Church Website inspiration

This is a great little post about how a church leveraged some of the free online resources for their church's website.

Jason

‘The Station’ vs. ‘The Warehouse’

Aug 25, 2009 - By Nate Beaird | Subscribe via RSS | Email Post | Print Post |

This is a Guest Post by Nate Beaird.

Some church media directors are fantastic web designers. I am not one of those church media directors. However, I’m creative and I know what I like, and what I don’t like. I like clean looks and I don’t like long loading waits.

After deciding what we wanted and what I wasn’t going to bring to the new site, I tried something a little different with our new site.

The idea for our site is to be a “station” for information, not a “warehouse.” This allows us to stay easy-to-navigate and utilize other third party resources instead of trying to “reinvent the wheel.”

Here are some of our thoughts:

Photos:

Instead of creating a page for photos on our site, we’ve created a Flickr account, and linked it from our site. This way there’s no lag on the loading time. This also frees up any staff that would otherwise have to upload the pictures to the site, because the volunteers can upload them to Flickr from the comfort of their home, or even from the event itself! Members from the church can then follow the link from our site to our Flickr account page and download the pics in a variety of sizes.

Videos:

Any video or TV commercial we produce can be seen on our YouTube channel. We, or anyone we give permission to can upload the videos from anywhere, and allows us to link or embed them on our site in a variety of sizes from YouTube.

Kids Games:

Since we are a family church, we’ve provided links to several children websites so kids can come to the Kid’s FunZone and play games on some approved sites. Because we cannot monitor these sites continuously, we’ve provided a disclaimer message for parents.

Social Networks:

Let’s face it…everyone is on Facebook, so we’ve linked our Facebook Group page as well as our Twitter account. Under “Leadership” on the site, you will find our leadership blogs. Again, by utilizing third-parties, we can be more versatile. If we lose a staff member, or gain a new one who has been a blogger for years before coming to us, we can add or subtract the link on our site.

Business Directory:

We moved the archive of our business directory to a simple free blog. Using the Label feature, we’ve created a categorized “mini-website” for Cornerstone businesses. Need to find a Spa? Just scroll down on the right side until you see “Spa” and click on it, all listings of Cornerstone members who run spas will show up. We’ve linked PDF’s for small group listings, registration forms for camps, and applications for the business directory- all can be downloaded.

The Media Player:

This is one of my babies. With the help of Erik at Lightcast Media, we were able to build a new media player that you’ll be able to leave open while you’re working on other projects, or download a sermon after you’ve heard it. You can also “embed” the video in a blog or website! We were sure to make sure only full-length videos could be embedded so nothing our pastors say will be taken out of context. This media player will be similar to Hulu in the end. In another couple weeks, we should also have the “share” option on the player as well. When our online store is up and running, we’ll add a “Purchase This Series Now” button that will let them buy the sermon they’re listening to (and like) with ease. I’m convinced that these new features will significantly increase viewership and average viewership time. It’s still in construction, but you can see it and use it now.

The Checklist:

Ok, this is not “techy” or amazing, but I really think it’s a great idea. We provide a list of items we need to keep our food pantry stocked so we can give to needy families. So if you’re interested in helping us buy some of these items, you can now go to the food pantry area of our site and download a PDF checklist of the items, print it, and take it with you to the store. Maybe you can’t make it to the store- then we’ve linked our online giving URL. What if you want to shop for the items, but you can’t get to the store? For you, we’ve linked an online grocery store where you can pick out the items, purchase, and ship right to us!

Remember, stay fluid. Stay available to new technology and social networks by letting your website be the “Station” instead of the “Warehouse.”

You have better things to do than spend you time trying to do something new that is already been done. If you’re interested in using the same website peeps we use, Clover Sites, check them out here.

[Image from Kim]