Bad Church WebsiteI’ve been thinking about church websites for the last couple days. In my church site surfing I realized that big churches don’t necessarily have good websites and some small churches have great websites.

I really think that a great website is critical for a growing church these days. I don’t have a statistic to back this up, but I suspect that most people who are considering attending a church will look at the website first. And I bet for a lot of those people, what they find will determine whether or not they actually show up on Sunday.

Some will say, “But you can’t judge a book by its cover!” I agree. Some great books have bad covers and some bad books have great covers (I recently had to stop reading a book halfway through because it was just, well, not interesting–but it had a really cool cover!).

But if a church is worth visiting, why shouldn’t that church do its best to reflect that on the website?!

I’m sure this kind of stuff is nothing new to most of you, but I wanted to pass on a link that I found and thought was pretty helpful. It’s a website called Great Church Websites. Unfortunately, you have to register and pay to get the full benefits of this site (something I haven’t done), but they do have a pretty helpful page with a ton of design tips/things to consider for churches. Some of my favorites include:

  • Most church websites are designed entirely for their members, or unwittingly exclude non-Christians because of their choice of language and content.
  • Avoid all ‘churchy’ jargon and ‘Christianese’ language throughout the site, especially on the homepage.
  • Include some ‘meet our members’ pages.
  • Consider a ‘New to this site?’ visitors link on your homepage. This enables you to offer a particular welcome to an outsider.
  • Do not place too much information on your homepage.
  • Avoid ‘churchy’ graphics – open Bibles, stained glass windows, doves, candles. And appeals for money.
  • Use at least one graphic of a person’s face on the homepage.

There are a ton more tips like this, but these are just a few that I think more churches need to consider.