A couple of days ago, I shared a quote which emphasizes the importance of people in making your church website an effective tool for outreach:
Technology is not the hard part. For most ministries, spending less time on technology and more on people and processes will bring a better chance of success.
So how do you pick the right people to build your church website? Here are some thoughts, organized around three questions:
- What resources are already available in your church?
- Should you rely on volunteers or pay someone?
- Should you use a local web designer or one who specializes in church websites?
What resources (skills, time, money) are already available in your church?
Assess the resources you already have in your congregation. What skills do your people have which could help you build a new website? Who has skills in photography, writing, marketing, information technology, project management, or graphic design? If they have time, each of these people can contribute something to your church website project. However, it is important to note that an effective church website is a team effort which requires a variety of skills — both “hard” skills (such as programming and server administration) and “soft” skills (such as copywriting and photography).
Should you rely on volunteers or pay someone?
There is certainly a role for volunteerism when building a church website. Use as many volunteers as you can on non-mission-critical tasks. But because many aspects of building a church website are mission-critical, it is almost always unwise to rely wholly on volunteers.
Should you use a local web designer or one which specializes in church websites?
Church websites have some unique functionality requirements. One of the most difficult from a technological standpoint is the ability to host sermons. An online sermon library can easily consume 1,000s of megabytes of disk space on a web server. A local web design agency may not be familiar with the best way to solve this problem if their typical clientele consists of restaurants, plumbers, and dentists.
You get an experienced team with depth and breadth when you hire us
Five More Talents was founded by Douglas Vos in 2008 to help Christian leaders harness the power of the web for local ministry and global impact. Our growing team has a wide variety of experience and expertise, ranging from graphic design and copywriting to web programming and server administration
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