St John's Church, King's Lynn: Case Study - 27.05.10

Author of Study: The Reverend Corin Child, Vicar of St John's Church, King's Lynn.

Website Address: www.stjohnskingslynn.org.uk

What sort of church is St John’s?

St John’s is a medium-size evangelical church near King’s Lynn town centre. We still have traditional elements in our church life, but we’re usually happy to try new things, so the idea of developing a website was popular enough. However, we don’t have any church members who feel they could design a website themselves. We also don’t have a great many people who are used to writing articles, so when we approach Daniel Gibbins of the Church Website design project we asked him to lead a website writing day as part of the overall package. What we did have was some dedicated money that had been given to the church for this kind of project.

Why did we want a website?

The principle reason for developing a website was to give interested people a glimpse into our church life – both what we believe and what we do. Whilst our church building might look like an interesting piece of Victorian architecture to some, to many others it could look forbidding and unfamiliar. With so many people now using the internet, a website offered the chance to familiarize people with our church before they even arrive.

There are also some practical advantages to having a website. Since we are a parish church, people often need information about services, baptisms, weddings, funerals, seasonal and midweek events. We hoped that we would be able to refer people to our website.

What was it like setting up the website?

As helpful as the Church Website Design Project was, there was a great deal of material that only we could produce. This required coordination – working out who was going to write what – and some hard work in getting everything written.

Our ‘website writing day’ was well attended (a fish and chip lunch may have helped) and gave the wider church a chance to be involved with the project. In fact it was a good church event in its own right, since we all talked to each other about our faith in more detail than we usually do.

How are things going now the website is online?

The launch of the website was a rewarding point when we reached it. It was great to see all our hard work attractively laid out and available for anyone to read. Now, half a year on, the website has achieved much of what we hoped it would. When couples are interested in getting married at St John’s, for instance, they can read the latest version of our wedding brochure online and print out an application form. This saves us time in the office, and we hope that, while they’re on the site, couples will look at other pages to find out some more about church. People also find our contact details on the internet and get in touch this way.

What is the future for the website?

Of course setting up a website is not the end of the process – we have to remember that, like any live medium, it needs regular attention. We are trying to build this into our weekly and monthly pattern of work. It certainly helps that we can simply email material to Daniel and leave him to post it on the site. We expect to review the site from time to time to see how effective it is, and perhaps to add new features in due course. It would seem odd now for the church not to have a well-designed, well-maintained website.

Rev'd Corin Child - Vicar, St John's King's Lynn

E-mail: info@churchwebsitedesign.org.uk