Big Church Websites - Comment

[sstress]

I am so impressed with the very large church website projects some of you guys are working on... content management systems, bandwidth and hosting conerns, leading edge multimedia, and even e-commerce!

Wow!!

I think I'll stick with the churches with 100 or so members ;)

I just wanted to say, God bless you for your efforts and your dedication.

[flutem3]

I am so impressed with the very large church website projects some of you guys are working on... content management systems, bandwidth and hosting conerns, leading edge multimedia, and even e-commerce!

Wow!!

I think I'll stick with the churches with 100 or so members ;)

I just wanted to say, God bless you for your efforts and your dedication.

Michael, no matter what size the church, the process is the same. A small church deserves the same quality of web site that a large church does. The main difference you will discover in a smaller church, perhaps, is lack of resources. Of course, any kind of church can be stingy with providing a budget for a web site. For example, our web site does not appear on the budget any place at all. I hope they are getting more than they are paying for!! :D

Carol

[sstress]

Hey Carol, I agree with you! I put my best effort into any website I build regardless of scale. My only shocker is the realization that some churches are doing the things I have only done for major profit-center companies... it makes me tired to think about it :)

I have heard about large churches but I've never been to one. Reading the posts on this site, I realized that there is a LOT going on that I wasnt aware of... and also realized in my own heart that I didnt want to work on a website for a church with such tremendous goals and demands (so far I have only done simple church sites as a volunteer and have had a lot of fun). I do understand that the demand for all of this fancy tech is only a reflection of the number of resources and that a more sophistocated approach would be needed to keep up with all of the info and content.

But in reality, I can't help but to ask.... is it needed? Does the church see a return? Do they see ROS? (return on souls?)

I have been troubled with this perception that if a church becomes just like what I experience in the real world with all of the noise and distractions of modern day... where do I go as a lost person to find peace during those precious first steps when my heart is hurting and nothing makes sense? Even though I didn't know Him yet, my soul screamed for quiet and the solid foundation of love and I didnt want bells and whistles. I wanted simplicity. Peace. And a small, loving, people focused church during a funeral was exactly where I ended up when I was saved and heard the voice of God for the first time.

Ecommerce? CMS? I get it... makes sense. But it seems too much like the world today. And maybe the same argument could made about a simple HTML website. I'm sure this is coming from lack of understanding, but that's where I'm at and I can only pray that these supersites help bring the people into the church and that ultimately they "hear".

Since all of this is new strategy for the church, I guess we'll find out in time.

[flutem3]

Hi, Mike (or do you prefer Michael?),

The web site, in my opinion, needs to reflect the church. I have not been to a huge church either. Our church averages 219 people at the 10:00 AM service. I am not certain of the total membership. But this is a town of churches. The town has 11,000 people in it and 31 churches...and the same number of restaurants of all kinds.

I think bells and whistles are fun. But just because we can do them doesn't mean we should do them. Some web sites look as though they are advertising for the designer's expertise. And other web sites say little about worship on them. Those are the ones I don't understand at all. They say lots about other events in the church, but they leave out worship and Sunday School or write it in such small letters that the information is hard to find.

I think you can do a simple, clean good looking web site for any size church. What makes the biggest difference, I think, is the time required to keep up a huge site unless there are others who do sections of it. Some churches have a Youth Minister who among other things is in charge or that part of the site. I know one church in which the web master pulls everyone else's work together. But there are many people who work on the site.

That would not work in our case, for example, since we don't have a lot of computer users who feel competent to do something like that. And we have one who would take it over...and drop it the first time she was busy with another project.

One advantage of a small site is that you have control over the entire thing. It is your baby so to speak. The disadvantage, of course, is that it is also your sole responsibility. There is nobody to blame...unless people do not get material to you. I have had that happen and have eliminated three different pages for lack of content.

But I, too, admire the expertise of the people on this forum. I am not close to them in ability, but I admire what they can do with a computer. It is a good place to learn!

Carol

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Hey Carol, I agree with you! I put my best effort into any website I build regardless of scale. My only shocker is the realization that some churches are doing the things I have only done for major profit-center companies... it makes me tired to think about it :)

I have heard about large churches but I've never been to one. Reading the posts on this site, I realized that there is a LOT going on that I wasnt aware of... and also realized in my own heart that I didnt want to work on a website for a church with such tremendous goals and demands (so far I have only done simple church sites as a volunteer and have had a lot of fun). I do understand that the demand for all of this fancy tech is only a reflection of the number of resources and that a more sophistocated approach would be needed to keep up with all of the info and content.

But in reality, I can't help but to ask.... is it needed? Does the church see a return? Do they see ROS? (return on souls?)

I have been troubled with this perception that if a church becomes just like what I experience in the real world with all of the noise and distractions of modern day... where do I go as a lost person to find peace during those precious first steps when my heart is hurting and nothing makes sense? Even though I didn't know Him yet, my soul screamed for quiet and the solid foundation of love and I didnt want bells and whistles. I wanted simplicity. Peace. And a small, loving, people focused church during a funeral was exactly where I ended up when I was saved and heard the voice of God for the first time.

Ecommerce? CMS? I get it... makes sense. But it seems too much like the world today. And maybe the same argument could made about a simple HTML website. I'm sure this is coming from lack of understanding, but that's where I'm at and I can only pray that these supersites help bring the people into the church and that ultimately they "hear".

Since all of this is new strategy for the church, I guess we'll find out in time.

