Many church websites are outdated in both it’s design and it’s content.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  However, there is no excuse today for an outdated, poor looking website.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.

Think about these stats for evangelizing the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ…

If Christians had their own country, they would be the third largest.

Someone becomes a Christian every second.

There are more Bible preachers than the entire population of Sweden, Israel, Greece, Chile, North Korea, and Australia.

167 million people regularly watch Bible teaching or preaching online.

A recent revival saw 20 million people saved in 24 days.

As you might have guessed, the above stats are not true.  Below are the actual stats.

If Facebook were their own country, they would be the third largest.

Someone joins LinkedIn, every second.

There are more people following Justin Bieber on Twitter than than the entire population of Sweden and Israel. If you added Lady Gaga and Brittany Spears’ twitter followers there would be more people than in Greece, Chile, North Korea, and Australia.

Over 167 million people watched the infamous “Rebecca Black Friday” video on Youtube.com.  2 billion videos are viewed on Youtube every day!

20 million people joined the new social network, Google +, in just 24 days.

These stats were convicting and challenging to me as I read them. Social Media is changing the way we interact with others and communicate.  It’s removing geographic barriers. Social media had a key role in seeing dictators overthrown in countries like Egypt.  So, why can’t we use social media to help reach this world for Christ?  The tools to evangelize the world are at our disposal more than ever.  We can literally reach this world for Christ…from our computer.  I’m not downplaying the role of people physically going out and reaching others.  I am, however, challenged to pray for wisdom and ideas on how to use technology to reach this world with the life-changing message of the Gospel.

Consider this, 25 billion tweets were sent in 2010…I wonder how many prayers were prayed in 2010 for world evangelism?  Would you pray for wisdom and power to reach this world?  I would love to hear your thoughts below.  Do you have an idea on how we can use social media and technology to reach the lost?  Leave a comment below.

*Social media stats are from Socialnomics

For our 28th Annual National Youth Conference we had a missions theme entitled “Who Will Go?”.  For the conference we made an opening video that challenged the thousands in attendance to consider the missions field.  If young people today do not answer the call to tell others of Christ, who will?  I have cut out references to our conference so others can use it in their ministries.  You are welcome to use this free of charge for your youth meeting, youth conference, missions conference, church service, or whatever you like.  I’d love to know if think you’ll use this.  To download simply go to vimeo, log in, and click “download this video” on the right hand side.  If you don’t have a vimeo account, let me know.

This video was created by the NVBC media team using Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Photoshop.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Additional Links:

“Who Will Go?” Missions Video – Vimeo video link

North Valley Baptist Church – National Youth Conference Website

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.

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

I have enjoyed every year that God has allowed me to go the mission field, but I must say, this was the greatest year yet. God really touched my heart this year. We visited churches, talked to amazing people, preached in public schools, stayed in a rural home in the mountains, and were heartbroken at the leper hospital.  If you would like to view pictures I took from the trip, visit the North Valley Baptist Church Philippines Missions Page. You can also watch the video we made for our Missions Conference entitled, Making a Difference. I pray these will help you to see, YOU can make a difference!

Here is some of the gear that I bring on the Missions Trip.

I have the awesome opportunity to go with our church on the annual missions trip.  I document the whole trip with pictures, a blog and video.  (Check out the Missions trip website – real content will be available on October 6)  It has been an annual trip for me, and I love it!  It is truly a highlight of my year.  I covet your prayers. During the trip, I will take thousands of photos, hours of video, work on daily blog posts for nvbc.org, and have the privilege to preach several times. (This year I’m supposed to preach to a small churches we support and a large public school.)

