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Baptist Union |
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Baptist Union |
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Getting Started
Getting online | HardwareWhy Set Up a Church Website?
To serve your members
To attract people in
To present the Gospel
To contact the community
Other reasonsWho Should Run Your Church Web Site?
A Basic Website
Creating a site | Developing a style
Learning from others | Copying others
Clip art | Template ServicesAn Advanced Website
Advanced Software | Editing Software
Languages: HTML | Javascript | Java | DHTML
Other Software: Graphics | Music
Other Topics: Music Copyright | Visitor Counter | GuestbookFAQs specific to a Church website
Content | Filtering | Response | Updating | Visitors
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| Introduction |
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This page tries to give some guidelines and helpful advice to Churches thinking about having a website. It is based on my experience of running a number of websites since the middle of 1996 and so contains a lot of illustrative links to my own websites. Please forgive me for that - they are the sites whose philosophy I understand best and which I know should still be there as you access this web page!
The online world is still developing and changing rapidly. In 2007 over 60% of UK houeholds had web access (and over 80% of household internet connections were broadband). A website can serve your existing membership, attract in new members, and change attitudes towards your Church in the surrounding community.
This web page has been specially prepared to support a chapter on "Websites et Al" in a book by Rev Richard Littledale published (March 1999) by the Baptist Union on communication techniques for Churches. The book is called "getting the Message across ... the art of communicating effectively".
If you want some specific advice on setting up a Church website you can send an e-mail to me at cphicks@btinternet.com
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| Getting Started |
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Building a simple site can be quite easy. Most people start with one or two basic pages of information about their Church and then build it up as they learn how to do more. You don't have to produce an all-singing and all-dancing site at the outset! I am happy to provide advice (by e-mail), but please read this page first - the answer to your question may be here. In addition, as I am asked further questions which seem likely to be of general interest, I will add the answers to the FAQ section.
Getting Online: If you are reading this, you are presumably already online! However, you may not have realised that most Internet Service Providers offer website facilities free to subscribers as part of the e-mail and Internet access service. I know that CompuServe, AOL, Demon, MSN, and Virgin do this. Many Internet Service Providers, like CompuServe also provide for free the basic software needed to create a web page. Consequently if you are already connected, you can get started very cheaply especially as being connected means you have already all the essential hardware (and possibly the software too). You can get web space of several megabytes (these days even as much as 50 megabytes) bundled (as a "free" offer) with your Internet access subscription costing 15 pounds a month or less for unlimited access at 56K or slightly more for broadband.
Even if your Internet Service Provider does not provide you with free space for a website, you can still get free space from a specialist web service. For example Geocities (http://www.geocities.com) offers space for a free web page to anyone - although the price for this is a series of irritating pop-up boxes which get in the way of your visitors. There are also specifically Christian services offering free web space and help including template services. There are many companies who now offer reasonably priced webhosting and domain registration (especially for .org.uk and .co.uk domains). Your Internet Service Provider or the company which hosts your website will usually help you register a suitable domain name for a fee!
When I began writing websites in 1996, I used CompuServe which gives 5 megabytes (at September 2004) bundled "free" for the basic CompuServe subscription of 6-50 pounds a month (Phone bills extra, connect time of more than 5 hours a month charged 1-50 pounds an hour extra.) You can switch to a flat rate payment plan if you use more time than the average user. . Until September 2004, I used Compuserve for most of my websites.
The LBA website and my church website (Teddington Baptist Church) are now both on space provided by a company associated with Godsweb called Christian Hosts. These are now, in my opinion, providing better webhosting deals than Compsuerve - more space for lower cost (e.g. 34 pounds a year) with access by industry standard ftp software. But I have kept Compuserve for my personal webspace and to redirect users from the old websites to the new ones.
Online Time: Maintaining a website requires time on the phone connected to your provider. Apart from anything else, you may want to surf the net to find good graphics and ideas to update your site or provide links. That takes extra time and money but flat rate connection packages are now available from many Internet Service Providers which offer unlimted time online for a fixed monthly price.
Hardware: Most churches coming onto the web are using facilities provided free by a member who (like me) is already into computing in a big way. To do it from scratch would be expensive if you have to buy all the hardware and software (at least 1000 pounds). When I began, I was already on CompuServe and had all the basic software from them. I also had Word 6 and CorelDraw 5 for other purposes. I already had a suitable though aging machine. If you are starting from scratch you will need at least a 486 PC (or Mac equivalent) with a modem and the software capable of connecting you to the Internet.
