Many church websites are outdated in both it’s design and it’s content. Why? Many times it’s because the church website is done by volunteers or by someone who knows very little about web design.  However, there is no excuse today for an outdated, poor looking website.  You may argue that your church has no money or no one with experience.  Well, WordPress has enabled people with no web design skills to create a good looking church website easily and affordably.

Here are the easy steps to create a church website using WordPress.  Let’s get started…

Free Web Hosting (if needed)

First, you will want to purchase web hosting, and I have good news.  If you are a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization, Dreamhost.com offers you free web hosting.  If you are unfamiliar with web hosting, it is basically the place were your website is stored and made available to the world via the internet.  To make things simpler, you will want to have a hosting plan that already has WordPress installed.  If you like to do things yourself, you can install wordpress on your web server by following these easy steps from WordPress.com. I did this for my blog and it was fairly simple.

WordPress Theme

The next step is to choose a WordPress theme.  There are thousands of WordPress themes out there. I’ve listed some here that could work for a church website.  You will have to choose a theme that fits your church’s style, budget, and needs.

Outreach WordPress Theme – StudioPress.com

Moses WordPress Theme - ChurchThemer.com

Micah WordPress Theme – MintThemes.com

WP Church WordPress Theme – Themeforest.net

Antioch WordPress Theme – ChurchThemes.net

Install WordPress Theme

Once you’ve downloaded/purchased the theme, you need to install it in WordPress.  It’s very simple.  Log into your wordpress control panel ( www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/ ) then go to the “Appearance” tab, click “Themes”, then click the “Install Themes” tab, and click “Upload”.  Simply, “Choose file” and locate the theme you’ve downloaded, “Install Now”, and that’s it.

Customize Your WordPress Theme

Every theme is created a little bit different, but all themes will allow you to customize your theme from the control panel.  For instance, I tried out the theme from churchthemer.com, it  allowed me to add my logo, upload sermons, add online giving, create a contact form, and much more.  You will need to follow the instructions for your particular theme to customize the look.  However, the beauty of WordPress is the simplicity.  Updating the theme for your church will not require some special knowledge of web design.  If you know how to use your computer, you should be able to update your WordPress theme to represent your church and our Savior well.

So now you are ready to create a good looking church website that can be updated by your cousin, aunt, 80 year old secretary, or anyone else you choose. Your excuse is now gone…go create a good looking church website!

I’d love to hear from you. Do you know of other good themes?  Do you use WordPress for your church or ministry?  Any suggestions? Let me know!

“Is it worth it?” Have you ever asked that question? If you work with the media of the church, you undoubtedly have asked that questions before. The church graphics are not produced in minutes. Videos for your ministry are usually not produced in a day or two. Websites are not created in a night. Creating media for a church or ministry is not an easy or a quick task.

Maybe you can relate with this, it’s 3:00a.m. in the morning, you are on your 4th all-nighter in a row, and you are running on coffee, energy drinks, or a combination of both. You feel like giving up, and you ask the question (either to yourself or those you are with)…”Is it worth it?” Is it worth the sleep deprivation? Is it worth the neglect to other parts of your life? You haven’t really seen your family in days, except as you are coming and going…Is it worth it? Is this video/website/design really worth it? Before you answer that, I’d like you to read a few testimonies of how God has used church media to influence and/or change people’s lives in ministries around the country.

Seemingly forever ago (2007), I began drafting and engineering First Baptist Church’s first full-featured website. In spite of being in the Age of Information, our web presence was lacking and needed life support. Single and arrested by eagerness and ambition, I began sprinting 110 miles-an-hour. There were many days I spent countless hours late at night meticulously designing, coding, debugging, and learning and living on one meal a day with a few hours of sleep. These kinds of days became weeks and weeks became months. Soon enough, this website started to feel like a never-ending project. The more I progressed, the more I realized I had more to do.

Frustration crept in, and on occasion I’d ask myself, “Why am I doing this? Is this even worth my time? This church has been around for 100 years with no website. No one’s even gonna care!” However, I kept plugging away.

A few hundred hours later, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The website went live and things haven’t been the same ever since. I came to realize over the next several months that hundreds and sometimes thousands of people every week depend on our website to be encouraged, get updated, and hear and watch the Word of God preached during our weekly services and yearly conferences such as Pastors’ School and Youth Conference. Through our website, tens of thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands of people have heard the Gospel, been encouraged and infused, made life-changing decisions, and been influenced and touched by God and His Word. The countless hours of work, the sleepless nights, the ramen noodles for dinner…

It was worth it. It was worth it.

