Blog as Church Website

If “Brochure as Church Website” is the low-maintenance, fix it and forget it option, a Blog as your church website is perhaps the exact opposite, but still easy to set up.

You’re familiar with a blog and its format. If you’re not, uh, well… Welcome. You are here. For more details though, you can see some of our other posts on blogs.

A blog format enables you to communicate with your church community regularly and without an extensive knowledge of website construction. In this respect, blogging is an easy way to get your site established quickly. If you’ve composed an email and clicked send, you are prepared to blog.

A bonus is that there is virtually no cost associated with the frequency of publishing. Contrast this with newsletter mailings. With blogs, it’s not only practical, but it's preferable to publish an idea, church update, announcement, or reflection on the week’s message one entry at a time as the matter arises, instead of waiting until the next newsletter issue goes to press (and they can be really short too!). In turn, your website is as current as it could possibly be. What you write is up to you.

Another bonus is the option of offering RSS feeds (click the link for an intro to RSS) to your readers.

Most blogs allow the user to place extra items in the columns at the side, so other important information, like the core elements mentioned in yesterday’s post and maybe even a calendar can sit happily next to your posts, rounding out your site a little more. Now you can reach both current members with up-to-date postings and seekers with your brochure-type info.

Yes, there is a catch. Blogging requires commitment – I would recommend that you post something not less than once or twice a week to keep things fresh. And blogging requires authorship –the nature of blogging lends itself to a single author or a reasonably small, coordinated team of authors. It would be more difficult to be a hands-off pastor with this website structure.

If you want to get a flavoring of the process, set up a free blog on blogger.com (the site where Church 2.0 presently lives) and play around. You'll have a blogspot address (e.g., holypotluck.blogspot.com) which is less than ideal, but will give you a chance to get your feet wet.

Add your comments below, including a link to your pastoral blog, and share your experiences (be forewarned that if your comment links us to any product that can be shipped to us "discretely," we'll probably remove your comment and call your mom).


Next up: Bare Bones Basics of Site Design