Hello from Felton, PA - looking for advise

[mikegrove_77]

I've been doing a lot of work on my church's web site. I think its great but I could be so wrong! I would love to have comments about it from some other people. please check it out and let me know what you think.

Also I would be interested in way to get the people in my church to go to it and use it to stay more connected.

Thanks for all your input, I look forward to have some productive conversations.

Mike

www.bethanyfelton.com (http://www.bethanyfelton.com/)

[mrbelfry]

Hi Mike

I had a quick look at your site and quite like it. It is nice and colourful however on my quick scan I noticed some typos especially on the first time visitors page. Fix those up and everything is ok imho

mrbelfry

[GuruGreg]

Yea Mike...most everything looks pretty good. The color scheme seems to be solid, but I just noticed that much of your news and announcements are rather far down the page. Maybe you could find a way to put them up closer to the top of the page? Just an idea...

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Nice looking site.

Getting congregation members to use the site is hard, I have been trying to get my congregation onboard for a long time. Here are some ideas I had
-Include short event listings in your sunday bulletin and have them go to the website for details.
-Do the same thing with specialty mailings ( specific ministry quarterlies, congregational meetings)
-If you have email newsletters start conversations in the email and have them follow the link to the website to respond. If you have captivating material around what they came for you should be able to hook them in.

On that note depending on the age of your congregation you may never have a high majority of involvement. Our team decided on shooting for 60% of the congregation as a site membership goal, since we couldn't see at least 25% of them ever using the site and another 10%-15% that dont get involved no matter what we do.

[flutem3]

Hi, Kyle,

Those are some good ideas. Thank you. One problem we have is that our congregation is one of lack of computer users, and the majority of those who have computers use them for email and nothing more.

However, the hope is the young people who are in the church. They are learning to use computers, of course. If I live long enough, I may see more action on the website.

Another thing that can be done is to put information that people cannot get anywhere else except on the church website. I do that all the time, but I seem to be one of the few people who know it is there. People just don't look.

I was very discourage when I sent out a survey about the website. First of all I got only 11 back...one of which checked the box which said, "I have no computer." Of the ones that returned I discovered that almost everyone had dial-up. One person said he/she wanted church history on the website. We have 5 pages of church history titled "church history." Another person said he/she want construction photos on the website. I have an entire page of them listed under "construction photos." It doesn't take anyone who is right bright to know that the people had not been to the website, or if they had, they hadn't been there long.

I think it is a tough issue. Part of it does depend on how computer literate the congregation is. If I had been able to go to church all this time, I would have told the congregation what was going on with it bit by bit so they would know more of what to look for. And when the construction is finished and I am able to get into the church, that is exactly what I am going to do. I have already warned the minister. :D

Carol

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Carol,

I know your pain half of our active congregation are the same way. I can't count how many times I have received an email something like "How do I log into the website? I say it on the newsletter." When the newsletter gives directions and the login isn't exactly hidden. One idea to introduce them to the web is to use Internet Evangilism Day (http://ied.gospelcom.net/) as a spring board. I am hoping that we will have a one hour talk during our normal bible study time to introduce people to the uses of the web for evangelism and our website in particular.

Kyle

[flutem3]

Carol,

I know your pain half of our active congregation are the same way. I can't count how many times I have received an email something like "How do I log into the website? I say it on the newsletter." When the newsletter gives directions and the login isn't exactly hidden. One idea to introduce them to the web is to use Internet Evangilism Day (http://ied.gospelcom.net/) as a spring board. I am hoping that we will have a one hour talk during our normal bible study time to introduce people to the uses of the web for evangelism and our website in particular.

Kyle

Hi, Kyle,

I have read about Internet Evangelism Day. However, since I am unable to go to church, there isn't anyone to do it. When the elevator is in, and I am able to get to church, I can do more...at least that is what I am hoping. Maybe we can do Internet Evangelism Day next year. I am aiming for it. I think I will be able to get into the church by then.

Thanks for your ideas. Keep them coming.

Carol

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Carol,

Another couple of ideas
1.) Talk with your pastor about any support from your regional body, they might be able to provide someone that could help you with the presentation
2.) You could have the leadership team at your church get trained and they could spread it to the whole congregation. Web ministry is a little confusing for non techies and most church volunteers don't know how to integrate it into ministry so a strategic planning session with a web specialist might get them on board. Maybe one of the guys on this site could do it?
3.) Start focusing on the churches youth or young adult ministries, give them a sub-site with their own domain, give them a community tool of some kind, put most of your effort there, and either they will really love you and thats it or the other ministries will want the same stuff and you have a captive audience for whatever you want.

Seeing that the direct approach is impossible for you these might be possible alternatives.

Kyle

[Websquad]

Mike, is the calendar feature of your web site something you developed, or copied from somewhere else, or provided by your Internet Service Provider?

bob
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I've been doing a lot of work on my church's web site. I think its great but I could be so wrong! I would love to have comments about it from some other people. please check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks for all your input, I look forward to have some productive conversations.

Mike

[mikegrove_77]

www.mychurchevents.com (http://www.mychurchevents.com)

Probably the best I've seen, and pretty easy to use.

[chrisb_ebc]

That calendar is not to bad. I am currently using this calendar system for the church website. Its a wonderful program. You can check it out here: http://www.easyphpcalendar.com - this one is a good one too. Just a thought. If your looking for a calendar app Bob.

[Guest]

Dear friend


You kindly linked to an Internet Evangelism Day page on your site, at
http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/forums/showthread.php?t=347


Internet Evangelism Day pages are no longer at http://ied.gospelcom.net and have moved to http://www.internetevangelismday.com


Please could you change your links so that they still work. Any inner site link which was previously
http://ied.gospelcom.net/somepage.php can be changed to
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/somepage.php

Grateful thanks.

Blessings,

Gweno