The Four Websites Your Church Will Ever Need

At least until the next 4 websites come along and replace these. But these will do for now!

Facebook
Today there are 800 million people on Facebook and of those, 350 million people connect to Facebook on mobile devices. Facebook is not just for college students any more as the fastest growing segment happens to the Baby Boomers.

Some churches are using Facebook as their primary website. You don't have to belong to Facebook to view material on the site. This keeps the site updated and current. Better to have no website than to have one that's not current!

One of the best resources on how a church can embrace and use Facebook was written by Danielle Hartland's which you can read by clicking here.

Wordpress or Blogger
You not only need to create a church website, you need to MAINTAIN one too. And there's the problem for most churches. Most church websites are poorly maintained. Many start out looking great and end up abandoned.

Why not use a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger? These tools are all online. You sign up for a site, go to your site, sign in, and access the site's dashboard control panel to post new announcements, photos, and make design changes. This means you you can manage your site from ANY computer in the world as long as you have the password to your account. No software to download or install.

You can have a pastor's blog, an "about the church," directions to get to your location, and tons of other stuff! Here's an imaginary church example to inspire you!

Podomatic
The church where I serve, Sylvania UCC, had audio recordings up on the website since 2010. But no one knew this. So we decided to use Podomatic, because in one click, they can have our sermons sent directly to their iTunes account... and it's all FREE. You can pay around $100 for extra storage and bandwidth, but if you're only putting up 4 or 5 at a time and not using the site to archive a whole year of preaching, you should be fine. Check out Sylvania's Podomatic site here.

The cool thing about podcasts is that your peeps can download the MP3 of your sermon and take it with them on their iPods, iPhones, iPads, whatever. Unlike Youtube, they can take the sermon in their car or out for a run. Plus most churches don't have the capacity to do a good video presentation of the sermons and most people I know don't want to look at a talking head for 20 minutes. So audio is the way to go here, IMHO.

Plus I also started my own podcast, the PLP to discuss whatever I want... like my trip to Chautauqua or whether or not you can believe in ghosts and still be a Christian.

MailChimp
Use MailChimp if you ever dream of doing online newsletter. You can do full color, interactive, professional looking PAPERLESS newsletters that are sent directly to your congregant's email. It's like NWOA's The Vine. It is also free. There's a pay option as well, but there's not much bang for your buck and most things you can do for free.