Discover how to leverage technology in your church

Have you ever converted anyone with your church website?

To be clear, I’m not talking about a digital altar call or anything like. I know the Holy Spirit can bring believers to faith through a variety of means, including websites, but that’s not the type of conversion I mean.

In the marketing industry, a conversion is when a website visitor takes an action that leads to a business result. This could be an initial action, like adding an item to a shopping cart, or a final conversion, such as a completing a purchase.

Have you ever looked at one of those color picker tools, only to feel suddenly paralyzed by indecision?

That little rainbow circle offers endless color options (literally millions). Try not to hyperventilate. When you’re called on to design the church newsletter, emails, flyers, or even the website, I know the task of choosing colors can be overwhelming!

The same goes for your church website. Think about what a visitor needs to know and would be searching for about your church. Is she going to want to know what you believe, where you're located, and what time your services start? Probably.

There are some basic components that every church—big, small, or in between—should include. Whether you are just getting started, fine-tuning, or completely revamping a site, these key basics should be included or added to every site.

When my family and I went out of town recently, I wanted to look for a church to visit. I immediately went to Google.

Although you could blame it on the fact that I’m a millennial, I am definitely not alone in relying on the internet (not a phone book) to find a place to worship these days.

When your church is without a pastor, it can feel like you're on a boat without a captain—sailing aimlessly and without direction.

The church office might be the place where the pastor is missed the most. Questions about bills, membership, and bulletins have no answer, forcing staff like the church secretary or office administrator to take on even more responsibility than usual. So how can your church office survive without a pastor—whether it’s for a month or a year?

I know, I know. Infomercials. But he was a good salesman. Everyone knew him and what he sold. His style worked great on TV, but I would have been frightened to buy OxiClean in real life with him screaming at me.

Good thing most in-person sales reps aren’t like Billy Mays!

When you buy church management software, you’ll most likely work with a sales rep who guides you through  buying and training. Church management software is complicated, and it’s a big decision that can set your church back hundreds of dollars.

But first, you need to make sure the software will work for your church! When you find the right solution, it can help make managing finances and members effortless. To ensure you’re completely happy with your new software, ask your sales rep these questions before you decide to buy!

Before you write just about any document, you have to think of your audience. Who are you writing for? If I send a text to a friend, it’ll be different from a text I send to my parents. Even for a daily, unimportant task like this one, we automatically consider our audience.

The same goes for your church website.

Who do you want to reach with your website? In other words, what is the purpose of your website?

In college, I always tried to prioritize. I’d start by writing that excruciatingly long paper, then tackle the short, multiple choice quiz. Though I knew the paper would take a long time and the quiz wouldn’t happen until 3:00 a.m. when my brain power hit an all-time low, at least it was easier than writing! My plan got me through.

In the church office, work such as creating bulletins and newsletters will always take a while to complete. But you can still have a plan! We’ve compiled a list of six ideas to help you minimize those time-consuming tasks.

If you’ve spent time on Instagram, you probably know that almost every day of the week has a hashtag to accompany it. For example, there’s #ThrowbackThursday (endless baby pictures), #FlashbackFriday (last weekend’s lake pictures), and #SundayFunday (mimosas and bloody marys).

If these are foreign concepts to you, count yourself lucky!

Basically, there’s an unofficial schedule to indicate what pictures to post when, and most people follow it; they’ll save their baby picture for Thursday rather than posting it on Monday.

The concept of scheduling social media posts is not inherently a bad one, and it does apply to your church (although hopefully you’re not posting too many embarrasing baby pictures of your pastor).You should have a general schedule for posting that you stick to throughout the week.

I hate Comic Sans.

Truly. I do. And just about everyone in the world agrees with me!

“But Comic Sans is fun!” you protest.

I’m going to stop you right there.

Its curved sides and round handwriting script were originally designed to resemble comic book text (hence the name), and I’m even hesitant to allow it to be used in comic books because it simply isn’t the best out there.

You can like Comic Sans and use it for your family Christmas card, but it really has no place on your church website or any documents you produce professionally.