Starting Up A Church Website

We have used Forministry for some time and find that it is a good place to start. My wife is the "webmaster" (mistress?) and finds that it is a good service to present our church simply. Many websites have too much on them, and do not present the church in a "nutshell".We are also a small church and thank God for Forministry. Our site is www.forministry.com/01510fbc

 

Trotter,

I have some links at: http://www.houseofmyrrh.org/webdes.htm

That may help.

my site: http://www.houseofmyrrh.org was 'hand-coded'.

Check your PM's

 

Here is the link to my church's website:

http://www.immanuelhomepage.org/

And here is the link to the forum recently started:

http://immanuelforum.org/phpbb/index.php

Pastork

 

Trotter,
I started my web site about 3 years ago with Home With God.Com.
I have had no problems with them and it is a free web site. I too am from a very small church however my web site is personal instead of for the Chruch. I write poetry, paint, and write music and enjoy sharing my ability with others. The only request I have is for you to contact me if you use anything from my web site. Others are involved in some of the music that I write. I make all of my background designs and would be happy to share some of them with you. Sorry this comes at such a late date after your post.
My web site is http://www.our.homewithgod.com/lakcope
My email address is: [email protected]
Hope I have been of some help.

 

hi there if you are looking for what you need to put on a website, i have a worksheet i give to clients to help them plan out their website as to topics, content, menus, colors and so on. it is in MSword format, if you want it, just drop me an email!

Linda
ChristianGraphicDesign.com

 

I am not a proffesional webmaster. Just started my churches website last November. I had no experience and my helper had a little. We have a young lady who is helping us now from our chuch and she has done them before and has taken several classe on web design. We will be updating it in the near future.
www.laurelstreetcommunitychurch.org . We used Bravenet , they offer different service levels. The basic one is free.

 

Hello,
Here is our churchs website.
www.manistiquebiblechurch.com the picture page isn't complete yet but we're working on it. Also working on putting streaming audio.
Maybe it can give you some idea's.
Barb

 

Wow, thanks for this thread Trotter. My church doesn't have a web site I was considering offering to set one up for them. Thanks for the ideas and the links.

Kim

 

Trotter, I work in web site usability analysis, credibility assessment, and content writing.

I'm not trying to sell you my services, because I'm overworked already.

This Baptist Board is incredibly good. Learn from it. "Sit tight, we're taking you back to..." stuff like that, here on the BB, is advanced technique, very few sites have their act together like this BB site. Learn from it, please. Look at how easy it is to do things, etc.

Anybody can put up a schlocky messed up web site, the WWW is full of garbage. Please take this project very seriously. Find a sharp college kid who knows HTML and Web creation tools, who can help intelligently.

Do-it-yourself sites usually look bad and perform worse. Be very careful. A web site represents your church. Treat with respect.

But as a brother in Christ, I can get you pointed in the right direction:

Go to www.useit.com for awesome guidance from the leading expert in web usability, Jakob Nielsen.

Go to any decent bookstore and get books on usability, web design, and online writing.

Nick Usborne's NET WORDS (paper $16.95) is terrific book on online writing.

Get WEB DESIGN: THE COMPLETE REFERENCE by Thomas A. Powell (paper $39.99) for technical and general guidelines and rules for web sites. Slug through it, it will be good for you. You can skip the HTML code stuff and stick with the info text.

Get WEB STYLE GUIDE (paper $18.95, yalebooks.com) for nice 4 color photos of good web sites, and great, authoritative information.

You can't just throw a web site up and expect people to love it. You must spend many hours, weeks, years perfecting your knowledge--and revising or totally redoing your site.

It's extremely difficult to do it right. Any construction project is hard, but worth it.

For fast wisdom to get oriented, check out Jakob Nielsen books and useit.com--you will get really smart really fast. Visit church sites, take notes on what's good and what's horrible. Most web sites are pretty poor as far as usability and online writing quality.

Good grace to you in this very holy and difficult adventure!

 

As one who looks at lots of web sites, the most annoying are those with streaming midi files. A good web site with good content doesn't need a rinky dink midi tune to trash it up. Just my opinion.

 

I personally don't care for MIDI music in web pages! It loads slower for people on dialup. Plus sometimes the MIDI makes mistakes and might start in the middle of the song and make a loud pop when opening the web page at first. Those are just my personal feelings and opinions on MIDIs.

 

Hiya Trotter ,

uh huh I agree. I have four web pages I have built from nothing. My latest is "Kristi Ann's Haven". It's a Labor of Love for God building my newest site YaY! I have a lot of knowledege in URLs and HTML coding.

I am not an expert. "Everytime I feel in control, God says woe young lady, I am in Charge" uh huh Love You Lord & thankie for the reminder" "God is in the Drivers seat and I am just His passenger in this journey we call life"!

Love Bro

Kristi Ann

 

Not to brag or anything, but check out fbceasley.org. I've done most of it by hand, but I have copied here and there from other sites.

I can get you free hosting if you need it (for like a domain or something).

 

I am not a professional but I put together a website and maintain it for my church. Basically do not get discouraged. Take it one page at a time and before you know it you get like me with over 70 pages. Your Pastor I am sure will have ideas on what he would like on teh site, and maybe other memebers. I have a picture page with links leading to all our functions. Here is the wesite, feel free to look around it and if you need help or have a question I would be happy to help if I can. MY CHURCH WESITE

 

I am a Pastor located in Massachusetts, and
I help churches, ministries and small businesses to create meaningful websites.

It's a part-time business that I run to supplement my bi-vocational pastorate.

If you need some help from someone you can trust, and someone who has been there, feel free to contact me.

PastorNick