Preparing for (or re-thinking) online ministry
You’re ready to rebrand or revitalize your church website or online communications. Hooray! Now what?
It might be helpful to ask a few questions before beginning. And even more importantly, it’s time to define your objectives and goals.
Start by considering what your relationship to the website. What are your intentions? What are you willing to invest? And why do you want to rebrand or revitalize your online ministry?
Consider recurring costs
Types of costs
There are a few different costs to consider:
Finances: Direct financial investments are required for your ministry online. These are often up-front costs that are part of the operational or administrative budget. Consider whether gifts from live streamed participants might help offset these costs.
Time: Time costs are much more difficult to quantify, but can be seen most overtly in your staffing model. If you have a communications team member, their role is directly tied to the time costs of your website or online ministry.
Congregation: Lay leaders or committees are sometimes tasked with overseeing and administering a church website. Not only can this contribute to higher time costs (i.e., by slowing the process), but this can also fatigue your membership.
Attention: Church websites can draw the attention of your congregation away from other ministries. While ministry on the web is certainly “real” ministry, it can easily cross the line into navel-gazing or become triangulated by congregants to unintentional yet detrimental ends.
Just the basics
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Annual costs
Maintenance contract or adding new features
Web platform plan
Congregational listening or feedback
Staff training
Streaming equipment maintenance
Social marketing/advertising budget
Monthly costs
Staff email plan
Streaming platform plan
Church Management System plan
Committee work
Analytics
Weekly costs
Adding calendar events
Adding announcements
Adding bulletin online
Interns/support staff
Social media posting
Where to begin
Like most ministry, revitalizing your online communications best starts with theological, missional, and communal reflection. This is the stage where you identify your goals, purpose, motivations, and congregational identity. Rather than writing content, preparing photos, or starting to map our your design process, this is purely focused on discerning the movement of God in your community. Why are we investing in this process? Who will benefit? To paraphrase the perennial question of the Rev. Dr. Jan Edmiston, “Why would Jesus die for this?” While consultants can occasionally be helpful in this process, remember that consultant fees can often be put to better, tangible use in your congregation. Every consultant should provide tangible, obvious, concrete results beyond buzzwords like “assessment” or “facilitation.”
“Your website is where the congregation’s life is expressed, which means revitalizing your website demands revitalizing your shared church life and processes. ”
As you start to emerge from the process of reflection, engage industry leaders, designers, communicators, and others who can help guide you through the nitty-gritty revitalization work. The vast majority of your financial costs will be spent on site development and training. Remember that you’re a congregation, not a business, foundation, or national nonprofit. The scope of your work should be fairly narrow, and you are exceedingly unlikely to need a multi-staff design firm, full-stack web developer, or long-term contract. Most congregations can work with a freelance designer, small boutique agency, or a combination of short-term contractors. Your church usually needs a designer with strong web and communication skills.
Set yourself up for success
The greatest challenge to your revitalization isn’t the quality of contractors or your level of financial commitment; it’s your process and congregational culture. A single staff member with five hours a week will do far more than an on-again-off-again committee or haphazard strategy.
As you prepare to revitalize your church’s communications, your success will depend on engaging the congregational system: every committee, every member, and every staff person. Your website is where the congregation’s life is expressed, which means revitalizing your website demands revitalizing your shared church life and processes.