Jonathan Suh
First Baptist Church – Hammond, IN

I will always remember the first full-length book Pastor Sexton asked me to help him design and produce. When he told me that he wanted to begin producing books on a regular basis, I remember being rather overwhelmed. I remember how helpless I felt as I did not have any experience in producing a book. I really wanted to help Pastor accomplish his vision of producing this book by putting on paper what he had envisioned in his mind. With a heart to help the pastor, I dove in head-first.

As with any project, there were many revisions and many other technical bumps in the road, but God had given Pastor the desire to produce this and other Sunday School material to be a help to others––I wanted to be a part of it all. Of course, there were moments when I wondered if it would come to pass, but with the Lord’s help, the first of many full-length books was produced. Now, these many years later, I look back on that time and am truly grateful to God for the opportunity to be involved in helping the pastor accomplish what God had given him to do.

All of us in the Lord’s work need to remember that no task is too small, and that, if God has given us something to do for Him, it is worth the labor. Being in the work of the Lord is wonderful and it is sometimes easy to get weary in the work, but we must never be weary of the work. God not only knows the work we are doing, but also the labor that is involved. IT IS WORTH IT!!!

Stephen Troell
Temple Baptist Church – Knoxville, TN
(Currently on deputation to the Mission Field)

We created a video about the bus ministry for our national Pastors’ Conference. We wanted to encourage people not give up on the bus ministry. Many people have given up on this ministry, thinking it no longer works. We spent weeks gathering the testimonies, pictures, videos, and music for the video. As the conference approached we spent many all-nighters working on the video. We literally lived off coffee.

At times we were very frustrated with the progress of the video, but God brought it all together at the last minute. After we showed the video, we were amazed at how God used it. Scores of churches have asked to show it in their church. We have had churches that contacted us saying they started a bus ministry after watching the video. Many bus workers have said they wept through the entire video, because they were wanting to quit but realized the bus ministry still works. While we were working on the video, it didn’t seem like it was worth it. However, God used (and is still using) the video for His glory.

North Valley Baptist Church Media Team – Santa Clara, CA
www.busministryworks.com

I have a folder in my Mail app that is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of emails from people all over the world, who have been helped and blessed by the media ministry of North Valley Baptist Church. That is not a testimony to me, but rather a testimony to the fact that God can and will use the project you are working on.

Remember, you are not working on that church media project so people will be impressed at your skill, but rather to bring honor and glory to God. So, the next time it’s 3:00a.m., you’re about to give up, and you ask, “Is it worth it?” Pray and ask God for strength and wisdom…then answer the questions, “Yes!”

Can you relate? I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or testimonies. Share them below so others can be encouraged as well.

The year of 2010 has been an amazing year for North Valley Baptist Church with many exciting events, including a record breaking day of attendance on September 12.  God has blessed NVBC greatly!  One of the reasons for a successful year has been our monthly Super Saturdays of Soul Winning.  North Valley has church-wide soul winning (telling others of Christ and inviting them to church) every week, but once a month we really push it hard.  We encourage every member to come on these super Saturdays and have a part in inviting the community to church. During every Super Saturday of Soul Winning, we strive to pass out 10,000 invitations!

It is very inexpensive.  We pay only $220 (before shipping and tax) to print 10,000 invitations!  We design our files to be a standard postcard size (4″x6″) to make the printing extremely cost effective.  And then, we send our invitations to be printed at www.gotprint.com.  They do a fantastic job at an incredible price.  So, cost should not be an issue.  If you have a smaller church, 5,000 invitations would cost around $110 and 1,000 invitations would cost only $30!! (at the time of this blog post – before shipping and tax)

We find people often don’t go soul winning because they are unsure what to say when passing out invitations.  So, we choose a theme or special day every month to make it as easy as possible for our members to invite others.  For instance, “I would like to invite you to my church tomorrow.  We are having Open House Sunday.  I hope you’ll come visit!”  It so easy; anyone can do it!  Below are a some examples of the theme and special day invitations we’ve used in the past.  You can download the source files and edit them to use at your church free of charge. I would love to hear in the comments below if you plan on doing this. Think of the additional visitors you could have in church for the year of 2011 if you began a monthly Super Saturday of Soul Winning.  May 2011 be the best year for NVBC and your church as well!

Easter Sunday Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

35th Anniversary Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Veterans' Sunday Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Time Change Sunday - Click the Image to Download Source Files

New Years Sunday Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Mother's Day Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Family Day Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Big Day Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

I Love My Church Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Father's Day Invitation - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Back to School Invitations - Click the Image to Download Source Files

Each Invitation contains editable, layered Photoshop files and an InDesign file.  You are free to use these for your church, but you may not resale these invitations or files.  I would love to know if you use any of these for your church.

