Resources from Mike Atkinson

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Essential Online Resources

Mike Atkinson

I want to list some excellent resources for you in this issue. If you are involved in any type of online ministry (including church websites), these free articles, blogs, and tools can be important contributors to your success in ministering on the Internet.

Blogs:

• BetaChurch.org
• Church Marketing Sucks
• ChurchNerd
• effective web ministry notes
• eQuip
• e-vangelism.com
• Heal Your Church Web Site
• Outside the Box Ministry
• Strategic Digital Outreach

Websites:

• CyberMissions.org
• eQuip
• Great Church Websites
• Internet Evangelism Coalition
• Internet For Christians
• Online Evangelism - A guide to Web Outreach
• Web Evangelism Bulletin

Forums:

• Christian-Web-Masters.com
• Church Webmasters' Forum

Articles:

• 70+ Tips for Effective Church Sites
• Blogging: Advice for Church Websites
• Church Web Ministry
• Future opportunities in web evangelism
• How to build a good church website
• Magnetize Your Church's Web Site
• Making Church Web Sites Easy to Use with multimedia tour

Church website-building tools:

• ForMinistry.com (free!)
• Church Community Builder
• Dream3
• E-zekiel
• JSL Websolutions
• Faith Highway
• Truewell
• vCHURCHES

Misc:

• Church Web Site Disasters (how to avoid them) - free e-book
• The Philosophy Behind Online Ministry- free webinar

CMS for Churches

It seems that most churches have difficulties keeping up with their content unless they are willing to spend lots on a quality enterprise-level system.

Here are some notes that I have found on some CMS applications that may be useful for research:
* Textpattern -- favorite of some experienced developers
* Drupal -- www.Drupal.org
* Mambo
* Website Baker -- fast, easy, and the backend UI is simple (but it isn't geared towards making standards-compliant code).
* WordPress -- it's not just for blogs.
* Radiant CMS (http://www.radiantcms.com) -- too robust for most churches?
* Expression Engine

Not good reviews (from actual users/experience):
* Joomla
* e107
* Plone
* Xoops

Vendor Information

These are in no way endorsed vendors or vendors that I have worked with in any way. This is just a space to list vendors that I come across or are sent to me as a place to start when researching or looking for solutions. [If I get enough vendors in the list, then I will go through and resort them into a more meaningful and user-friendly list.]

* Aspire One -- design and development
* Elexio -- content management (Intellisite), hosting, software
* Aaron McClung -- design and development
* Holy Cow Creative -- design
* forMinistry -- template-based free Web site solution, content management
* Turtle Interactive -- design and development
* Electroglyph -- design and development
* NetVisibilities -- search engine optimization
* NextEdit -- content management
* Sign Us Up -- online donations
* MyChurchCalendar(?) -- online calendar
* Accent Web Solutions -- design and development
* Kairos Interactive (Houston) -- design and develop ment, http://www.kairosinteractive.com/?
* Intereactive -- design and development, Sugarland, TX

I have noticed some poor work from the following firms (but it's always hard to tell without knowing the actual project description and how insistent the clients are):
FaithSite.com -- design and development
Jabez Networks -- design, development, content management

Unresearched listing of Web building tools (read TEMPLATES):

• ForMinistry.com (free!)
• Church Community Builder
• Church Web Works
• Dream3
• Ekklesia Systems
• E-zekiel
• JSL Websolutions
• Faith Highway
• Truewell
• vCHURCHES

Articles on Church Web sites

Kem Myer's "What defines a good church web site?"
Mike Atkinson's "Improving your Church Website" series
Adam Walker Cleaveland's "Worst Church Web sites" (I won't normally post this type of negative reactions, but Cleave's got some good information on his blog.)

New Blog in Beta

This is the first posting to the new blog in Blogger Beta.

I created this site to support feedback and continuing communication on "Effective Church Web Sites that Shine the Light." Effective Church Web Sites is a presentation/session that I am currently leading for the Church Leadership Conference series hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC).