We’re Giving Our [Old] Website Away

by Tim Schraeder on 02/09/2010 in Just For Fun with 31 Comments

Websites are the front door to your church.

When people move into a community and are looking for a church, they go to Google, not the YellowPages. Having a good web presence is detrimental to whether or not people will choose to come one of your services.

The experience you create online is just as important as the experience people have when they walk through your doors.

When I started on staff at Park, our original website was good but it wasn’t great…

We knew we needed a new site that would better communicate who we were and accurately reflected that we were a young, urban church.

We searched around for a company to help us redevelop our web presence and landed with Ekklesia360.

There were so many reasons why we chose to partner with them, the main reason being that they were constantly thinking of new ideas, designing new applications [like the Cobblestone Community Network], and seemed to be the ones thinking about how to create simple, yet effective web solutions.

In June of 2008 we launched a new website with Ekklesia360  [check out Park 1.0 here].

The new site was a hit. It was featured as one of the Top 90 Church Websites by ChurchRelevance.com, was featured on a few design blogs, and was even stolen by one church [that was a fun time].

But, change and adaptability are some keywords for us at Park … even more so since around the time we launched our new site we also killed our weekly bulletin.

Our website was no longer just an accessory, it was a necessity.

A year after launching our new site, we knew it was time to redesign, so we went back to the drawing board and launched Park 2.0 in October of 2009.

Our old site is a great website, but not for what we needed it to do for us… and we know that for some church out there it would be a perfect fit.

So, that’s why I am excited to let you know that in partnership with Monk Development/Ekklesia360, we’re going to give our old website away to a church plant.

If you are a church plant that needs to establish a solid web presence and don’t have the resources or finances to make it happen, this is an opportunity for you to get a solid web design and 1 year of support and hosting with the Ekklesia360 Content Management System.

To enter, simply leave a comment, sharing a bit about who you are, where your church is/will be, and the vision of your church.

We’ll be accepting entries now through Friday, February 26. Myself and Drew Goodmanson, the CEO of Monk Development/Ekklesia360 will pick the winner and announce them on my blog on Friday, March 5.

Not-so-Fine Print…

1. You get the site as-is. Monk Development will insert your logo at no charge. All images on the site can be changed with the CMS.

2. Don’t like the colors? Colors can be modified for a one-time fee of $500.

3. You’ll get one free year of hosting and a subscription to the Ekklesia360 CMS. You are responsible for normal rates after the first year (currently $50/month or $75/month if you’d like to integrate the Cobblestone Community Network).

4. Monk Development retains ownership of the design/code for the website.

5. This offer is for one church plant and is valid for 90 days.

Spread the word!

*UPDATE March 8* Winner will be announced soon!

Tim Schraeder
Tim Schraeder is passionately committed to helping churches effectively communicate the timeless message of the Gospel in a way that’s relevant to our ever-changing culture. He presently serves as the co-director of the Center for Church Communication and is the creator and general editor of Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication, a field guide for church communication leaders. Tim lives in Chicago where he can be found in any neighborhood coffee shop that has free wifi. Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Sign Up for My Newsletter
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  • http://www.widneywoman.com WidneyWoman

    I love being part of a church that thinks of innovative ways to support other churches.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/human3rror human3rror

    hawt.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/timschraeder timschraeder

      i thought so!

  • http://www.liveinthenameoflove.blogspot.com Bianca Juarez

    Wow, that's awesome! You guys rock.

    PS I was the one who asked you if you were dating anyone on formspring :) Hahahahaha! I'm a GREAT matchmaker and you're coming to Cali for CatWest. Let's make something happen :)

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  • http://www.findingtheedge.com Taylor

    I'd love to nominate my home church for this website giveaway! It's called The Edge (I set up the basic WordPress site at http://www.findingtheedge.com) and we are actually officially planting a church in Aurora, IL this year. We started as a small group and are now a group of around 50 people planting in Aurora, following a vision to bring "24/7 Church" to the needy communities there. We'll be working closely with the school system, local ministries and organizations, and halfway houses, etc.

    We could really use a new website. So much of what we do is full of stories, and we have tons to tell the world. But, like most church plants, we just don't have the resources at the moment to do it right. I'd be happy to give more details about our church if necessary. Thanks … what a generous idea!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/Beaconhillnw @jim_gray

    w0rd!

