Graham Brenna

As some of you may know. Our Saviour’s is going to be getting a new website in the first half of May 2010. I’ve tweeted about this and talked about it quite a bit within my church’s community. It is no secret. The part I find weird is that nobody is asking me about it (aside from staff of course). Interestingly enough… I have received a couple of emails from other churches in the nearby area asking who did our website and what we have learned. They no doubt are talking about our current website, since the live URL of our new one is a closely guarded secret!

In an attempt to help any other churches that are looking to redo their church website I have compiled a list of resources that we at Our Saviour’s took into consideration when making the decision on who to go with for our new church website. I like to help direct people into a new way of thinking when it comes to online communication for churches. With our new website we have decided to go with an 80% outward focus and a 20% inward focus approach.

By that I mean that 80% of the content on our new website is going to be directed at people that are not already a part of the Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church community. This means that the pages describing the different missions and ministries we offer will only have what we call timeless copy on them. That means that in 3 months and even a year from now, that page shouldn’t need updating. This helps us so that we don’t get behind and have information up about an event that is already passed, and it helps potential future members of our community to see what the ministry is about without being bogged down with details they don’t need to worry about in the initial stage of church shopping.

The other 20% of our new website is going to be inward focused. This will primarily be comprised of the calendar, downloads and registration sections.

Our new website is going to be a Cloversite. We’re very happy with their look and feel and are excited to debut the new www.oursaviours.com in May 2010. More details on the actual date will come as we get closer to launch. Once we launch it, I will have a series of blog posts that explain why we did what we did and all that fun stuff.

The resources I like to share with people are primarily blogs and books that I found useful while in the initial stages of rolling out our new website.

The 8Bit.io Network is a great network of blogs that are designed to help the church communication staff think strategically as well as develop spiritual as well as useful web presences for their churches.

• ChurchCrunch – focuses its coverage on web apps/services/technology, blogging, strategy, business/entrepreneurship, and community development.
• ChurchCreate – ChurchCreate focuses its coverage on art/design, environment production and development, video/audio engineering, and assorted technologies.
• ChurchIT – ChurchIT focuses its coverage on all types of geekery, like software, hardware, networking, and other assorted technologies.
• ChurchDrop – ChurchDrop focuses its coverage on mobile devices, software, web apps, services, and technology.

Another guy I’ve found extremely helpful when it comes to thinking strategically for the church is Tony Morgan. He’s written a book called Killing Cockroaches (which I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog before) which is designed to help people do their jobs and be happy about it. This book doesn’t have a lot to do specifically with church web design but there are some principles in it that apply.

Kem Meyer is a super nice lady, Communications Director at Granger Community Church, and the author of the book Less Clutter. Less Noise. Take a quick look at this blog post by Kem about her thoughts on web strategy. Very informative.

I hope these resources help you and I know there are many more out there on this topic. If you would like to add to the list feel free to do so in the comments section.

In these modern times, we need to be thinking about what our church websites are saying to the world. Are they inwardly focused, with lingo that only a person that is a part of the community would recognize? Or are the outwardly focused, with easy to navigate pages and information that simply gets to the point? I think we can agree that we don’t want our church websites to end up looking like this (warning… turn your speakers down). Less is more.

On June 28, 1998 my mom, myself and a family friend were in a car crash. It was my sister’s birthday and we were driving home from her birthday dinner. She was riding in a different car with our future step-dad. We were driving through an intersection and a man tried to turn left and crossed our path.

We collided.

As the three of us sat there in our seats… in the midst of the airbag dust… everything was silent. I rolled down my window and a woman came up to me and in a very calm warm voice, she said,

The car is on fire… we need to get you out now.

I tried to open my door but couldn’t because it was crunched. She had a better angle on it and tore it open with ease.

I climbed out.

Our family friend climbed out the rear passenger door.

My mom tried to open her door but couldn’t because the other car was blocking it. I panicked. The woman told my mom to crawl across the center of the car and exit through my door. She did and we safely made our way to the sidewalk.

My mom and I like to think of that woman as our angel. In the midst of a flaming car… she was calm. Her calmness kept us calm. We never saw her again. She didn’t walk us to the curb. But the way she responded to the chaos around us kept us at ease and we thank her for that. This video reminded me of my crash because of the daughter’s angel wings. As she comes to the rescue of her father… she looks like an angel.

My seat belt kept me from flying through the windshield that night.

Wear your seat belt.

I love the Winter Olympics. Out of the two different seasonal Olympics… the winter sports are my favorite. Probably because I love to go skiing… but I think there’s more too it than that. I like the way mountains look when they’re covered with snow. I like the idea of sitting by a warm fireplace in a remote ski lodge somewhere drinking a cup of hot chocolate. I am especially caught up in the current Olympics, not only because of the winter aspect but because of the location.

After watching the Opening Ceremony… I, more than ever, want to visit Canada again! It is such a beautiful country. I would someday love to go skiing at Whistler Blackcomb. Even before the Olympics… Whistler has been on my wish list of places to ski. So deep down… I would love to just run away and join the Olympics. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was able to take 2 weeks off and just have a worldwide Olympic celebration? I think that would be neat.

Okay… enough dreaming. However, since I have used my Visa card recently, I suppose I’m entered to win free trips to the Winter Olympics FOR LIFE! Man… that would be the cat’s pajamas! Maybe my chances of winning are better because I also drink Coca-Cola!

[Image by: ruczko]