Any web designer should start with a plan for what a
particular web site is designed to achieve. Not all churches serve the same kinds of people in the same kind of way. In fact, there are a zillion kinds of churches scattered across entire groups of churches that differ from each other. So the question is, what does this (single) church need in a web site?
For example, a church I helped to plant in Loganville, GA, from the outset, defined itself as aggressively targeting the "unchurched and dechurched." That meant that we were not going to be inwardly focused, and we were not trying to appeal to people already at another church. As a mission-driven organization, we wanted everything we do to be oriented to that mission. Including the website.
The design criteria was therefor simplified. We don't struggle trying to serve two groups... our own members know what is going on by coming to church and participating in (mandatory) small groups. Our goal for the web site was focused upon drawing unchurched and dechurched people to Christ (through making a connection with our church.) We based major design elements around two critical observations.
1. We call this the "Barna" effect, mostly from his books on Church Marketing. We accept that the primary - if not the only - way people really are brought to church is if they are literally brought to church through a
personal connection with a member. So, we committed to fill our website with photos of members and activities, so that even if a web visitor makes a "cold call" on our site, they will go away having seen a lot of real people in our church... maybe the beginning of making a connection. Needless to say, we don't verbally claim authenticity and then use stock commercial lifestyle photos like some churches do in the hopes of looking slick! We use our real candid shots. You see what is here. Wrinkles and all.
You can also see the faces and names of all of our team leaders, group leaders, and administrative leaders. And staff too, of course. The idea is that if you visit once, and then go back to the site, you can start associating some names and functions with the faces you've met. You can get to know them easier. Reinforcing the connection.
2. We call this the "Ranier" effect, from "Surprising Insights from the Unchurched" book. Here the key ingredient is to recognize how important making a
connection with the pastor is in order to help a first time visitor make the decision to come back again. We hope that by visiting the site, you can make a personal connection with our pastor, and our staff, such that during your first "real" visit with us, you have a sense of already knowing them. Then, if a connection is made at Worship, it continues to be facilitated at the site. You can quickly learn a lot about them... very personalized, detailed backgrounds. Reinforcing the connection.
The last design goal was simply to try our best to present, in photos, the experience of life at our church. We emphasize photo essays about our worship service, our servant evangelism projects, our outreach and service ministries, and of course, our internal ministries such as children's and youth. The goal is to show it like it is... the strengths with the weaknesses... in the hopes of connecting on an authentic, personal level.
Does it succeed?
Our total budget for web development is the hosting cost of about $200/year. Everything is volunteered. It is not fancy. There is no -NO- flash. There are no -NO- games. The site is fun to the extent that life at our church is fun... which it is... not because we design the site to look fun, but because we try to let the site look like our life. We do not intend for the site to compel people to visit the site some more. We intend for the site to create a compelling interest to visit our church.
Our church plant existed on the web during the core team phase long before we even had a rental space to do worship in. It continues a presence in cyber-space that is very vital to our mission. Four years into its current design, we are now re-working a new site with DotNetNuke to move into the next phase, with the hope of being a little sharper looking, and a lot more participative. We hope to empower some of our ministry leaders with the ability to communicate via the web in their own way. We don't mail a church bulletin - it is "E-news" only with references back to the site... so we do get some mileage out of the site for internal use.
But I can tell you what the mission of the "new" DNN site is going to be...
same as it's always been. Making a personal connection over the impersonal Internet.
Ref:
http://theorchardchurch.org
In summary, I'd vote for tweaking the title of this thread slightly...
"Creating the web site that EACH church needs."
C YA - bill
Creating Websites that Churches Need
Re: Creating Websites that Churches Need
Somebody said he wanted to see pictures of the construction work going on. There is a link which says..."Construction Photos." It is a mystery to me. And the links are on the index page. 
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