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| Why Set Up a Church Website? |
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Before wasting a lot of time (and possibly money), you need to decide why you are setting up your Church's website - for example whether you want to convey only basic information about the Church or to present more of a feel for the Church. Do you want to present your Church as a spiritual and activity resource centre or as a community of people sharing a particular set of beliefs. In deciding this, think about your likely target audience and how to influence them. But do not fall into the trap of presenting your Church as something it is not. It is helpful to describe your typical visitor, in the same way that you would when designing a seeker-service or other outreach event.
Some good basic reasons for setting up a Church website might be as follows (some sites can hit one or more of these targets):
(1) To provide your members with information
The London Baptist Association (LBA) website, for example, is aimed at its own members. It concentrates on providing them with useful information about the LBA. It also signposts them to each other (e-mail addresses, Church websites) and to relevant Christian material on the web.However, the site inevitably has visitors who stumble on it who may be non-Christians and others who will be Baptists or Christians from outside the LBA. The site recognises that and has a little bit of evangelistic material in case a person stumbles on it who is enquiring about how to become a Christian etc. It also attracts a lot of enquiries from Christians in the USA who are simply browsing the web, sometimes planning to move to or pass through London. It therefore has some additional material aimed at them but that is not allowed to divert the site from its main purpose.
(2) To attract people living in or moving to the area to your Church
At Teddington Baptist Church, we thought our target audience would be the mobile person looking for a Church and either already living in or moving to the neighbourhood. They were likely to have some church background without necessarily being a Christian but interested in seeing what our Church had to offer. We decided to try and convey the Church as a group of interesting people motivated by a belief in Jesus Christ. We set out quite deliberately to dispel the external myth that Christians (and especially Baptists) are boring people who are out of touch with the real world.We therefore designed the content and presentation of material on our main website to be attractive to the interested outsider. The attractively presented material on the site does contain direct evangelism e.g. Meet Some TBC People as well as the softer evangelism of the Virtual Baptist Church Tour, Views on the News, Leonardo's Notebook (a scientist's jottings on faith), and Our Multimedia History.
(3) To present the Gospel directly to the non-Christian (direct evangelism)
A Church site could be designed at the top level (entry point) for direct evangelism with details of times of service etc at a lower level. Such a site might, for example, try to attract in visitors by using headlines and keywords on currently controversial topics. Then it could turn a initial discusion of them into a Christian challenge.I do not know how effective that appproach might be for a complete site. People attracted in under false pretences will resent you wasting their time, so always provide full value on the advertised topic as well as any evangelistic spin or side message. My closest try at this has been with a single site feature on the Teddington Baptist Church site - Bugged by the Millennium? which we have just taken offline. During the year 2000, this offered a choice of links to information on:
It would be possible to set up an entire site around such a theme mixing practical advice with witness and evangelistic messages but I have kept this example down to just two web pages.
- Action 2000 - the Millennium Bug
- Jubilee 2000 - world debt relief
- Greenwich 2000 - celebration details
- Y-2000 - Jesus Christ the reason for the Millennium
(4) To provide a point of contact with the community (soft evangelism)
At Teddington Baptist Church, we set up a second site aimed at a completely different audience - the complete outsider living in the area with no contact or interest in Christian things at all. This site is
Wot? - What's Online for Teddington?
which is an Internet information site for the local community.
The only connection with the Church apparent to the casual visitor is that it is sponsored by the Church - and so it has advertising banners for the Church's activities like any other sponsored site on the Internet. It steps right over into the community by carrying information on all local societies, websites etc. Even places to find real ale. We have a clearly stated editorial policy on the website but we have deliberately adopted a non-exclusive stance.
This site takes a lot of work but Wot? has generated a lot of community interest and recognition for the Church. It provides us with a modern image and effectively provides the Church with an advertising bill board in the middle of the local online community. The local library, local voluntary organisations, local Council, and even some local companies send their site visitors to Wot? for local information. Once they are with us, we can present them with our own choice of advertising material.
