I’ve been vaguely pondering websites for churches. This is actually something I do as a fairly regular exercise, due to involvement with “tech crews” at churches I’ve attended, and to Morgan Creative, my website business. My wife and I created a website for our church a few years ago, which made the question immediate for a couple of months. Which is not to imply I’ve answered it.

One of my childhood churches has recently hired a “Pastor of Creative Arts”; basically a marketing person as I understand it. A rumor I’ve heard is that one of his major selling points was that he derided their current website. I’ve been watching their website with curiosity, wondering how a marketing person would answer that question, and the answer so far is not much different than my uncertainty: the only change has been the addition of an image on the front page…an image consisting mostly of text.

But, I’m improving at thinking of website design in terms of audiences, so here are the three I immediately think of for churches:

1. Current members, who will use the site for information, such as announcements, and contact info.
2. People looking for a church home, who will want to find out more about the congregation, especially what they can expect in a typical service and what’s particularly important to that congregation.
3. Other churches/organizations in the area, interesting in forming partnerships, etc.

In other words, I see: announcements, contact information, a summary of the church’s vision and primary beliefs, and a calendar. Certainly, an extranet for sharing, say, schedules or music files or something could be useful, but basically it strikes me that a church website ought to be simple. And yet this also feels “too little” to me, but maybe that is just how I’ve been conditioned by most of the church sites I’ve seen: way too much content, little utility, minimal aesthetics.