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Internet
November 2003
Website Choices: Sort by Size
By Brad King
There are many choices that need to be made to develop a successful website. Initially however, the size of your congregation may determine your path. The challenges are divided by ENTRY, MAINTENANCE, FUNCTIONALITY and USE. All areas bring a different challenge based on congregation size- as in whether you are "Small", "Medium", or "Large". For the purposes of this article, I am using the following module: Small= up to 250 people, Medium= up to 750 people and Large= 751 people or more. Determine the size that matches your membership and see if anything seems familiar.
Entry is better described as collecting information and data to place within a web application. The smaller size enables an editor to handle tasks more efficiently because there are less people from which to acquire information. Your Media Ministry Team may be able to dream up great ways that each of your ministries can utilize the web, but obtaining detailed information from them is the key. This is often the most difficult process in web development.
Maintenance is keeping the information "fresh", meaning to remove dated information and insert current events. Smaller size is a benefit because the editor commonly knows what is going on within most ministries so they can keep the content fresh without too much input from others. If medium is your size, you will most likely have one key editor with an average of two support members. This team approach can keep pace with the growing numbers.
Large congregations are normally bottlenecked in this area. There is one key editor (internal or by use of an outside firm) with 2 - 10 support team members trying to gather updates from 20+ ministry leaders. Unfortunately, the more removed the key editor is from gathering updates, the less effective the procedure.
Functionality is the knowledge of the developer, the power of the web application and utilization of media. Media is text, pictures, files (ppt., doc., xls., MP3, pdf., programs, etc.), links and contacts via email, forums or chat rooms. The more media and interactivity that can be used to share a ministry, the more effective the tool. The "larger" size category has the advantage in this area. They have a bigger pool of web knowledge to draw upon, and larger budgets for team education and/or the purchase of pertinent web applications. The "smaller" size category suffers due to the lack thereof.
Use is defined as members and visitors utilizing your site daily. You can have the best content, media, etc., but without visitors, it's useless. The starting point is with your membership. A strong "use" site will have a 'Members' section offering features that make people want to come back daily. Some examples to use in a 'Members' section are daily messages from each minister, prayer requests, ministry participation selections, member information with family pictures, birthdays, maps to other members' homes and an internal email system.
It's even possible to add a product and contribution/tithing function that would allow members to set up automated check or credit card charges (we love those mileage points) from their accounts. Members could edit the withdrawal timing (one-time, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly) or the amount at any time, plus a product builder could be added to enable products to be sold online (youth t-shirts, tickets to events, special contributions, etc.).
A simple thing everyone can do is to have commonly needed links to movies, concerts, weather, etc. The goal is to make this a commonly used resource to help grow internal and external communications. As members continue to use it, they will refer it to co-workers, friends and family, making it a popular ministry tool.
Members Preferences refers to letting each member select their preferences in any area relating to their personal information. If you establish policies rather than establish preference settings, your site could be set up for failure before you start. This takes more expertise to build, however the payoff is large. Preference considerations provide members the choice to show (or not show) specific information within their profile. Some members may want their address to show, whereas other members may not. Another may not want it to show entirely.
Some members may only want their prayer request to be seen by the prayer warrior team, and others may want the entire membership to pray for them. Regardless of size, this is always an important consideration for a successfully supported web application. All these examples are effective ways to build a strong "use" application.
The bottom line: an effective website is a slow and continuous building process, with significant and varied challenges based on size. Editors sometimes receive constant piecemeal information from 20+ different ministries. Over an extended period, these people may wear out! Due to these challenges, churches often resort to static (who, what, when, where and bye) "brochure type" sites. This type of site overcomes many of these challenges, needing only limited maintenance, however the lack of functionality strips this tool of the potential power it offers to each ministry within your congregation.
The real answer is working to build or purchase a web interface tool to enable every ministry leader to have first-hand involvement (Entry & Maintenance) in utilizing the web for the daily development of their ministry. I recommend we challenge our web-knowledgeable volunteers to build a web application that can accept information from the source (each ministry leader) or purchase one. The result will be a website that can communicate bi-directionally with all forms of media and will last by distributing the task among many leaders versus a single webmaster.
Our community has not grasped how powerful a ministry tool we have in web applications, but I'm confident it will happen in time. Just think back 5 years ago, how many churches would have considered spending 10k to 50k on a multi-media program? (projectors, screens, computers, etc.) Today, you're behind the times if you don't!
Reaching this goal may be a long-term approach for some churches, but goals must be set if they're going to be achieved. In the meantime, continue to use this median to the best of your ability to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
This is one article in a series of upcoming articles on web development and design issues for churches and ministries.
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