Other Reasons for Setting up a Church Website
Some might argue that having a website shows that the Church is up-to-date and modern. Just being there is enough. That may be true when someone first comes onto the web - and it is enough reason to have a basic website which takes very little time to set up and maintain.I believe there are more powerful reasons than that, although they are more to do with future than present impact. The Internet is a new medium for communicating the Gospel. We can only discover how to exploit it by being there. I was inspired to set up Wot? by the wide vision and inspiration on what Church websites can be used for in Patrick Dixon's book called Cyberchurch: Christianity and the Internet (published by Kingsway ISBN 0-85476-711-8; RRP 6-99 pounds). This book gives a lot of good ideas on how Churches can develop their use of web sites - visionary stuff!
Existing Church websites can provide you with good ideas for how to identify and reach your target audience. You can find examples of existing London Baptist Church websites on the LBA WWW London page. They range from the very simple and straightforward to quite sophisticated sites.
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Who Should Run Your Church Website? |
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Preferably someone with skill, enthusiasm, and commitment for the long-term. They will need to have, or be provided with, equipment and software. If you are going to entrust the website to a church member, apply the same approach you would to the selection of a newsletter editor. Can this person be trusted to develop and maintain the concept of the website without supervision? Alternatively, are they the kind of person who can perform the necessary technical feats without resenting your intervention and suggestions?
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| A Basic Website |
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Creating a Website: Begin by looking at what others have done. There are a number of LBA Churches already on the Web. Have a look at their websites. A list is on the LBA WWW London page. You need to decide what you are going to do before starting to develop your website using any software.
Developing a Style: I always start by developing a style for a new website and setting it out in a "Style Sheet" so I get a reasonably consistent look for all pages on the site. This includes things like how to navigate around the site. Look at what others have done to get some ideas. I hope you have noticed a consistency of style on each my websites. For example, on any of my websites every page has the same top and bottom and may have a similar layout. Again, on every website, each page has a standard way of getting back to the main menu page. For example:
- LBA website - the logo bar to return to the Capital Information Centre is at the top and bottom of every page;
- Teddington Baptist Church - click on any logo to get back to the home page;
- Wot? - click on any logo to get back to the index; standard menu at the top of every page;
These features are deliberate and pre-planned, not an accident. You will find it much easier to develop your site by developing such a standard style and your visitors will find your site much easier to use.
Learning from Others' Code: You can probably learn a lot about how to do the things you see on other people's websites by looking at their HTML code.
- With Netscape you do this by selecting View from the main menu and then selecting Document Source (Version 3) or Page Source (Version 4) from the submenu which appears.
- With Internet Explorer 3/4/5/6/7 you do this by selecting View from the main menu and then selecting Source from the submenu.
Copy Others!: It is polite to ask people before you copy their ideas, code, graphics etc. You should also respect copyright.
However, Churches are welcome to copy ideas, code, graphics or any other material from any of my websites in building their own websites. In fact everything on my websites which does not carry a copyright sign is either already in the public domain (and borrowed by me from someone else) or created by me and placed in the public domain. Take care because some items (e.g. music files) may have copyright statements within them.
Basic Editing Software: To start creating a web page, you can use a program like HomePage Wizard (from CompuServe) which does not require you to know any HTML (the language used to write web pages; HTML = HyperText Markup Language). You can spend a lot of money on software (see advanced software) but start small rather than starting by spending money on the best software.
Clip Art and Graphics: I don't like much of the free Christian clip art available on the WWW but by searching you can find some reasonable graphics.
There are also secular sites around like CoolText and Zygraphics which offer free services of generating custom graphics for you - sometimes as samples aimed an encouraging you to visit their site or buy their advanced services.
Template Services: Some companies offer hosting services which may include setting up church websites using a suitable template. These vary from free services which offer a single page on a standard template like Churches dot Net, Find a Church and Netministries to more sophisticated offerings like church123.com and Godsweb which, for a fee, offer flexible templates for church websites which they also host. The Baptist Times recently launched a website builder scheme with church123.com which is specifically aimed at Baptist Churches wanting their own website.
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| An Advanced Website |
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Advanced Software: I describe below the cost of becoming more sophisticated but don't think you have to spend all the money listed below. I have invested over the years since 1996 as I have built up my understanding. For the first few months of web page design, I used the free software provided by Compuserve, then I started wanting to do things not possible without better facilities. Also I am an experienced computer programmer (since 1966), so have tended to get fairly deeply into coding JavaScript etc. That is not strictly necessary!
If you are more ambitious for your website than can easily be achieved using free software from your Internet service provider, it can cost several hundred pounds to equip yourself with suitable software and information.