For 30+ years the North Valley Baptist Church has had a yearly theme.  Since 2001, I’ve had the privilege to create a logo and a look for the new year.  We also have an annual youth conference, pastors’ conference, and missions conference.  For each of these conferences, there is a theme and design that goes along with each.  I must admit I’m not the greatest at coming up with the logo and theme.  It is usually a challenge, but a challenge I welcome and enjoy.  Here are some thoughts on how I design the logo and overall look for each theme.  I hope it’s a help.

1. Brainstorm

Once I receive the theme for the year or the conference, the first thing I do is brainstorm.  I’m privileged to work with some amazing and talented people.  I love to grab a coffee with some of the people I work with and respect.  While sipping coffee we will brainstorm about the year’s theme. (Coffee always helps me think better) This is a time to throw out as many ideas as possible about the theme.  For instance, this year’s church theme was “consumed with compassion.”  We tried to think of everything that relates to that theme – images, words, colors, etc.  In the case of “consumed with compassion,” here are some of the things we came up with (heart, hands, tears, fire, fervency, people, empathy, yellow, orange, red, etc.)

The idea is to get as many ideas as you can.  Encourage all types of ideas, even if they are not that great.  You can sort through the ideas and throw out the bad ones later.  This is not the time for criticism (constructive or not).  That will come later.  Some may find it useful to have a specific number of ideas you want to come up with during the brainstorming session.  This may help you to really focus and put down as many ideas as possible.  The more ideas, the better the possibility for a breakthrough.

2.  Scour

Once you have brainstormed, the next step I take is scour.   I try to scour the internet for ideas relating to what we came up with during the brainstorming session.  For “consumed with compassion”  we looked at many websites for ideas.  We searched for heart, tears, fire, hands, etc on quite a few different sites.  Here are some helpful websites.

Brandstack.com – You can actually purchase pre-made logos here.
Logopond.com – a great looking logo showcase
Google Search – I searched for “compassion” and visited compassion.com and other sites for inspiration.  Also, I checked out google images for “compassion” to see if I could get inspiration.
iStockphoto.com – I search their vector images for logo/theme ideas

Depending on the theme, I may check other websites related to the it.  For instance, Youth conference is a football theme this year, “Get in the Game!”.  Last year it was a EMT (police, fire, paramedics).  2007 was a boxing theme.  For Youth Conference themes I will check out many websites about football, EMT, boxing, etc.  I also love to take “road trips” to places related to the theme.  We’ve been to NFL training camps, boxing gyms, fire stations, etc. for inspiration, pictures, and for filming.

I save and file many different ideas from my scouring to reference on the next step.  Remember to respect others work.

3.  Sketch

Once I have brainstormed and scoured, I like to sketch out designs.  I just have a paper and pencil and start to sketch ideas for the theme.  Believe me, it doesn’t always come easy.  Many times, we sketch dozens of logos before we find the right one.  I then work on the logo in Illustrator or Photoshop.  Don’t give up.  Look at what you’ve filed and saved for inspiration and ideas.

4.  Submit

After you’ve sketched out an idea and mocked it up in illustrator or Photoshop, now is the time to submit it for suggestions/approval.  Be prepared to make changes.  Don’t be upset if they don’t like it.  Take constructive criticism and work to make it better.  Sometimes I get “the nod” on the first try.  Other times I have to submit many ideas before we have the logo/theme we use.

I hope this was a help to you.  What you do when creating a logo or theme?  What steps do you take?  Where do you go for inspiration and ideas? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Here are a few of the sites I go to if I need some inspiration.  I do not control, nor can I vouch for everything on these sites. I have found them helpful and clean, and I hope they will be a help to you as well.

CreativeMYK.com - Free Christian graphics for download shared by artists around the world.

MinistryCSS.com – A gallery of CSS websites designed to inspire you.

Kuler.Adobe.com – Colors swatches by a community of people who love colors.

Blog.SpoonGraphics.co.uk – Tutorials and others helpful tips

SmashingMagazine.com – Another website with tutorials, tools, and tips

MiniAjax.com – Code and instructions on how to make your website more dynamic and a richer experience for your visitors

What are some of the websites you go to for inspiration, tutorials, and/or tips?

Michael Moyer

View the screencast on your iPhone.

Photoshop actions save a great deal of time, if you have multiple images to work on.  This screencast shows you how to create a Photoshop action of an image reflection.  It also explains how to run the action on a whole folder of images using Batch in Photoshop.  You can create a Photoshop action for anything that you have to do repeatedly. For instance, if you need to resize multiple photos, or if you have hundreds of photos that you want to make black and white, actions are the way to go.   I would suggest watching this in full screen to see the details of this tutorial.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Michael Moyer

Create a realistic bordered photo effect using this Photoshop action.  Watch the screencast and download the action.

Download the Photoshop action here. You will need to unzip the action, then follow the screencast. I would recommend watching the screencast in HD for better viewing.

Watch the screencast on your iPhone.

Michael Moyer