8 Great Church Web Design Inspirations
For almost two years, Church Relevance has maintained a list of the top 75 church websites. Recently, eight new church websites have been added to the list. Technically, Gateway Church (Southlake, TX) was already on the list, but they recently redesigned their website. Here are the eight new church web design inspirations:
#1 - Bethel Temple (Hampton, VA)
#2 - Church of the Resurrection (Leawood, KS)
#3 - Christ Community Church (Omaha, NE)
#4 - Elim International Church (Wellington, New Zealand)
#5 - Gateway Church (Southlake, TX)
#6 - Gateway Fellowship Church (Helotes, TX)
#7 - Northgate Free Methodist Church (Batavia, NY)
#8 - Times Square Church (New York, NY)
For Discussion:
What about you? What are your favorite church web designs? What church websites inspire you?
Jermayn Parker Said,
February 19, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
Some of these are quite average…
They all look the same,
hears mine:
http://www.jubileeworldharvest.com.au
Eric Atkins Said,
February 19, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Thanks for the list with the nice screenshots. These works are inspirational and hopefully will encourage churches to grasp new technologies to reach out to others.
Kent Shaffer Said,
February 19, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Well, I think they are far from “average.” I do agree that they have some similarities. Perhaps that’s what happens when only one person creates a subjective list.
Suresh Chowhan Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 5:07 am
Well these are the great website, designs. Is there any wordpress design also available?
Matt Farina Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 8:03 am
These sites are definitely not your average church site in the looks category. But, they feel like something is missing. They feel like they are for someone who is already Churched. And, since our mission is to make disciples it seems that something is missing. Though, I’m not sure what it is.
Kent Shaffer Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 9:13 am
Interesting thoughts, Matt. If you figure out what “it” might be, I would love for you to share your thoughts.
randall Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
http://www.wcrossing.org is our church’s website. sorry for the shameless self promotion…but we like our website.
Kent Shaffer Said,
February 20, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Thanks, Randall!
That’s a Flash website done right.
Paul Deveaux Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 9:39 am
Something that might be helpful is to discuss why these are great church web sites. Visual design, web standards, accessibility, etc. Say if we went through the elements and principles of design with each site we may discover some things. If you have done this somewhere else please excuse my ignorance and point me to it!
Josh Barnett Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 9:42 am
It seems like most church websites are either A) evangelism tools made exclusively for non-believers and church seekers or B) for the members of a church featuring just internal information. These websites for the most part seem to bring both A and B together, which is important. You need both otherwise the website is not going to reach its full potential.
Mason Phillips Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
Here’s our three:
Our Main Site
http://www.riveroflife-jax.com
Our Youth Ministry Site
http://www.theflood-jax.com
Our Children’s Site
http://kids.riveroflife-jax.com
Mason Phillips Said,
February 21, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
I do want to say that I think it is great that you are showcasing some outstanding Christian websites. I am very happy to see that there are many churches that are using well designed sites to connect with people. I hate seeing church websites that were done in Microsoft Word. I believe that a church’s website is increasingly becoming an important first contact with many people. There is definitely a need to have well done sites because first impressions matter a lot. We’ve experienced increasing numbers of first time guests who said that they found us through our website.
That being said, a website is at best a glimpse of what the experience of the local church looks like. The real impact on unbelievers, back-sliders, and relocating believers happens when they attend. So a website should be just one of many tools to help facilitate this process.
Additionally, a website is a great place to help facilitate communication and connect believers to one another. The increased impact of social networks prove this fact. In our current culture, connecting via the net has become a normal reality for a growing number of people aged 30 and below.
carl Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 9:23 am
I also am not sure about this list. Elim’s looks like a standard wordpress theme. Though I love that the most important links are on the top right (directions, contact).
jason Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
Good points, Mason.
Also another thing I’ve been recently considering in thinking about our church’s web design, or any web design for that matter, is whether or not our design accurately reflects peoples’ experience when they visit us. In the case of a church website especially, we need to be asking if everything from our fonts to our layout to our pictures (real or stock photos) to our buttons to our traffic flow to our content ALL reflect who we are when people actually encounter us in the non-virtual world. Virtual world connections are part of the world of web, but in the case of a church our face to face ministry (brick and mortar) must match who we say we are on our websites…our sites serve as our #1 advertising vehicle right now, whether we like it or not.
