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Should Your Church Have a Website?

Yes! Your church should definitely have a website.

Wait.

Your church probably should have a website.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Potential Church Members Know You Before You Know Them!

A church’s website is one of the first introductions it has to new members. Whether the new member is finding out about your church from a friend or a family member or someone else in the community, or whether they’re looking for a church near them after moving to the area, they will most likely see your website before you even know that they are looking for you. 

Your church’s website is the 21st Century version of church signs.

Picture of a red brick church building with signs on the front

Like that road sign, a church’s website needs to be legible. A church’s website needs to have up-to-date information. It should give a good indication of what that church’s ministry is about. The church’s website needs to be invitational. Like that road sign, the church’s website needs to give people a reason to enter in. And it needs to be a reminder for people to come back. 

During times of social distancing and other health measures, your church’s website is also a way to communicate information that doesn’t require someone to physically go into the church. 

(Your church might also consider installing a sign on its yard, but we’ll get back to that at a later date).

Why Shouldn’t Your Church Have a Website?

Sorry, that’s a trick question. Your church needs a website. But an out-of-date website or a website with wrong information on it is worse than having no website. So before you go hire a person or company to build your church website, or before you invest hours of your own time and brain energy to learn how to build a website, you need to do this.

Delegate. Don’t do this all yourself, pastor.

Delegate. Don’t do this all yourself, pastor.

Recruit a team of about 4-5 volunteers. You could incorporate the responsibilities into about 3 hours a week for a staff member and find 1 volunteer to cover the staff member’s time off (or a staff vacancy). These people need to commit to updating the website on a regular basis. There might not be 3 hours per week of website updates, but some weeks will require more or less time and it will balance out. Your volunteers can work out a schedule for updates: a weekly rotation might make sense.

Now that you have a team in place, you can get a website created (or overhauled if it already exists). 

Here are the absolute necessities for your website:

  • Name of the church
  • The physical location of the church
  • Contact information for the church (phone number for the office, email, contact form, etc)
  • The name of the Pastor(s)
  • Service time(s)
  • Membership (For example United Church of Christ or Presbyterian Church (USA); Open and Affirming or More Light Presbyterians; Just Peace Congregation, etc.)
  • List of regular events with day/dates, times, locations
  • A statement of welcoming

These things are the bare minimum for your website. Like the church sign, this tells people the Who? What? When? and Where? of your congregation. Now we have to take a step back and answer one basic question.

WHY?

Why does your church exist? And get more specific than Jesus’s Great Commission. Why does your church exist? 

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

Jesus in Matthew 28:19, CEB

Here are some questions to consider when putting together these additional sections of the website:

  • Who does the church welcome? Showing that a church preaches and practices some of the following values can influence someone’s inclination to become involved with a church: LGBTQ+, Anti-Fascism, Anti-Racism, people who are disabled, children and young families, women’s rights, poor people, ecumenical relationships.
  • What ministries, groups, programs, events, or missions does your church have? You can consider incorporating a calendar of events that’s regularly updated.
  • Are the worship service recordings or the written versions of messages and sermons available?
  • How can someone get more deeply involved with the church?
  • Are there regular updates that a person can subscribe to?
  • What does your church do, and how can you communicate that through your website?

Hopefully, I’ve answered your question about whether your church should have a website. If you’re still questions about your church website, or if you need a little help getting started creating (or redesigning) the website, please reach out. I’m here to help!

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