Churches Tourism Association

By now, most people will have had direct contact with the Internet and the World Wide Web. This note is aimed at readers who have yet to take the plunge and create a website, or who have had a go themselves or via others in your church or organisation, and would like to take a fresh look and perhaps build something better.

With a little imagination it become a way of telling your unique story, sparking curiosity, attracting visitors, advertising events, sharing your parish news - and your sermons - with the world. It can even lead to people joining the church – most people moving into an area these days will research local amenities on the Web.

Setting up your own website sounds difficult, but it has never been easier, thanks to the ready availability of easy-to-use online web-creation services.  Leading Internet service providers already include a web hosting service in the deal. The chances are that this will also include access to a simple website creation utility with a choice of styles. Some of these styles are pretty garish, aimed at young people or hobbyists, but it is worth checking.  Alternatively, there are some easy-to-use website-building software packages available 

Other options include free web pages offered by some regional newspaper websites, or check out the free web pages offered by ‘A Church Near You’. Local tourism offices may include free listings of churches of visitor interest, and can advise on entry to the tourism database that feeds into the national tourism information network, VisitBritain and enjoyEngland.com. 

What do you need to get started?

• Strategy: Work out what you want to do now and what you may want to do in the future. Better still, involve some others from your church. Involve a young person! Think about whether you want to go it alone, or to do something as a group of churches.
• Domain name: A dedicated domain name (Website ‘address’) is not essential, as your service provider will probably include an address for your web site, and in any case most people are likely to reach you via an online ‘search’ service such as Google. However, it does give you an address that reflects your name, and shorter than ‘http://uk.geocities.com/yournameatbtinternet.com’.  Domain names are unique, so if one church has already bought ‘www.holytrinity.org.uk’ then any other Holy Trinity church will have to use a different name. The chances are a local geographic reference will work, e.g. ‘holytrinity-happytown’.
• Website: Web pages can be used to provide information about the church. This can be a combination of newsletter, visitor information, the history and special features of the church, service times, sermon transcripts (better still, audio downloads), and any other information it may want to put out.
• Email: A church will almost certainly want an email address as a point of contact. This may be the Vicar’s personal email address, or a church account (clergy may move on).  These days you can set up extra email addresses, e.g., via Hotmail or Yahoo! – and have these directed to another mailbox, so consider having more than one, e.g., for enquiries about events, childrens’ clubs, etc.

You will need the help of someone who is reasonably computer-confident - most churches will have at least one, often a young person - who can actually put the material you have collected into a website. This is not at all difficult for anyone who is familiar with home computers - there is no special computer language to learn.

If you would like to build your own site but wish to understand the process better, check out the free online tutorial is available here.

NEW: See goodchurchwebsites for more practical ideas and advice!

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