If we have a website (good, bad, or in between) that does not accurately reflect who we are, we’re like the old Oldsmobile campaign that they reference in advertising 101 classes: “We’re not your father’s Oldsmobile.” People went to check out the “new” Oldsmobiles and found out they were not only the same cars, they were also liars.
Word of mouth spread, Oldsmobile’s bottom line suffered…and the rest is history.
“Brand” is the feelings people have about a company, their products, and their services. In the case of a church, people’s feelings about a church (what they see as our “brand”) are even more personal than how they feel about a car or a soft drink. The more our websites reflect who we really are when people show up to our campuses or breakout gatherings (small groups, etc.), the more people will connect with us and trust us. They will have met us through the web and then visited us with those expectations in mind. Expectations we have created, by the way. And we will have met those expectations or hopefully even exceeded them.
On the other hand, if we have a tag line that says one thing and we do another, the reality of us not matching up with what we advertise is going to get out into our community and spread faster than any 10 great things we do in community outreach projects.
If we say we are caring and we don’t genuinely get to know people, we will have done more damage than if we never said it at all. If we display stock photos of smiling people yet nobody genuinely welcomes visitors (= not a plastic grin and a handshake that says “Come on in, I’m just doing my job”) at our door and gets to know them and their needs, we will have done more damage than if we skipped those stock photos altogether.
I’m not sure if it’s accurate or not, but recently I’ve been told that research shows 80% of our visitors have already checked out our church website before visiting. And that includes “qualified” visitors who are invited by someone who is assimilated into our church body already (member/committed core).
Even if that figure is a bit high, it serves to make the point that our sites have to be thought out in terms of who we are, not just in terms of what looks good. If we don’t build sites from that perspective, our most powerful and cheapest form of advertising is doing us a great disservice at best, and turning people off at worst.
Kent Shaffer Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Good input, Jason.
Mason Phillips Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Jason - I totally agree.
In fact, I was recently involved in a conversation about our church’s print media that dealt with this very thing. We are in the process of generating new media because we felt our current media was under-reflecting who we are. We felt that our services were so much better than what we “showed” in our print.
On the same token, we also decided that we didn’t want to misrepresent ourselves and have this hyper-excellent media and excellent services. We know someone who fits this category…their media is tremendous, but the rest is mediocre (I know this is a general judgment, but it is similar to what Jason mentioned - greeters doing it out of obligation and not sincerely).
Bottom line - in our goal to present Jesus through our context and our multi-cultural setting, we want all of our media to reflect who we truly are. No more, no less.
In the conversation I had, the outcome was that we decided to hire someone to specifically work on our media 1 day a week. This frees others who have some skills to work in their main area, while utilizing someone who is truly gifted in this area to add value to the church.
Brandon Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
These are all pretty good…thought I’d add to the list.
http://www.thecity.org
http://www.hopechurch.tv (my church and design)
http://www.tfchurch.org/
James Said,
March 8, 2008 @ 5:56 am
Great list!
We’ve recently relaunched our at: http://www.minehead-baptist.com It’s a wordpress site designed by me.
We’re in a ’sea-side’ town in the UK and so get quite a few people who come to us whilst on holiday (the design is meant to feel ’sea-sidey’!).
So we’ve also tried to make it easy for the (probably churched) holiday visitor to find out what they want to know (sitting at home planning their holiday) as well as people in the town and church members! It’s another market which I don’t think many Church have to consider!
Dave Said,
March 12, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
I like - Liquid Church - http://www.liquidchurch.com
Matt Moss Said,
March 17, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Great input everyone. These sites look really good. Has anyone heard of the site http://www.truthcasting.com, it is a free service to churches to help them get their video sermons and archives online. The best thing is that it is free- no bandwidth, service, or storage fees or limitations. Everyone should check it out-
Mark Williams Said,
March 18, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Most of the sites listed are for individual churches this site is an interesting variation, being a site for the Anglican Diocese of Wellington, New Zealand.