How do we go about deciding what to put on our website?
The first questions to answer are 'what is my church's ministry approach'? and 'whatare our strong points'? and 'what is the need out there that we can fill'? and 'what is the ministry the Lord has called me into'?
Once these questions are answered, you need to:
 | Write out your ministry purpose in 10 words. |
| Write out in less than 50 words a description of what your ministry does. |
| Lastly, write out your testimony in 200 words or less. |
1. Define your approach. Are you going to provide information, or online resources,interactive communication, ministry opportunities and support, services to the local orworldwide community, or ? In business we call this defining a niche. Your ministry online needs to be an extension of what your ministry does already. (more detail )
2. Create an internet domain name and image. This should fall into place once you'vecompleted step 1 above. A domain name is something like www.yourchurch.org. It doesn'thave to be your church's name. It could be a verb or noun that is relevant or simply easyto remember.
3. Create a website ministry. A ministry approach requires more than an onlinebrochure. It dictates reaching out, attracting inward to the light.
4. Features that you might consider for your web ministry:
| Standard features: Plenty of email buttons from your website. Include links to all features of your church ministry, ministry offerings and opportunities, church purpose statements, regular meeting times, contact us form, tell someone form ( aka recommend us), pen pals form ( for developing countries ), quick facts about your country ( for developing countries ), support us. |
| Items for existing members: Online bulletin boards,pictures of staff-children-activities-congregation members, newsletters, ministry events,church calendar,theological statements, video and audio files of music and sermons, forms tosubmit questions - feedback - ministry information - news items - prayer requests - etc. |
| Items for guests: video and audio files of music and sermons, directions to your church, answers to the most frequent questions left on your answering machine, forms tosubmit questions - feedback - ministry information - news items - prayer requests - etc. |
5. Once you get these questions decided, it is time to create your website. Your churchmay have someone in the business or ask for referrals or use another church's webmaster.Design a page that is dictated by the size or your church or your vision for your webministry. Webmasters can design to a budget if you give them one. Your webpage is a livingdocument. As such, don't try to create a site that you think will contain everything youwill ever need. Grow with your web ministry.
6. Once your site is created, you will need to have it hosted on an internet server. Thereis usually a monthly charge for this ranging from free to $100/month. The free hostingservers usually have a catch associated with them. It is worth paying for the monthlyhosting fee to be free of the 'catch'. Typical hosting fees are $10-$30 per month. Yourweb ministry can thrive and even help your church thrive. It is very important to ministerto the internetizens and to use email voraciously.