Nathan Smith, a web designer who specializes in developing websites for churches and ministries, wrote an article recently entitled Setting Boundaries on Burnout. The article, which appears on the To-Done website (a website devoted to offering tips for personal productivity), speaks primarily to the issues of how a freelance web designer should manage his/her time and workload.
While the article as a whole interested me (probably because I currently find myself with too many projects in progress!), at one point Nathan wrote about the importance of substantial content on church websites:
If you create a beautiful, yet empty website, that sends a terrible message to the end-user. In the case of a church or ministry, which make up the majority demographic of my clients, by having an empty website they are saying: “Our church is about keeping up appearances, but we have nothing substantial to say.”
Along these lines, I would encourage churches who are considering launching (or relaunching) a website to begin with content rather than design.
I believe that the internet provides today's church with a historic opportunity .... to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love in ways which could only have been imagined in times past. The objective of this website is to explore the various ways in which today's technology can be used to spread the gospel around the world.