Editing Software: I started by using WebEdit (which is a shareware program) to write my HTML code and manage the website files. WebEdit 2.0 Standard Edition cost 40 dollars to register. I later upgraded to WedEdit Pro 3.1 costing a further 40 dollars. The future of WebEdit was uncertain for quite a time because Ken Nesbitt (who wrote it) sold the rights to a company (Luckman) which went out of business in December 1998. However, it was acquired by sandiego.com which is promising to keep it updated and is selling the Standard Edition for 80 dollars and the Professional Edition for 130 dollars (at February 2000).
There are many other programs available (e.g. Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver. These programs can cost 100 pounds or more and can do much of the work for you. They are not strictly necessary - the experts claim to use only Notepad and File Manager - but I would advise buying one if you intend to do serious work on developing and maintaining websites unless you are an experienced programmer. Because I am an experienced programmer and like to work in HTML I still use WebEdit Pro 3.1 but I am also using a similar but more advanced (yet free!) program called HTML-Kit.
HTML and JavaScript: To produce something like the London Baptist Association and Teddington Baptist Church websites, you need to write (or copy and adapt) quite sophisticated HTML code and write (or copy and adapt) JavaScript (I have done all of those). Actually that can all be done with Notepad or a standard wordprocessor but it is easier with a specialist program.
To buy a good book on HTML cost me 47 pounds (Using HTML from Que) and a similar good book on Javascript (Using Javascript also from Que) cost me another 47 pounds (both including CDROMs).
For very sophisticated sites, you have to find out how to use the latest versions of HTML, JavaScript code, and Java Applets either by studying books, other people's code, or by downloading the latest manual from the Internet. With a good web page authoring program you might not have to learn much HTML but it helps. On the web you can find lots of help: a good advice site for basic HTML is at The Bare Bones Guide to HTML.
I have surfed extensively and downloaded material from a wide range of specialist HTML and JavaScript sites (all free except for connect time). Two excellent JavaScript sites The Javascript Source and JavaGoodies.
Java Applets can be used to generate quite stunning visual and other effects. They can also be found on free sites - see the list at TheFreeSite.com or can be purchased at reasonable prices from sites like AnfyJava.
To find such sites try searching for HTML, Javascript, or Java Applets using search engines like Yahoo and AltaVista.DHTML: I avoided using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) until late 1999 because it has not been well standardised in its implementation - that is there are big differences between the Internet Explorer and Netscape versions at versions 4/5 of their browsers. If you use it, you need to identify the browser a visitor is using and send them to a page tailored for their browser. See Beginner's Guide to DHTML and also Microsoft's site on DHTML for Internet Explorer.
Creating Graphics: Then, you may also need good graphics software. When I started, to my existing CorelDraw 5 (now selling for less than 100 pounds), I had to add a shareware program called GifWeb to handle transparent Gif89a backgrounds (20 dollars to register) and a shareware program called Gif Construction Set from Mindworkshop to create animated graphics (costing about 30 dollars to register). I also used MapEdit (25 dollars to register) to create the active maps (the graphics and/or maps on which you click to go somewhere).
It is worth putting a lot of effort into getting the graphics on your website as small as possible - designing them to look good on the screen, but still to download quickly as possible.
Music: I also have added music software (Mozart) which I would not otherwise have bought to compose music (Mozart is shareware costing 30 pounds to register).
Music Copyright: If you use music still within copyright (within seventy years of the composer's death) you ought to have permission from the composer and/or an online licence. There is now a music licencing scheme for websites (see MCP Media Licensing). They do not quote standard prices for background music anymore but in September 2006 they charged £100 per annum for up to 500 streaming audio clips. That is expensive for a church website and that is why, at the moment, I am mainly using out of copyright hymn tunes like Amazing Grace or tunes written by people willing to grant a free licence.
Visitor Counter: There are several ways of counting visitors. The simplest is if your internet service provider offers a facility. If not, there are now a number of commercial services offering free Visitor Counters including tracking the use of your web pages. A list is at Visitor's Counters. I used to use a free visitor counter hosted on a university site but that has now been withdrawn so I have set up a visitor counter using the facilities offered by my service provider.
Visitor Book or Guestbook: There are now a number of websites which offer free Guestbook services. I use the Phaistos Guestbook on the London Baptist Association and Teddington Baptist Church websites. There are a number of other sites offering free services like Visitor's or Guest Books.
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| Other Sources of Advice |
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There are various websites designed to help you assemble a church website - have a look at those listed on the LBA WWW Resources page. A UK site to help churches getting onto the Internet is COIN - Christians on the Internet which has various resources to help you get started on the web. Other excellent advisory sites are run by other Christian organisations e.g. SOON Gospel Literature . In addition you can use a template service to build a simple church website.There are also secular websites which provide advice on how to build websites to make them easy for visitors to use. TheFreeSite.com lists various free services available for webmasters including Visitor Counters and Guestbooks.
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| FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions
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As webmaster of several Christian websites, I get asked a lot of questions about setting up websites and my experience. Here are some of the questions and the answers I have given.
Colin Hicks
What sort of response have you had from people visiting your Church website?
A very positive one both from Christians and non-Christians. We have had a few people (very few) arrive at the Church having found out about us solely from the website. We get a lot of encouraging e-mails from Christians and non-Christians.We sometimes get e-mails asking for information. They range from simple enquiries about running a Church website (e.g. what kind of response do you get), to people who want to know about Baptists (e.g. do your members have to be teetotal?), to family history enquiries (e.g. is a named person buried in your graveyard), to rather surprising questions (e.g. I am an American Baptist - do you use the same Bible that we do?). I try to give a positive answer to every enquiry as quickly as possibly with a light and respectful touch remembering that there may be language or cultural difficulties in my understanding the question or their understanding my answer. This can require great diplomacy. I always try to reassure the non-Christian enquirer that we will not take offence at any question they ask because "we do not take ourselves seriously although we do take our faith and our Lord very seriously".
What content have you found has been of most value to those people visiting your Church website?
Obviously you need to have the core information (times of service, address, map, perhaps details of any youth groups). Beyond that we have had an excellent response to a number of our site features, especially to the Virtual Baptist Church Tour. A number of schools and school children all around the country have used our site to get information about the Baptist denomination and we have found the style of that feature attractive to a wide range of age groups.Our Great Christians web feature has also interested many as it presents aspects of the life of some individual Christians which have inspired some of our own members.
We have some direct evangelistic features on the site into which we try to gather people by softer routes - like Views on the News, Meet some TBC People, Virtual Baptist Church Tour, and Watch a Baptism!.
Are the majority of those visiting your Church website Christians or non-Christians?
We don't know for sure! We know nothing about any visitor unless they choose to tell us by completing the Visitor's Book or sending an e-mail. We get a lot of messages and enquiries from Christians (like yours).I suspect that for the main Teddington Baptist Church site most visitors are Christians. With its associated sites it has 300 to 400 visitors a day (Jan 2008).
For the Wot? sub-site, most of the 30 to 40 visitors a day (Jan 2008) will definitely be non-Christians and there is nothing overtly Christian about the site.
How often so you update your Church website?
My main websites are updated at least once a week. Sometimes twice. The core material remains unchanged but there are always minor changes to upcoming events. The monthly features (Views on the News) need to be changed. Wot? is sometimes changed to reflect the seasons. I develop and add a major new feature like Our Multimedia history about once every four months.What about protecting kids (and others) from bad Internet content?
If you come across any illegal content while browsing the Internet, then report it through the Internet Watch Foundation or by telephone to 01223 236077 and official action will be taken.A UK based service organised by Christians, SurfontheSafeside.com, offers a subscription service to block access to offensive sites for £3 a month (November 2003).
Work proceeds on the PICS classification system used to self-rate sites. The PICS system is explained on the W3 PICS page. The system is not yet fully standardised but two of many ratings sites are ICRA and Safesurf. META tags rating this site and/or page as "entirely safe for kids" are at the top of this page's HTML. These were produced by those two ratings systems.
Content Control is already built into Internet Explorer 3 (for Windows 95), Netscape 4 and above, and Internet Explorer 4 and above. They use the ICRA system as standard. Rating systems passed on PICS will be built into other new browsers as they emerge.
To set the Content Control for
- IE3 (Win 95) you use the successive menus: View, Options, Security and then click on Enable Ratings
- IE4 you use the successive menus: View, Internet Options, Content, and then click on Enable in the Content Advisor box
- IE5, IE6 and IE7 you use the successive menus: Tools, Internet Options, Content, and then click on Enable in the Content Advisor box
Those working with children and young people also need to take care not to expose them to risk. The Methodist Church has produced some Internet Guidelines (in pdf format) for those working with the internet for children and young people.
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This page is maintained by Colin Hicks; Comments by e-mail are
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