Article in Leadership Magazine

[urbantruth]

My Pastor gave me this article from a leadership magazine that was written by greatchurchwebsites.org.

There was a lot of good info but some of it is out dated and trend following instead of trend setting.

If you are want relevant and bleeding edge info on design check out anything by computer arts, www.comupterarts.co.uk

I think the intentions are good but it's frustrating when organizations like greatchurchwebsites.org push no longer relevant strategies when I'm tiring to push for building the future instead of following it.

[flutem3]

Mark wrote:

"There was a lot of good info but some of it is out dated and trend following instead of trend setting.

If you are want relevant and bleeding edge info on design check out anything by computer arts, www.comupterarts.co.uk


And a great big welcome to you too~~Would you kindly give me an illustration of what you consider "out dated and trend following instead of trend setting? I would really like to know. I enjoy the Great Church Websites and forum a lot and participate frequently. Therefore, I am a bit biased in my opinion of it. No web site will please or help everyone. But I think that Great Church Websites is terrific. I have learned much from it. I have much to learn.

I went to the website your suggested. It does not work as a link from here since the word, computer, is spelled incorrectly. But since I am such a super sleuth, :D I figured it out. I don't know why that is considered "relevant and bleeding edge info." I need for you to fill me in on that as well. I checked your church website out. It looks nice. Did you use "relevant and bleeding edge info" when you designed it? If you did, would you kindly tell me how you applied it. I am a newbie at this stuff and don't recognize some things when they are right under my nose!!! And that's the truth.

In the meantime welcome to the forum. Lend your expertise to the rest of us. It is a good place to exchange information.

Carol

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for posting.

My Pastor gave me this article from a leadership magazine that was written by greatchurchwebsites.org.Which magazine? I'd be very interested to know.

Eight months ago, I sent an article, first published in a local Christian newspaper at the beginning of this year, to about 100 Christian magazines and newspapers around the country. Never heard back from most of them, which I expected. Recently (September 6) The Mennonite magazine published the article. I found out after the fact. I'm OK with that, but I mention this to point out that they didn't give me a chance to update anything that might be outdated. If the magazine you are referring to is another magazine, and not The Mennonite, then the same will be true: the article was published without my knowledge (but with my permission, in advance) and I was not given an opportunity to update it, if anything needed to be updated.

There was a lot of good info but some of it is out dated and trend following instead of trend setting. Please be more specific. What was outdated? What was trend following (as you call it)?

If the article you are referring to is the one I mentioned above, which was titled The Crisis in Church Website Design (see http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/crisis_in_website_design.php), then I must repectfully disagree. I've provided the link so that other forum members can form their own opinion about the article.

I think the intentions are good but it's frustrating when organizations like greatchurchwebsites.org push no longer relevant strategies when I'm tiring to push for building the future instead of following it.Great Church Websites is a legally incorporated Oregon not-for-profit organization with an unpaid staff of one ? me.

It may be that your expectations are too high, therefore. Great Church Websites is not an organization with dozens of employees and unlimited financial wherewithall. Actually, to date, I'm still a few hundred dollars short of even recouping my costs to date.

It happens that I have many other projects going on in my life, so I have limited time to devoted to my website. However, at the moment, it happens that I am reviewing and updating the websites in my database of the best of church website design, because this is something I do semiannually. This review will take another week to complete. As part of this, I'll be reviewing websites of churches located in Arizona and a few other states I've not gotten to yet (to find new home pages to add to my database). Your site is very well designed. I expect that I likely will choose to include it my database.

About that database: I founded Great Church Websites to find and showcase examples of the best of church website design. The database that resulted ? a virtual gallery of the best of church website design ? is unique. I'm pretty sure you won't find anything like it anywhere else.

I am quite content that Great Church Websites is not the world's greatest website. I feel no need to be better than any other site. In fact, on my website, I gladly provide links to other sites covering the subject of church websites and encourage people to visit those website. As stated, mine was founded to provide in one place a collection of the best of church website today, which to my knowledge no one else has done or is doing. I'm content with that.

Later I launched this forum, which, by the way, is where you likely will find the trendsetting you believe to be lacking from my site. That's because the real experts on church website design are people such as yourself and other members of this forum. So I invite you to share with us, by posting to the forum, your knowledge and expertise regarding church website design, so that we may all benefit from it and grow together in our ministry.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites
(and forum host and administrator)