I have quite a bit of equipment I use to document the amazing work being done by our missionaries in the Philippines.  I’ve accumulated quite a bit of technology/tools in the past 5 years of going on this trip.  This is more or less my checklist for this year’s tech equipment.  I would love to hear what you use or any suggestions.  Also, follow the trip on the Missions Trip website. I would love to read your comments!  Here’s my list of tech equipment for this year’s trip:

1.  MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with Snow Leopard)

Aperture on MacBook Pro

• Apple Aperture - I love editing my RAW images with Aperture.  I love the fact I can quickly edit my photos in full screen.  Time is of an essence.  Many times in the back of a jeepney or truck I’ll be editing my photos.  Thank God for Aperture…I would really hate for you to see my images before I use Aperture on them.
• Adobe Photoshop – After Editing my photos in Aperture I save them as jpg.  I then run a script to convert them to the right size and write the xml for my Slideshow Pro photo gallery.  I also quickly edit a few other images to add to the blog page and the photo page.
• Adobe Dreamweaver – I actually do not use WordPress (like this website) for the missions website.  I created it from scratch in Dreamweaver, since it will only document about 10 days of travel, this works out just fine.
• There are other programs I use along the trip, but the above software I use most frequently.

2.  Nikon D200 – The D200 is a phenomenal camera. It’s quick (5 frames per second), durable (magnesium alloy body), has a large viewfinder and is an overall great camera. (Here are some photos from last year – make sure and check out this year’s when they become available)

• Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Lens – I take the majority of my photos with this lens.  This is a great lens for the price.  I love the shallow depth of field with this lens.  It is a great overall lens.
• Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 DX Fisheye Lens – I won’t use this very often, but this is a great fisheye lens for large crowds or small rooms where I want to get everyone in the picture.  You should definitely be able to tell which photos are taken with this lens.
• Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G – This is a decent lens, and I use it when I need to get closeups outside with plenty of light.

3.  Panasonic HVX-200 – I’ve really enjoyed shooting video with this beast.  It’s not compact at all, but takes great video.  At times, my back does not appreciate this camera.  I carry it in my backpack until I need to shoot video.  I try not to carry to much equipment out in the open.  Most of the time, I just have a camera out.  I’ve been using the Panasonic to take SD video (using MiniDV tapes) the past few years, and I thought I would finally be able to shoot some HD using my new P2 Cards.  However, I did not realize when I purchased the P2 Card that it doesn’t work with Snow Leopard.  So, I may once again be shooting in SD…oh, well.

• Sennheiser Evolution G2 100 Series Lapel Mic and Receiver – I use this to record audio for interviews.
• Panasonic P2 Card - I don’t want to talk about this.  I’m still a bit bitter that I just bought it and it doesn’t work with Snow Leopard!  Really though, my fault, I should have done the research before hand.

4.  Apple iPhone – This will keep me company on the long flight to and from the Philippines.  I’ve already preloaded it with games, music and video for the looong trip.

• Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones – Special thanks to Carl Harter, I will be in noise cancellation peace on the plane ride.  Carl has graciously lended me his headphones this year.  Good thing too, my Shure in-ear headphones that I usually bring were broken by one of my children during the course of this year….oops.

5.  Apple iPod - I have an old iPod nano for simply playing music, so I don’t use all my battery life of my phone.  This works out great when we are in the middle of nowhere and trying to sleep.  I’ve been able to sleep like a baby while roosters are crowing underneath the hut and people are laughing at us (they find Americans trying to sleep on the bamboo beds quite amusing, I think) thanks to the iPod nano and my Shure headset (may they rest-in-peace).

6.  Apple Airport Express – I use this to create a wireless network in my hotel room so I’m not chained to one area.  This is both good and bad.  Bad, because sometimes I fall asleep trying to work on the comfort of my bed.  If I don’t update the website one day,  you know why.  If possible, I may try to broadcast a live video of the Iloilo Baptist Church with Dr. Rick Martin.  I don’t know if it’s going to be possible, but I’m going to try and create a wireless network to do this.

7.  Flip Mino – This year will be the first time I’ve brought this.  I will use it to shoot video when I don’t have time or the energy to get the Panasonic out of my backpack.

8.  There is a lot of other random things like external hard drives, extra batteries for the laptop, camera, and video camera.  Also, because we break up into 2 groups at times, I will also be bringing a Nikon D100 and a Canon XL1 for the other group.

Well, I hope I didn’t bore you too much with this list.  If nothing else, I have a checklist of what to bring! I once again ask for your prayers, please follow the Philippines Missions Trip online and let me know what you think!

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