At Sydney Anglicans I’ve written an article on the best and worst websites in the Diocese. I didn’t think it was fair to mention the names of the churches with the worst websites, but there’s much to learn from the best websites. So in alphabetical order (to avoid any suggestion of favouritism!), here are ten of the best websites in the Diocese. They use clean designs, are outsider friendly, are easy to navigate, and the content is current and interesting.
10 of the best in the Sydney (Anglican) Diocese
- Barneys Broadway
- Church by the Bridge (Disclosure – I work here!)
- Lower Mountains Anglican Parish
- St Faith’s Narabeen
- St Luke’s Liverpool
- St Marks Avalon
- St Marks Pennant Hills
- St Matts Ashbury
- Summer Hill Anglican
- Toongabbie Anglican Church
International Inspiration
There are over 220,000 (and up to 450,000, depending on where you look) websites in the United States alone, providing lots of inspiration for church website design and functionality, not to mention some interesting ministry ideas. These websites are in a league of their own compared with the design and functionality of most sites in Australia, so it wouldn’t be fair to compare them with most of the sites here!
Here’s a list of international sites to explore:
- Bethlehem Baptist Church, United States
- Calvary Christian Center, United States
- Church on the Rock, United States
- College Park Church, United States
- Dulles Community Church, United States
- Gateway Fellowship Church, United States
- Kingsfield Church, United States
- Mars Hill Church, United States
- Park Community Church, United States
- Pembury Baptist Church, United Kingdom
- Soul Purpose, New Zealand
- River City Church, United States
What are your favourite church websites?
Can’t go past Mars Hill Church for a great website, their media is definitely tops!
Also, what is your opinion on church websites that look like blogs? They just seem to be less professional.
There’s a couple of church websites in that list that are obviously (to the trained eye!) using Wordpress to manage their sites. However, I don’t think most visitors will pick up on that – or mind. The visitor is mainly concerned that the information is current, relevant and factual, and that the site is easy to navigate. The beauty of Wordpress as a content management system (CMS), is that it makes it relatively easy to do this.
Do you think it’s worthwhile for all churches to make their media (I’m thinking mainly Bible talks) available online? Would you/do you download talks from your church website?
It’s true that the Wordpress content is easy to manage, a plus for sure, but wouldn’t many people who visit websites be those who are in the blogging community. However, I’m sure for many churches without people with expertise in web design or big budgets, wordpress would be an excellent alternative.
Online media is great, my church’s website only has our morning talks published online, but we’re looking into getting the 6pm service talks online as well. I heard a scary figure tonight though, apparently our sermons get downloaded by more people then attend our church. Online talks cannot be a replacement for church!
I’m one of the guys with ‘a website that looks like a blog’ (stmarks.com.au which is based on the textpattern CMS and a standard template). We created it quickly when I started at a small church with a very old fashioned existing site that was rarely updated. A lot of the user-design and content is based on stuff I was already trying out at VHCC. It was only intended to be a temporary site until we could get around to doing a proper project with a web design guy etc. However, I have been amazed at how frequently first time visitors go out of their way to comment on how much they loved the website. It has got me thinking about just how significant the priority of user-design and content-design is over graphic design when it comes to a church website.
The other though is that I wouldn’t want too professional a website because frankly anything that suggested slick would mis-represent the vibe of our church and potentially create false expectations and one of my key objectives with the website is to give a site visitor a sense of what it would feel like to come along for the first time.
We use Wordpress at http://www.standys.org.au and if you’re able to tweek the theme a bit you can make it look a lot less blog like. I rate Wordpress cos its so much easier for novice staff to use than something like Joomla.
Most churchs aren’t going to to have the designers to create flashy sites like Mars Hill, but i think its much more important to have an informative website that has all the right info, easily accessable, than to worry abot it looking ‘blog like’… It’s always worth spending 5 mins looking at your site asking ‘if i was a first time would it be easy to find what i want to know’, and all too often the answer would be no.
That said i still reccon make it look as good as you can!
