MattCleaver.com

Reimagining Youth Ministry

  • Home
  • Youth Ministry has Failed
  • Best Youth Ministry Books
  • Church Websites
  • Contact Me

How I Built a Church Website for Free: Introduction

Last Updated March 10, 2009 by Matt 1 Comment

Below is our old church website, which was built and hosted by one of those church-specific website companies. They were nice people and all, but their websites were simply lacking in cost-effectiveness, functionality, and aesthetics. The worst part is we were paying $200 a year for that website.

oldhopelutheranWhen I learned that our account was up for renewal at the end of February I went to a few people who had a vested interest in the website and asked if they had had any frustrations with our current site. They did. So I asked what they would think about me designing us a new website for free that would save us $200 a year, look a lot better, offer higher levels of customization, up-to-date functionality, website statistics, and more. Of course, it sounded like a no-brainer (because it was).

The finished product is the site to the right. Everyone is pretty pleased with version 1.0 of the website, and even more new features are going to be added. I know that many churches are struggling financially out there, and so I thought I would offer a step-by-step guide to making a cost-effective website solution for a church.

One little caveat: there is a little trick why this site could have been free, which I will explain later in the series. So, be forewarned that if you start from scratch it won’t exactly be free for your church, more like $85 a year. But I’ll explain how you can add multiple websites for minimal cost .the new website

The web host I’ve used since February 2007 has been BlueHost.com I now recommend to people is HostGator, and I’ve been really pleased with their services. I think they offer the perfect solution for most churches wanting to self-host a website. If you can’t wait for the rest of the series to jump in, you can go ahead and go to HostGator’s website and jump in. Otherwise, get ready for the first post in the next couple of days.

Filed Under: Websites Tagged With: bluehost, church websites, wordpress

About Matt

Matt Cleaver has written since 2004 on youth ministry, theology, and the church. His blog was ranked by Youth Specialties as a Top 20 Youth Ministry Blog. Click here for Matt's list of the Best Youth Ministry Books.

Comments

  1. sheila says

    September 24, 2009 at 9:16 am

    I want to know how to put our home church information on the blog I got block out of the blog and I can not get back in to change the message, it is not the passcode it will not work to? I do not know anyone to call at word press to help me. What must I do ? I have not beem able to change my message since Aug 6-09 .

    I’m am trying to start a new one I’m very new to this can anyone out there help me and my husband do not know anything about computers .I like to know how I can put a block on there also. Our prayer request comes through this blog and the last one I receive said do not reply to word press blog at the bottom of the page . I do not know who would do such a thing ,I want to start new. Some body please respond. Mrs.Thompson

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Best Youth Ministry Books

These are the books that will completely change the way you think about youth ministry, for the better. Links are to my reviews of each book.

Teen 2.0 by Robert Epstein

A psychologist makes you question every assumption you have about adolescence.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry by Andrew Root

Why build relationships? Root’s answer will surprise you.

Best Youth Ministry Books: Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher

Yesterday I finally read Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher, and since I’m one of the latecomers to the conversation I won’t summarize the book too much. Marko has linked to tons of reviews on his blog if you are interested in more in-depth summaries. If you are fairly in-tune with a lot of the […]

Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry

Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones is the book I would recommend to youth ministers if they could just read one youth ministry book. I first read the book in my Foundations and Practices of Youth Ministry class at John Brown University. After the preface to the book there is a page titled, “The Day […]

You can find my new blog on philosophy and teaching at MattCleaver.com

Search

Archives

Categories

  • Best Youth Ministry Books (4)
  • Blogging (42)
  • Blogroll (1)
  • Book Reviews (17)
  • Books (32)
  • Christianity (50)
  • Ecclesiology (52)
  • emerging church (13)
  • Featured (8)
  • Links (27)
  • Ministry (4)
  • Neo-Youth Ministry (8)
  • News (25)
  • Personal (69)
  • Podcast (4)
  • Quotes (14)
  • Random (43)
  • Seminary (16)
  • Theology (48)
  • Uncategorized (50)
  • Websites (15)
  • WordPress (1)
  • Youth Ministry (149)

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in