Concern about the church website

[rePete]

Hi all,

Here's my story and question.

I have been the sole web-minster at our church for the last 10 years since I started our website. I saw the need and accepted the challenge. A few years ago I wanted the church leadership to view the website as more of an outreach tool. I asked them to be responsible for the domain registration and hosting, which they gladly accepted. I was still the webmaster.

Over the next couple of years I made attempts to get from FrontPage to CSS but the maddening issue of IE vs FF vs 'you name it' killed my interest. Fast forward to the middle of Jan, 2009 when I found that Wordpress would do what I wanted. I redesigned the site and implemented it here. (http://www.church.hanratty.org)

Unbeknownst to me the church board finally contracted with a web developer to get a site going with Expression Engine as a CMS. I have stated to the associate pastor and members of the board that I will take my site offline as soon as the other one is functional.

I have spoken with the new designer and he was impressed with my effort which has a lot of functionality. I asked him if the church board had given him a list of things they wanted. He said the only direction they gave him was that the site should be able to be maintained by a secretary.

My concern is that the church board/assistant pastor doesn't know what they want or what is even possible. There is no ongoing contract for backups or regular maintenance with the developer. I'm afraid this site will become stagnant quickly. I have offered my service freely but have no response from the church. Are my fears unfounded? Can a site be kept up to date via CMS with no other maintenance?

Feel free to discuss.
Thanks for listening,
Pete

[StubbyD]

Are my fears unfounded? Can a site be kept up to date via CMS with no other maintenance?

Hi Pete and thanks for sharing.

Can a CMS based site be kept up to date with no other maintenance. In short, yes it can and they are designed to be as easy to use as say MS Word.

That said, what happens when the CMS itself (not the content) requires security updates; a system upgrade; a version upgrade or even some general maintenance (and here this would be engine specific so couldn't really expand)?

What if one of the updates or patches breaks your site design?

What if the secretary withthe best intention in the world deletes something they shouldn't?

And so on and so on. In short, no I don't believe a CMS can be run by just updating content, though I feel certain this is the way some do it.

Ultimately the Church has to answer one question ... have they got a web plan or philosopy? To put it another way, what do they hope the website will achieve?

Hope this helps?

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Pete,

I must say, the church board showed a great lack of appreciation for your efforts with the site if they didn't consult you before hiring a designer. You appeared to have graciously chosen to overlook that slight.

The point of the CMS (web Content Management System) is to make it easy for someone to keep a site up to date, assuming there's fresh content to be uploaded at all. It doesn't sound like there's a plan in place to ensure a regular flow of new and updated content for the site. I wonder if that is the church secretary's job, also?

A good CMS should permit an "undo" by keeping track of earlier versions of articles, and allowing the website administrator to undo a deletion or select and publish an earlier version of an article.

[olddirtret]

Hello Pete

Your current web site is very informative and provides the viewer with a good overview of the church. You should be praised for the great job you have done.

I can understand that the Board wants to have a web site that can be maintained by more then one person. But have they thought this out? With most churches, money is tight at this time and an outside developer will cost them money. Can an outside developer really convey the church message?

A CMS is not a bad thing. Our Church http://firstwesleyanship.org uses Joomla http://extensions.joomla.org and it is free. A large amount of modules are free. There must be regular monitoring of the web site to keep the information fresh. Also updates may have to be applied to the CMS as they become available.

I see that Expression Engine is limited and is not free above the core module http://expressionengine.com/overview/pricing

IMHO - The Board should have done a more in depth investigation into what was available in the CMS area before the they made a decision.

Tom

[rePete]

I agree that the church has taken a 'ready, fire, aim' approach. And that's what has me concerned. I don't really feel offended as much as I am dismayed about their approach and feel it WILL end badly.

What I think I might do, given the chance, would be to let the secretary update the site as far as calendar and some other minor features. I would produce the artwork. Sort of a text/graphics sharing. There should be plenty of content to be put up as we are a pretty busy church.

I guess the next step is to actually talk to the leadership and get their ideas on my involvement.

Thanks alot for listening and sharing. I value all the input.

(btw, Wordpress was relatively easy to get this setup quickly but it doesn't have 'undo' unless there's a plugin. I'll go look.)


Pete

[JackWolfgang]

(btw, Wordpress was relatively easy to get this setup quickly but it doesn't have 'undo' unless there's a plugin. I'll go look.)

The latest version offers revision tracking, but I am not sure if you can revert to a previous revision. Anyone else know?

[rePete]

Jack,

From the reading I've done recently this is only a revision history field and not a copy of the post as it was.

Interesting thought though!

Pete