Ten of the Greatest Church Websites
Here's a quick compilation of what I consider to be ten of the greatest Church websites I've seen. This list is by no means exhaustive. Because we travel and I surf the web keeping an eye on what God is doing around the world, I've been able to notice the sometimes subtle, sometimes distinct difference in quality when it comes to church websites.
Church websites are so important for Generation Y, and pulling in outsiders to your community of faith. When my wife and I spent a few months in Seattle a year and a half ago, we literally chose our churches to visit off a google search. If your church doesn't make it to the first page of a google search it may be missing presenting itself to a certain group of my generation who don't hear about it through word of mouth.
Here's some good ones to model after (in no particular order):
1. Northstar Church, Frisco, TX, Pastor Blaine Bartel
2. Mars Hill, Seattle, WA, Pastor Mark Driscoll
3. Generation Church, Seattle, WA, Pastor Judah Smith
4. LifeChurch.tv, Edmond, OK, Pastor Craig Groeschel
5. Harvest Christian Fellowship, Riverside, CA, Pastor Greg Laurie
6. Hillsong, Australia, Pastor Brian Huston
7. United, Australia, Pastor Phil Dooley
8. Bethlehem Baptist, Minneapolis, MN, Pastor John Piper
9. Revolution Church, Kansas City, MO, Pastor Eric Huffman
10. Cedar Creek, Perrysburg, OH, Pastor Lee Powell
Web designs don't have to cost a fortune, and don't have to be complicated. In fact, the best one's are simple. For each of the website mentioned above, I even have several things I think that could make them even better - most of my opinions have to do with simplification. It's extremely helpful to learn from others who are doing it well. Take advantage of what others are doing that you like, and recruit team members who speak web design and code and work together to reach more people for Christ. Younger people like me have grown up around it and find it much easier to translate.
Keep in mind that you need to decide who your website is for. Ideally
it would be for Church members AND outsiders. With this in
perspective, you can build it to be easily navigatible for both
parties. Look at it from those glasses. In order to make it a haven
for members, you need to add up-datable items such as calendar events,
pastoral blogs, news feeds, event banners and maybe even a Ning
community. In order to cater the site to newcomers, guests and outsiders interested have a clear tab for "I'm New" and "About Us" so they can become familiar with your community of faith. Along with deciding who it's for, keep in mind that most of your site traffic will come from younger people and the older people that do visit with less frequency may be younger at heart. That is the group you need to cater to.
Feel free to add your thoughts, opinions and of course, other websites you think are great.
