poll, an exit interview almost from their sites (or other sites like bridge sites etc) that we can compile results together to get something we could all benefit from?

[David Gillaspey]

I think that is an excellent idea but I'm not sure I know how to effectively do that. I may be trying to make it more difficult than you were actually meaning but this isn't something I've done before, getting a focus group so to say.It depends on how many unchurched people you know. Do you have friends, acquaintances, and/or family members who are not Christian or don't go to church? No doubt the answer is yes.

(Don't answer the question here [publicly]. I'm not trying to put you or anyone on the spot.)

If a Christian webservant didn't have any unchurched friends or acquaintances, it would be hard, I suppose. If he or she did, then forming a focus group would be less hard or perhaps even easy. (But it mustn't be perceived as a deceitful way to invite them to church.)

I think there's always the danger of Christians (especially church staff members) becoming isolated from unchurched people. They end up having only Christian friends and acquaintances and don't know any unchurched people.

Dan Kimball, in his book on postmodern ministry, The Emerging Church (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0310245648), tells the story (p. 198) of Daniel Hill, a pastor serving in the postmodern youth ministry at Willow Creek Community Church (a very large Chicago-area church). He took a part-time job at Starbucks in order to be around unchurched people. Now the full story (as related by Kimball) is that Hill naively had assumed his co-workers would begin accepting his invitation to attend services at Willow Creek in just a matter of weeks. Two years later (at the time of the writing), Hill was still waiting for his first accepted invitation.

But I mention the story here as an illustration of a church staff member recognizing his need to be around unchurched people and doing something about it.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[generalhavok]

I've been part of online discussions with church webmasters for a couple of years now, and there seems to always be a struggle between making websites for church folks and making them for the unchurched. Personally, I don't see where the struggle really comes from. If we relate the services on a website to the services IN a church, we can see where people's priorities lie:

1. Look at what your church services are like...are they geared for stable, long-term members or are they geared for the first-timer coming through the door?

2. Are discussions at your church more likely to include the phrase "reaching the lost" or "helping our own"?

No value statements here at all...just pointing out that churches tend toward one or another. Fortunately, websites typically have more flexibility than entire churches do! Why can't a website strike a balance between providing meaningful information and services to its membership AND provide seeker-friendly stuff too?