This is our next post on web strategy at Conversatio Morum. The main thing I want to conquer today is that you don’t start with 
the web. Look at your church’s overall communication strategy. If it’s like that of Paper City Church then you may want to adjust it. 🙂 However, the goal of your website should always be to increase A) the church’s system for communication and B) the visibility of your church(not the church you’d like to be, but your church). Questions like: How do you communicate announcements? What drives your church? Values or Programs? Now keep in mind, i’m not looking at how do you change church culture, but how do you create a web strategy that displays that appropriately. If there are culture problems, that is an entirely other conversation. If your church is Value driven, then the layout of your site should show your values primarily. If your church is Mission driven, then the layout of your site should show your mission primarily. If your church is Program driven, then the layout of your site should show your programs primarily. Etc. This same strategy should apply to your bulletin\opportunity folder, your announcements on from the front on Sunday and in your small group\sunday school, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The goal here is alignment with the entire body.
Some of you might do what I did when I started tackling this, and take the “act first, seek forgiveness later” approach. The problem I found for myself here is that as a creative\web guy, I’m already a bit rebellious and I think if people were actually honest with me they would tell me they see that.
Doing things without having anyone on board simply because you need them done, and they won’t get done otherwise, doesn’t help your position in selling people into your vision for a web strategy.
You see, you are part of a team, and you need to see yourself that way, and you need other people to see you that way. Otherwise, when you actually need to do something like that because it matters, you won’t have the emotional deposit in other people’s bank accounts to be able to do that.
Take the experience of many other church web\creatives before you. You should be in alignment with the church as a whole. If people don’t see the value of a web presence, then you’ll need to sell them on it. Some of the statistics from my previous post and then also all things Drew Goodmanson related, can help. It can be a bit of an uphill battle, but it will be better for everyone in the long run.