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Apostolics in Cyberspace: A How-To
Manual
This year has seen a massive increase in the size of the
Apostolic cyber footprint with the launch of Everyone’s Apostolic (EA), but
many of our churches lack a church web site. I could go on a rant about how webmasters are a forgotten ministry
and every church needs a website, but that has been done. Instead here is a guide on how to go
from a wish to a website.
You can hire your website professionally developed and spend
thousands of dollars, but for most churches that is not needed, if you’re
willing to put some effort into it.
The Basics
1. Hosting company—This company will store your
web site and put it on the web. There are quite a few companies out there, and, as with most things, it
is best to shop around. When selecting
a company and hosting package, you want to make sure that it provides at least
a few gigabytes of disc space, unlimited data transfer, the ability to use PHP (a
computer scripting language) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol), a MySQL
database, and a few e-mail addresses. Almost every company will have this and more for about $10 per month.
2. Domain Name—This is the address where your
site will be located (your URL) and registration will cost about $10-$20 per year. Your hosting company will handle the
paperwork and this will just be an extra fee they charge you.
3. Mentor—It is a good idea to have someone to
call when you get stuck. EA has a
few webmaster groups, and many webmasters of all types are willing to share their
art.
4. Software—Although you can spend thousands of
dollars for a software package, everything you need is free, and, when it comes
to software, cost does not equate to quality. I would recommend Googling and downloading the following:
a. Nvu is an HTML editor, known as a WYSIWYG (What You See
Is What You Get). It is to web
pages what Word is to documents. Nvu also is a CSS editor, which will help as you grow. (EDITOR’S
NOTE: Nvu has been discontinued, but other free or low-cost options are
available for download on the web)
b. FilleZilla is an FTP client, the program that moves the
website from your PC to the server (a.k.a. the web). Your hosting company should have some poorly worded
directions on setting this up (i.e. your log-in name, password, etc).
c. Picasa and The Gimp are image editing
programs.
Your total cost will probably be around $75-$150 per
year.
Getting Started
Your HTML editor will do most of the work for you, but, although
it is scary the first few times, jumping into the code will make your life
easer and your site nicer in the long run. The web and your local library will have everything you need
for free. I would stay away from
books with titles that insult your intelligence; these books don’t help and are
not well written. Three things you
need to know are HTML, CSS and PHP. These are computer languages that are based on English and build off of
each other. Start with HTML and CSS
and move to PHP as you grow. PHP
will keep the site from becoming an unwieldy behemoth as it starts to get big.
Your time commitment is harder to predict than the
cost. You will spend most of your
time learning how to use the code and deciding how the site should look, but,
if you are comfortable with computers and have a good book or two, you should
be able to get a basic but functional site up in a weekend. Then you can expect to spend a few
hours a week learning the art, updating the site with what you have learned and
other general maintenance. Once
you reach a final product in a year or two and assuming you are using PHP you
will probably only need to spend a few hours a month working on the site,
depending on the needs of the site.
Seven Quick Rules
1. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)—The more
complicated your site gets, the harder it is to keep up to date (PHP will help
somewhat) and for the user to navigate it. Einstein once said, “Make something as simple as possible,
but no simpler.” This is a great
motto for making your website.
2. Keep your Files Small—Some people still have
dial-up modems, and mobile phones are becoming a common way to look at the
web. Large photos, for example, are
difficult to access with a slow connection. Use Picasa to make the photos smaller.
3. Know your Audience—Paul said “I am made
all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (I Corinthians
9:22). Every person is
different and what they need from your site is going to be different. Remember people came to your site to find
information, such as church location, service times and what you believe. A general rule is your site needs to be
focused on solving their problems and answering their questions. I go as far as to put the street
address, times, e-mail addresses and phone number on every page, as well as
links to a map and a statement of faith. Also, keep jargon to a minimum. Here on 90&9 we use the abbreviation AP to mean Apostolic
Pentecostal; to the rest of the world AP means Associated Press. Even the terms Apostolic and holiness
are terms not well understood or even heard of outside of AP circles. (NOTE: E-mail addresses on your site will get spammed. I like ReCAPTCHA to prevent that)
4. Keep it Professional—The
site will be the first impression of your church most people will see. You don’t wont it to be their
last.
5. Be Kind
to the Disabled—Keep the contrast ratio up. Make your text dark and your background light (or vice versa). You would not believe the number of
people who are color blind. Don’t
have pictures of text. The blind
and dyslexic will often use text to speech software to help them. It however, is not picture to speech
software. Not using photos for
text will also help the search engines index your site.
6. Keep it Legal—Copyrights
do matter, so don’t just pull stuff from other pages or post copyrighted
material without permission.
7. Proofread—Go
to every page to see that it is up and displays properly. This needs to be done using Internet
Explorer and Firefox or Safari. This can be a bigger problem than you may think. If you use a Mac and don’t have
Internet Explorer, get the IE tab for Firefox. There are ways to fix display problems
and other bugs, but you want to be the one who finds the problem.
Marketing
Most churches have printed material—tracts, business
cards, etc. Your web site is a
good addition to the hard copies your church is passing out already. Most organizational church directories
have web sites listed. Your church’s
site needs to be listed with the rest of your church’s info. Finally, the major search engines have
ad space for sale. It is targeted
(i.e. it will only show if the search is on churches in your city, not on cows)
and low priced. This type of
marketing may be a good idea for your church.
Summary
The content is the most important part of the site, and, as
webmaster, you are the bridge between the content generator—preacher, artist,
author, musician—and the world. Your ministry is to enable others to do their ministry better. The cost and time demands of a simple
but high quality web site are not overwhelming, and certainly within the means
of most churches who have someone called to this 21st century
ministry.
ninetyandnine.com
© 2008, John Trombley
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John D. Trombley is webmaster at his church and is studying at Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio, which gets more snow, but has fewer alligators than Miami, Florida.
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