Church Website Design

At the Church Website Design Project we prefer to think of ourselves as ‘web developers’, not ‘web designers’. The distinction, we believe, lies at the heart of all that we do: supporting every church on an individual and highly customised basis. We guide, support, advise and consult the churches we work with to create a website that is a true reflection of the ministry and Christian life at the centre of the church.

Use the links on the left to explore our website, helping you to identify the many ways we can help support your church develop its online potential.

Each new project WE BEGIN is separated into three distinct categories:

• Written material - helping to focus your message
• Photography and audio/visual material - capturing the life of your worshiping community
• Design and layout - putting it all together

Our main ‘focus’ is not just on design, but on the content that makes your site unique and 'stand out from the crowd'. We target our support to each church in the first two areas over a period of many months; the final process of building the site takes a fraction of the overall development time.

The mission of the Church Website Design Project is to bring people closer to God, helping them to know the love of God through Jesus Christ and promote Christian well-being. We are a mission-centred Christian community of like-minded people who wish to encourage a living relationship with Jesus through online communication. We are not web designers in the conventional sense: we are Christians looking to use the Internet to spread the Good News, to help church communities grow and serving to bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth.

Our 16 Step Process: Built for Success

The following is a 16 step process we take from initial enquiry through to website completion and moving forward to the ongoing maintenance of the site:

• Initial enquiry – church representatives consider list of needs, or seek advice to clarify potential, what is involved etc
• Conduct a SWOT Analysis on an existing website (if one exists) to aid internal discussion (church council, PCC etc). Use the SWOT to identify needs and expand ‘expectations’
• We submit a features and services document to the church – a document that explores all potential features for the new website, based on our model of ‘best practice’. We ask churches to consider carefully this document and we provide guidance where necessary
• Using the two documents listed in the above two points we create a ‘Proposal’, the formal agreement between your church and the Church Website Design Project. At this point we will have discussed costs and budgets and created a cost-effective solution
• We would schedule a date in the diary to meet with your church leadership (or individually with ‘lead’ personnel) to discuss your needs and how a workable plan may be drafted to assist the development of the website content
• Depending on the support required we can work in small groups to create content or deliver workshops to your church congregation – these are written and delivered in such a way that a large proportion of the site’s content is created in a 6 hour Saturday workshop
• Visit the church on Sundays to photograph the worshiping life of your community. We would look to visit on more than one occasion – to capture as wide a scene of community life as possible: e.g. Messy Church, All Age Worship, Holy Communion, and Café Church etc.
• Continue the support to your lead individuals, focusing at all times on the content
• A deadline will be agreed upon for content completion. A meeting can also be scheduled to review the content completely and adjust accordingly, based on our experience and the needs of the church
• A timetable of completion will be discussed with the church and a date for ‘launch’. During the design process we will submit a design outline for the lead individual(s) to consider. Feedback at this point is essential. From this we can move forward with the completion of the site and begin preparation for the launch of the site
• Site testing – the site will be completed and uploaded to a secondary domain (usually one of ours) in order to test the functionality of the site. We welcome churches to encourage a select number of church members to test the site out. Once feedback has been given we will then transfer the content to the registered domain name
• Consider launching the site in a meaningful way – perhaps coincide it with a major church festival when attendance in church may be higher than a usual Sunday. We can offer suggestions for ways to engage with local media
• We recommend churches incorporate the new website address on all printed or submitted media: pew sheets, magazines, newsletters, letter heads, email footers, church notice board, all printed material, have a canvas banner created to hang outside church, etc
• A number of site pages will require updating on a regular basis – if the church would like us to maintain the website on their behalf through the Webmaster & Update Service, then any and all information forwarded to us will be added to the new website. Keeping a site up-to-date is a huge challenge and our experience has shown than not all churches have the expertise or the time to manage the updates to keep the site fresh and relevant
• Six month review – we provide brief feedback in the opening months of the website, however at six months we provide a report on the website's successes. This is a two way process and we encourage churches to identify key areas of success as well as areas of the site that could benefit from further review and development
• A DVD will be submitted to the church containing all images taken during our visits. The church is free to make use of these images, however they remain the copyright of the Church Website Design Project and must be accredited as such if used in publications

We are very much ‘people focused’  in all that we do – therefore the 16 step process can only work if both parties are committed to working together to create a website that will enhance and support the ministry within the local and wider community.

We have seen good standards in ‘online ministry’ bring people through the door on a Sunday morning. Would your church like to see new faces? We can help. Contact us today with any questions about the above process, or to find out more about how we can support your church.

E-mail: info@churchwebsitedesign.org.uk