Greetings from hot and dry Arizona [Archive] - The Church Webmasters' Forum

zoe_blessed

Tue., Feb. 28, 2006, 10:04 pm

Hello everyone,

My name is LaWanda and the church I belong to is fairly new and my pastor ask if I would design the church website and bulletins. I said sure I can and then I had to go pray that God give me lot and lots of Grace to do it:)

I'm so glad I found this site!!!! Web design is sorta new to me. I went to school for programming and I did have a class that I had to design a website but I dont remember any of it :mad:. I also am thinking about taking some web design class at the community college.

I hope that I can make web design a business(if I can find the time) since I'm a stay home mom of 8 and I homeschool 4 of them.

I know that this website will be very helpful to be on my quest to become a Master Webmaster:)

God Bless

flutem3

Tue., Feb. 28, 2006, 11:37 pm

Hi, LaWanda,

Welcome!! I am new to this job myself. In fact, what I know I taught myself so you are already ahead of me. I notice that you do have a domain name so that is a good beginning.

What kind of software are you going to be using to build your church website? Or are you able to write the html yourself. I am not able to do that except for just a bit, but I have learned to use snippets on our website to good advantage.

Have you looked other places for assistance besides here? If your church is a denominational church (Methodist for example) some of their "corporate" websites have good forums as well.

However, the first question you need to ask yourself and be able to answer it in a specific way is: Why am I building this website? Do you have two very definite goals in mind? Who is your target audience? When you know the answers to these questions, you can consider others.

To whom am I responsible? How am I going to get information in a timely fashion? The reason I add that is because I chase people all over the place to get information. Am I going to design from scratch or use a template?

Another thing to be considered is how computer literate is your church and what kind of connections do they have? Our church, in general, is not very computer literate, and about 70% of them still have dial-ups.

And before you do a thing on your computer, make a mock-up of what you think you want to do before you start so that you will have a direction. You will find that you need to make many changes, but that's okay. At least have a plan of attack.

When I started doing our church website, I had zero knowledge of how to build a website and only a year's experience on the computer. I was my own teacher so you know I didn't have a good teacher. It was definitely the blind leading the blind. But you have some experience. That's good.

When you start in, you will find that though the journey is sometimes frustrating, you will be the person who gains the most from the website. It is a joy to do...at least it is for me!!

Have fun with it!! Ask as many questions as you want. Somebody here or someplace help you with problems, but remember to study as well. I know. I sound like a teacher. Well, I have been!! :D

I have an excellent beginner's guide that a professor from Georgia Tech wrote for us newbies on UMConnect. It is good, and if you would like, I will send it to you.

Have a good time.

Carol

www.wabashfirstumc.org (http://www.wabashfirstumc.org)