Origins of Our Best Practice

The origin of our best practice, at its core, is rooted in Scripture. We firmly believe that biblical teaching is as relevant for a technologically-dependent society as it was for the first readers of the Bible – in fact the method of communication is all that changes, not what is being said.

Throughout the bible we are told to share the message, to be living witnesses to God’s unconditional love and to become disciples ourselves, following Jesus steadfastly. In Mark’s Gospel we encounter a man who has been healed by Jesus, a man who wants nothing more than to follow in his footsteps. We are reminded that there is Christian work to be done in our own communities and to start where we are. A church website offers a format to teach and amaze, just as the people of the Ten Cities were taught and amazed, when the man returned to them and told them of Jesus and what he had done for him. A church website can be that living witness, calling out to people within its own community, but also with the capacity to spread worldwide.

Each of us, as Christians, will have our own ‘faith journey’ to tell – a journey that is forever unique, as much for its experiences as it is with our own personal relationship with God. Part of our ‘best practice’ is rooted in personal and individual expression, giving people the chance to talk about their own faith and in so doing share with others the unique presence of God in all our lives.

It is this principle of personal reflection and involvement in a church’s website development that is very much at the centre of our work with churches. We help support churches structure the content of a website that fulfils not only the command Jesus gave to the Demon-possessed man in Mark’s Gospel, but also in the Great Commission in Matthew’s Gospel, verses 19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Never before has the fulfilment of Jesus’ Great Commission on a global scale been as achievable as it is now with the global communication platform of the internet. A church website should be, first and foremost, a method of teaching in the broadest Christian sense, but also engaging – our best practice is therefore focused on creating content for a church that is both practical (i.e. including service times, diary of events etc) and engaging (i.e. offering a personal connection between the church and the website visitor).

It is no longer enough to have a basic ‘bulletin board’ website, where information does not change from one week to the next (rather like the notice board outside your church). It needs to be all inclusive, accessible, appealing and, most importantly, interesting. We believe that the content you create only goes a small way towards engaging visitors: the graphics, layout and use of images are just as vital. Our ‘best practice’, therefore, addresses all of these issues in a manageable way that helps churches to identify the features that will ensure the website is successful.   

We work very closely with each of our churches, offering solutions where you are as a Christian community, rather than a forced ‘one size fits all’ method preferred by most non-Christian web developers.  This will be reflected in the way the website communicates who you are and what it means to be a part of your worshiping community.

As you explore our website you will find a number of examples of our ‘best practice’ in action – visit our ‘Basics of Church Websites’ page for more information.

E-mail: info@churchwebsitedesign.org.uk