My wife worked for our church for eight years. In that time, we were rewarded with a wonderful, caring community. While her work was appreciated, she was often frustrated with the speed at which she could accomplish her tasks. When I built her a website, she was able to do more. I learned from that experience what church workers need in a website: simplicity. She added articles and hit the save button. I made sure all other aspects were updated.
While our church eventually went with an overpriced "professional" designer and then with a self-designed attempt at redemption, the fact is that they have yet to achieve the simplicity that was part of a website built many years ago. The good news is that the systems have gotten even easier to use, so the new sites we build can be updated right from the page, whether it's a single page or a blog with many pages. Login, hit "add," write, and save. It's as simple as a Facebook post.
Our goal is to build as many church websites as possible as quickly as we can. That's the only way our business plan works. We will not take months to develop a website. We build it based on what was on the old website, add anything necessary to make it better, and then finish it in less than a week. For example, the website you are looking at right now took two days. Does it look better than your current church website? Maybe you can think of some ways to reach out to your church members or church seekers with a website that looks good on all devices and is easy to manage. You focus on the content that will make your website a destination. We'll focus on making it look good.
As a former teacher, I pride myself on finding simple ways to deal with complex issues. Web design is complex, but I have developed a system that works because I know what you need. If you go to a web developer that builds websites for large corporations, they'll expect you to have a staff that only deals with the website. If you go to Cousin Larry from Akron, he'll get back to you in a few months. If you try to build it all yourself using the cheap online tools available, you'll be looking us up in a year or so, after you try to train the staff in something no one should have to learn. However, if you want to go elsewhere, maybe with a volunteer, at least read my book on building websites for churches:
