ricky.merrefield

I’m a big believer in the chu.rch doing everything with excellence. If we have the God of the universe on our side, then we ought to be able to put the secular market to shame in terms of quality. Unfortunately, that often isn’t the case. I’m just as guilty as anyone else in that regard, though.

One area that God has been stirring my heart in lately is that of the web. I believe if you took the average quality of church websites, we as Christians would be ashamed of their quality. I am, by no means, an expert on making websites. In fact, I would struggle at this point to put together even a halfway decent one. If, however, I were to start building a website today, these are the things I would focus on the most.

Aesthetics
While some people would rank functionality and content over aesthetics, I would beg to differ. I would argue that aesthetics are equally important. You one get to make a first impression once, and if your website looks like crap, that’s naturally what your visitors will think of the church.  Elements should flow together naturally, and the colors should be easy on the eyes. No hot pinks, please.

Content
Is your church website nothing more than an online brochure for your church? Again, this contributes toward that first impression. If all a visitor finds on your website is your location, service times, and and an overly wordy description of how awesomely Jesuslike your church is, they aren’t going to leave impressed. The content on a church website will obviously vary from church to church, but you should strive to cram in as much information as possible without making it look bad.

Functionality
I firmly believe that websites shouldn’t be static brochures, but living, breathing fountains of information and content. But all the content in the world is useless if there is no functionality to support it. Navigation should be simple and intuitive, and all of the content should be easily accessible. I don’t want to have to fumble my way through 15 html pages to find what I want. If I can’t find it in 60 seconds, I’ll just forget about it. It’s usually not worth my time.

Backend
This is a big one, but one that doesn’t often get much attention. The best site in the world is a pain if it’s not easy to update. You could show me the sweetest website in the world, but if the admin is clumsy and ugly, I probably won’t be interested in maintaining it. The admin should be just as visually pleasing and intuitive as the main website. It should be a breeze for an untrained person to update the website. I don’t want to have to go through a five hour training session to figure out how to change the header image through the admin.

Keep in mind that I’m no web expert. Those are just things I would focus on myself. I’m not currently capable of creating the slickest website in the world, but I’m just a wannabe web developer.

And just for fun, here’s some music that I listened to while I wrote this post. Yeah, it took me a long time. So?

Tell Me - Jonah33 // Can’t Lose - We Are Scientists // Believe Me Natalie - The Killers // You - Switchfoot // I Want a New Duck - Weird Al Yankovic // 33 - Coheed and Cambria // Here is Our King - David Crowder Band // The Call - Fighting Instinct // Brighter - Lee McDerment // Light Up Ahead - Further Seems Forever // How I Could Just Kill a Man - Charlotte Sometimes // Desecration Smile - Red Hot Chili Peppers // Taken Aback - The Rocket Summer // New Wave - Against Me!