Breaking through the noise. That's a question that is plaguing churches as of late. Unlike commercial marketers who know that they must continue to create more clutter in hopes to break through everyone else's clutter, we churches struggle between being noticed in an every increasingly ad driven world with the idea of church being a sanctuary from the the outside world a pace to find peace. I believe you are right time will sort it all out. In the meantime all we can do is trot along.

[StubbyD]

I have heard about large churches but I've never been to one. Reading the posts on this site, I realized that there is a LOT going on that I wasnt aware of...
Indeed there is alot going on. I consider myself highly PC literate, I should be it's been my career for 22yrs, but I'm still amazed by design and simplicity.

Large is one of those debatable terms ....In the town where I live the church I attend is the largest, in terms of adult membership, of any of the churches here and we are approx 150 ********** adults with all the children on top of that. Does this make us a large church? For here yes but we aren't a Saddleback or a Hillsongs for sure.

But in reality, I can't help but to ask.... is it needed? Does the church see a return? Do they see ROS? (return on souls?)
Heh - I like that ... ROS. instead of ROI.
You ask does the church see a return, I contend back.. does it really matter if it is only ever one person that is impacted? That's one more that wouldn't have joined, been affected, whatever if it isn't done.

As to needed - well that's highly subjective. It's a marketeers dream because they'll give you the stats to prove your desired answer. I know I could go round our membership tomorrow and almost to a person I'd be able to tell you whether they are for it, agin it, or on the fence. The big thing for us is that the pastor finally realised it after I'd badgered him for years (as have others).

[StubbyD]

approx 150 ********** adults
WEIRD.

Why has the word r e g i s t e r e d come out as all ***'s ??

[flutem3]

WEIRD.

Why has the word r e g i s t e r e d come out as all ***'s ??

lol Something on this forum must think that is a dirty word or some such thing.

In many ways I agree with you on worship. I want to get away from the hubbub of daily goings-on and have a place which is peaceful and quiet. I guess that makes us contemplative worshippers. I also prefer the music to be written by Bach and company. However, there is a lot of good sacred music.

I was just taken to task for saying the above in the other forum I frequent. They seemed to think I had said that the other kinds of worship were not worthy of being called worship. But I did not say that. All I said was my preference. I don't like loud bands no matter what kind of music is being played.

And I agree that somehow a church web site needs to be different from other ones. But it is amazing when we look at lots of web sites just how similar they are.

I wish I knew the answers. I would be making a much better web site than we currently have...which is better than the first one. I still am a beginner, but I don't consider myself a novice any more. :D

Carol

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Stu,

A word was "censored" -- any forum admin creates a list of words to be censored by the forum software in this manner, to stop spammers. The same thing/word happened to me last week. I'll check into the matter later tonight. I'll need to take some word out of the censor list, it appears.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
Forum admin

[David Gillaspey]

OK, we'll try a test -- 150 registered members

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey

[David Gillaspey]

"Registered" was part of a three-word phrase. Only the phrase as a whole should have triggered the asterisk thing. I removed the entire phrase from the censor list.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
Forum admin

[sabrinawise1]

One of the most important things for bigger churches is to not just use their church website for marketing. I really believe that is a waste of time and money. A church website whether big project or small can and should be used to accomplish some purposes. If the primary accomplishment is advertising, I think we've all missed the mark with church website design.

Our primary focus should be to use the web as a tool. Businesses, do, why not God's people? Business use it to make money, we can use it to make disciples!

[JackWolfgang]

I am so impressed with the very large church website projects some of you guys are working on... content management systems, bandwidth and hosting conerns, leading edge multimedia, and even e-commerce!

Wow!!

I think I'll stick with the churches with 100 or so members ;)

I just wanted to say, God bless you for your efforts and your dedication.

Our church isn't more than about 200 members, and we are going content management system. It takes the stress off one person keeping it up.

[mickmel]

If the primary accomplishment is advertising, I think we've all missed the mark with church website design.

I agree that the primary goal of a church site shouldn't be advertising, but I think that it should be a pretty high priority for most churches.

I'm not talking about advertising against other churches. I see that happen a lot and it's incredibly stupid. However, if you can use your church website to advertise against other worldly activities, you're doing a good thing.

Case in point - take children's flag football. I'm sure the YMCA does a great job of teaching football skills, but I think our church does also. If we can get a non-Christian family to come to our church for flag football, that's a great way to get them started. They'll hopefully see that Christians can be good people and slowly become more interested in this whole "Jesus thing".

I'm trying hard to do that using good search engine optimization, but I'm sure it can be done other ways. For example, if you Google for children's flag football marietta (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGGL%2CGGGL%3A2006-41%2CGGGL%3Aen&q=children%27s+flag+football+marietta&btnG=Search) (our city), we come up first. Not a bad place to be.

Anyhow, just pointing out that using a site for advertising can certainly be a good thing, though again I agree that it shouldn't be the top priority.

[Faithhb_lutheran]

I would go one step further, advertising should be the main point of any church website, the job of the church is to advertise. We are called to go and spread the good news to the ends of the world, if that isn't the greatest advertising goal I don't know what is. This highlights a point that gets under my skin a lot. Whenever you talk about the church using operational terminology, you get this backlash of "the church isn't a business" no "it's the business" is usually the response, at least here in america people can't seem to distinguish between a general business ideas and profiteering twists. It really annoys me.