Too true, function should definitely be No. 1 in websites
Great list but how about adding a best of in Aus? Broaden it from the Sydney (Anglican) and focus on some examples Australia wide.
…Our Church is another wordpress user it opens so many doors for multiple church contributers. http://www.lakeshorechurch.org.au
I am not sure if your top 10 are really the best 10 in the Sydney diocese. I think you need to checkout St Barnabas Bosseley Park and North Rocks Anglican Church.
Hi Joshua, thanks for the feedback. What do you think makes these two sites stand out? For the other readers, the links are: http://www.northrocksanglican.org.au/ and http://www.stbarnabasonline.com/site/.
What do others think? Should these be in the top 10?
Hi Shane, I’d love to have the time to compile this list! I’ve heard estimates that there are 10,000 churches in Australia – finding all their websites, and then reviewing them would be a mammoth task.
Which Australian websites have you noticed that have stood out to you, and that could provide good inspiration to other churches?
Hi Craig, I’ve been reflecting on your comment:
“The other though is that I wouldn’t want too professional a website because frankly anything that suggested slick would mis-represent the vibe of our church and potentially create false expectations and one of my key objectives with the website is to give a site visitor a sense of what it would feel like to come along for the first time.”
I can see what you mean by this, and not wanting church to look too ’slick’. But I wonder if there’s another angle to come at.
Surely we would like visitors to our churches to think that we strive to do things well – to the best of our ability, and all to the glory of God. Preachers preach to the best of their ability, kids church leaders lead to the best of their ability, musicians play the best of their ability – does the same not apply to a church website?
Steve,
If you talk to anyone who has been involved in ministry with me I suspect they’d confirm I want everything done as well as we can and more importantly, I want it always to be getting better. They’d probably also have something to say about my reaction when we don’t do it as well as we can!
But we can’t talk about ‘to the best of our ability’ without also factoring in ‘making the most of the resources available to us’. We’re a growing church, but we’re still a small church and it is a question of how we marshall limited resources to achieve our priorities. To preach the best that I can, I’d like to devote 40 hours a week to sermon prep. But I can’t do that. To develop leaders to the best of my abilities I’d like to devote 30 hours a week to that. But I can’t do that.
http://www.stmarks.com.au gives, I think a realistic sense of who we are now and seems to create a pretty positive vibe, given the unprompted feedback on it that guests keep giving. It gives a different impression to the site that existed previously, just as the church experience at St Mark’s is different to the one that existed previously. As we continue to develop that Sunday experience through ongoing training and feedback and as we expand the pool of gifts and talent available, the website will develop too (which is part of why I have only ever thought of it as a temporary one).
I don’t know if I’ve addressed myself to your question. If not let me know.
Hi Craig, I hope you didn’t hear me saying that I don’t think you’d like to do this as well as we can – I’m sure that’s not the case.
I’m not sure that more time necessarily means better work (e.g. more time working on sermon doesn’t necessarily result in a better sermon). Therefore, I’m not sure that doing something really well necessarily requires more time (it might instead require finding the right person – with skills and passion – to do it). This is, I think, a big challenge for lots of churches – they want to have a good website, but if they don’t have the skills in-house (either staff or lay people), what can they do? If the wrong person tries to do it, they might end up spending lots of time, with an average result.
I’m not suggesting this is the case with your website at all – I think it’s great. However, I’ve noticed this when I’ve observed other churches.
I also see what you mean about creating a realistic sense of who your church is – no point giving off the vibe that you’re a mega church if the attendance is only 50!
Steve,
I used to be a Management Consultant and I’m now an Anglican rector so I wouldn’t worry too much about me being sensitive to criticism or misunderstanding!
You’re obviously right about the time thing, I was just taking time as an illustration of one of the limited resources (although the thought of the sermon I could preach if I had 40 hours to prepare it leaves me with something of a wistful longing).
You’re last sentence is really what I was trying to communicate in my initial post.
Christ Church Inner West are slowly and quietly updating their website.
Good on ya Steve!
You realise you’ve upset everyone who didn’t make the top 10!
Wayne