Essentials of CM Website Development

2004

Objectives of This Session

• To gain an understanding of the potential for utilizing the WWW in your children’s ministry

• To examine the benefits of utilizing the WWW & email

• To gain a foundational understanding of basic terminology and processes essential to developing a website for your children’s ministry

What This Workshop Won’t Discuss…

• Advanced technical specifics of building a website (ie: programming, site layout, etc.)

• Technical specifics of setting-up your email address

Internet Usage Statistics

• An estimated 945 million people will use the Internet in 2004 (nearly 1/6 of the world’s population) – cyberatlas.com

• The average person in the US spends 8 hours per week on the Internet - www.nielsen-netratings.com

• An estimated 800 million websites are accessible via the Internet - www.bantumi.co.uk

• A search on the popular search engine “Google” under the term “Children’s Ministry” yielded 1,430,000 results!

Email Usage Statistics

• Email usage is on the rise…the number of worldwide email mailboxes is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 138 percent, from 505 million in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2005. The global market intelligence and advisory firm holds three factors responsible for this increase: Web services, wireless access, and workers without email.

– www.idg.net

More email stats…

• The number of person-to-person emails sent on an average day is expected to exceed 36 billion worldwide in 2005.

• Web browsers are becoming the primary means for accessing email – expected to surpass 50% for all email boxes worldwide in 2003

- http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/09/19/email.usage.idg/

Being Innovative

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save

some.” - 1 Cor. 9:22 NIV

“As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil, for he brought me to this high position I have today so that I could save the lives of

many people.” – Gen. 50:20 TLB

Reasons for Popularity of WWW

• Most cost-effective means of communication

• Global access to information

• Immediate access to information, 24/7

• Ease of information updates

• Amount of information possible

• File transfer / sharing possibilities

• Networking (ie: linking) to other information sites or resources

Benefits of Email

• Immediate transfer of information

• Cost = FREE!

• Ease of personal communication (ie: write 1 email, send to unlimited individuals in address book)

• Record of communication

• Files can be attached to email (ie: forms, applications, etc.)

Essentials of CM Website Development

• During the remainder of this session, we’ll take a very fundamental look at the necessary considerations when developing a children’s ministry website.

• This overview is geared for individuals with no previous knowledge of website development concepts and will seek to build a foundational understanding of basic terminology and processes.

Things to Consider

1. Who’s your audience?- Kids, parents, leaders, etc.

2. What’s your purpose?- information, games, contact info, etc.

3. Quality matters!- The quality of your website is what will either bring people back or turn them away

4. What do you want to say?5. How do you want to say it?

Good Purposes for a Website

1. Provide another means for people to attain information regarding your ministry

2. An easy & inexpensive means of advertising

3. Simple name recognition for information

• www.yourname.org

4. Information more readily available

Good Purposes for a Website

6. Your own email name(s)• Give departments within your CM an

individual email address to help channel communication (no longer through you)

Example of Email Forwarding

• www.yoursite.org

• You then can setup accounts for each person or department which you can have forwarded to someone’s individual account

• ie: Kids Choir• Jane Smith – Kids Choir Director• jsm777666555444@yahoo.com can become• jane.smith@yoursite.org

clfkids.org example

• www.clfkids.org (site name)

• pastorjason@clfkids.org – email forwarded to personal email account

• royalrangers@clfkids.org – email forwarded to senior commander

• missionettes@clfkids.org – email forwarded to miss. coordinator

• anyspecialevent@clfkids.org – forwarded to secretary’s address

Poor Purposes for a Website

• You want to have your own .com or .org

• You want to simply learn how to make a website (quality)

• You are looking for a hobby

• You need something else to do with your time

Fundamental Terminology

• Web Browser – the program on your computer which allows you to view a website (ie: AOL, Internet Explorer, Netscape)

• HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language (The language or code which tells your browser what your site should look like)

• Domain Name – www.yoursitename.org• Host – a company which provides space on

the WWW for your website• FTP – File Transfer Protocol (The process of

uploading files to a host)

Sample HTML<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"><!-- saved from url=(0023)http://www.bigidea.com/ --><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Welcome to BigIdea.com!</TITLE><META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type><META content='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" l gen true for "http://www.bigidea.com" r (SS~~000 1))' http-equiv=PICS-Label><META content='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l gen true comment "RSACi North America Server" for "http://www.bigidea.com" on "1999.11.04T14:50-0800" r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0))' http-equiv=PICS-Label><META content="BigIdea.com is the official web site of Big Idea Productions, the creators of the best-selling video series, VeggieTales! Visit BigIdea.com for great online entertainment: play some of the coolest games on the Web, send a friend a Veg-E-Card and learn all about Big Idea - our mission, our products, our current openings and more." name=description><META content="Tue, 02 Jan 2001 12:00:00 EST" http-equiv=Expires><META content=no-cache http-equiv=Pragma><SCRIPT language=JavaScript>

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Your Computer

Your Host

Upload

Files & graphics

Preliminary Steps to Building Your Children’s Ministry Website

• Determine your purpose• Gather info you want to include

– Ministry information– Contact information (email, address,

phone, etc.)– Ministry logos– Pictures– Resources– Calendar Dates– Special events info (ie: packets,

applications, etc.)

Registering Your Domain Name

Building Your Site - Options

1. Hire a website development company to create your site (approx. $50-$75/hr)

2. Find someone in your church with the skills & desire to minister by building and maintaining it for you

3. Build it yourself

Misconceptions

1. Only for large ministries

2. Too expensive

3. Is difficult

4. You have to have a Ph.D. in order to build one

Go for it!

• Programs you can use– Pagemill - $15– Dreamweaver - $200– Frontpage - ?– Macromedia Web Studio (Fireworks MX,

Flash MX, & Dreamweaver MX) - $199 nonprofit

Your Computer

Your Host

Upload

Files & graphics

Hosting Your Site

• Your options• Free Hosting (Geocities, Xoom, Tripod, etc.)

• pro – it’s free• con – an advertising screen opens any time your

site is accessed• con – you don’t have your own domain name

(ie: www.geocities.com/heartland/woods/98789)

Hosting Your Site – cont.

• Virtual Hosting (a host gives you space and features for a monthly or annual fee)• pro – no advertising• pro – more features/email• pro – your own domain name (ie:

www.yourname.org)• con – monthly fee ($2-$25+/month)• con – domain name registration

($8-$35/yr)

Once You’ve Built Your Site

• Upload your site (FTP) to your host

• Keep your site updated!!!!

Recommendations• Non-profit software purchsing

– CCB NonProfits• www.ccbnonprofits.com

• Logo / site Design– Full Armor Creations

• trace@fullarmorcreations.com

– Template Monster• www.templatemonster.com

Recommendations – cont.

• Domain Name Registration– Stargate

• www.stargate.com

Web Hosting:– No Monthly Fees

• www.nomonthlyfees.com

– Omnis• www.omnis.com

Web Hosting Example

Example – clfkids.org

Example – clfkids.org

Example – centerpointmc.org

Commit to Excellence

• Commit to excellence from the very beginning– Design– Navigation– Content