There are a lot of bad church websites --and some good ones. Here are a few examples of both kinds. Some of the following links go to the actual site, some go to screen captures of the website. These originally were part of a seminar I did. I'm sure you can find many more examples and invite you to email them to me at neil@sundaysoftware.com  

If your website is one of these "bad" ones, don't email me asking for an apology. The person who created your site -or the people who didn't help create it should apologize to you. There is no excuse for "bad" when "not so bad" is very easy to attain.

They are bad if:

• They look awful, or make your church look pathetic, old and out of step with the times.
• Show a lack of understanding about html or how to design graphics for the web.
• Convey the wrong message. (as in... they are supposed to be invitations to join, but send the wrong message)
• Have content that's out of date, and/or has too many dead pages or graphics.
• The text and graphics look mis-aligned (or "whopper-jawed" as grandpa used to say)
• The are not inviting or relevant.
• Are poorly written, stodgy, or too "church-y."
• They don't use the web to connect members to each other.
• They start out fresh, but over time, grown stale because nobody picked up the mantle of ownership.
  
  See my "Building a Better Church Website" article for more details.
   

They are good if:

• They have a clear, inviting and easy to navigate design.
• They have nice graphics, PHOTOS of happy members, and thoughtful information on a wide variety of church ministries.
• They leave the viewer with a positive inviting impression of the church community and atmosphere.
• They give you more to come back to and explore later.
• They give you a sense of what it's like to be there on Sunday morning (nice photos)
• They make it easy to find and/or contact the church.

They are REALLY good if :

• They allow members and groups to connect and communicate with each other (church websites should be for members, not just visitors)
• You can actually maintain them and improve them over the years.
   

For more details on what makes a church website GOOD or BAD go to my full article: www.sundaysoftware.com/webpage.htm

Examples of Badddd Church Webpages:

               

The above links go to screenshots. Perhaps the church has updated them since then. In two cases I know they have. These are for example purposes only.

Examples of Pretty Good Church Webpages:

At the time I posted these links, these pages looked pretty good. There are many good church websites out there. These are examples of sites that do something well. But as mentioned above...a site can go bad!  If you notice that with any of these, email me at neil@sundaysoftware.com  If you find a good volunteer created website that you think belongs on this list, email me!

Maple Grove Church... http://maplegrovechurch.org    Nice graphics and surprising color scheme (incorporates a black background quite effectively). Excellent use of things like youtube and e-giving. Professionally created, but worth a visit to see how they treat their graphics, and use new language (phrases such as "how to get here" and "how we worship" rather than the typical "map" and "worship").

Saddleback Church....they should have a good website! And they do. Not really fancy, though, just well done and informative. It's good to see what progressive churches with a budget are dreaming up, because many churches can do the same thing on a budget!

Destiny Church... very creative, non-traditional frontpage. Whoops! They changed it...more hodgepodge as of 4/08. Which just goes to show you. The opening rock music also blasted on my speakers which I accidentally had turned up. Word to the wise...

Believer's Church... they paid a web dev person, and came up with a nice site that doesn't look cookie-cutter.

Fellowship Church.... Nicely done. What I like about this website is that it demonstrates tailoring the site to specific audience. This church has 3 campuses to select from. Notice the differences in each campus' website.

Shelby Crossing Church.... informative, made with templates from a make-your-own church website service. But they keep changing the color and in Lent it was a hideous purple and black template.

Second Baptist.... colorful. Nicer when I first found it, but tends to have too much scrunched up at the top. Easy to fix.

Lake Shore Baptist ... just has a really clean look to it. Nice design and smooth but nicely technical feel to the navigation, which is surprising considering it's a small congregation.  Interestingly...the pastor of the church also runs an example of really BAD church website design.

(I have purposely NOT put any extravagant church websites on this "pretty good" list. First off, I couldn't find any. Second, who can afford extravagant?)

Resources and Caveats...

Read my full article about creating a better church website

If you're really a Church Website Nerd.... visit and bookmark "Heal Your Church Website"   http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/      This is a daily 'blog' with lots of articles, examples, links and tech talk. A little hard to navigate, but appropriately acerbic and detailed.

Need Help Creating a Site?  Go to http://www.e-zekiel.com  ....a solid church website building service that maintains a ton of templates and graphics for you to customize your own site in minutes. They have some technical stuff you can just 'turn on' to have at your church website. Reasonable prices too.

Be careful!  There are a lot of "we'll build your church website" companies on the web which are second rate. Look at the company's website for starters. Does it look like they know what they're doing? And then check pricing. Churchsites.com for example, is outrageously expensive.