  • Dave Horine

    Amazing generosity and thoughtfulness on this. I am in process with an amazing group of Christ-followers in planting remedy church in Peru, Indiana. We are just passed the beginning phases and are now meeting for small group, planning and vision meetings looking forward to a public launch date of September 12, 2010. As we have been raising funds, working with coaches and praying, one of the next pieces that we have just begun working on is a web presence. You are absolutely correct that this is where people go to find a church when they move into a community and it is the first thing people want to know about when you tell them about your church. It is so easy for people to "check you out" in a non-threatening way. This first impression could mean the difference between being able to meet someones need and never meeting them I think that this website would meet our needs perfectly and honestly, even the coloring would be amazing with the logo and graphic things that we have been already working on. As a church with exactly zero web presence, this gift from you would be an absolute God send. Thank you again for your generosity to the church.

    Dave Horine
    horined@hotmail.com

  • http://twitter.com/bdlehman @bdlehman

    This is excellent, Park Church!

    We are a 1 year old church plant that will be launching officially on Easter Sunday, 2010. God has been gracious to us at Gospel Community Church and has brought together around 90 men and women who are a part of a core team ready to move into the downtown area of Lynchburg, VA. We will start meeting in a conference center that is right in the middle of our target area this coming week, and we are more than ready to see what it is that God might do in and through us and the urban community of Lynchburg.

    We have been running a simple little website via the Microsoft Wix program simply for our own people. However, as we have been developing a logo and a sense of our brand, we realize the need to begin to pursue a new way to collect our vision and mission along with our brand and integrate it into a web presence and image that will point people, in the end, to Christ. Our vision simply put is to reach men and women who are far from God with the Gospel. Our context is an eclectic urban downtown area filled with very broken and hurting people affected by poverty and homelessness, progressive young 20 somethings, and lower middle class families. We are begging God to give us access into our community and to transform it by His Holy Spirit.

    Thanks for this great opportunity! Ya'll are great. Hope to hear from you soon!

    Brenton Lehman
    Connection & Discipleship
    Gospel Community Church
    Lynchburg, VA

  • http://www.project2pillars.com Bumgarner

    I'll throw our name into the hat. We're planting in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. The church is called 2 Pillars Church. You can check us out at our blog (aka temporary website) at: http://www.project2pillars.com.

    You can catch a sense of the vision for 2 Pillars by checking out our vision video at: http://vimeo.com/7481926

  • http://www.jroadchurch.org Eric

    I'm the worship pastor of a new church community in the Fruitport/Muskegon, MI area called Jericho Road Church. I was previously on staff at Spring Lake Wesleyan Church. Pastor Peter Yoshonis has been instrumental in coaching us and sending us off.
    We began meeting as a small group Bible study in a home just over a year ago. We officially launched as a church this fall. We are a community sold out for Christ and are consumed by showing His love. We strive to meet needs in our own city, surrounding areas as well as cities and countries nowhere near us with our 'Acts 1:8' team. Every 12th Sunday we do not have a regular 'morning program'. We are in the community serving food to the hungry, passing out blankets to the homeless, raking leaves, etc… we do this because we truly want to live out what we preach. We don't want to become stagnant and the bottom line is winning people to Christ. If we are not doing that, we have no business being in ministry.
    We quickly designed a website that serves our basic needs, but I agree with you that a web presence is what people look at to see if they want to check you out. you can see what we have now at http://www.jroadchurch.org and also see more of our vision and even download some sermons. The site is definitely a 'start', but we need to start thinking 'bigger and better' in this area.
    We would be honored to take the website off of your hands!! Thank you for being a church who uses the resources you have to help other communities!
    Blessings,
    Eric Wagenmaker
    eric@jroadchurch.org

  • http://twitter.com/dgoodmanson @dgoodmanson

    Good to see we have a couple entries already.

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  • http://www.milehighcalvary.com Erik

    We are a new plant in Highlands Ranch Colorado, and we would love to be a part of this! We currently have a iWeb site at http://www.milehighcalvary.com but it is extremely limiting for what we need as a church. Please put our name in the hat!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/DannyEason DannyEason

    Just commenting to say that it's completely awesome that Park church is doing this!

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/timschraeder timschraeder

      Thanks, Danny! We're excited to be able to share and build into another church!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/chrisdmadden chrisdmadden

    Hi. I'm the pastor of a church plant launching in March. We have a website that needs a redesign. http://www.accessbangor.com. The plant is in Bangor, ME. Thanks for considering!

  • http://brianinptown.blogspot.com Brian Becker

    What a great, selfless act Park Church!

    We are planting a church in Portland Oregon on Easter Sunday 2011. Having a high level website will be invaluable as we try and make a mark in an area of Portland that is not considered the "hot" place to plant a church – rather than going where the money is (west side portland), we are targeting South East Portland due to the lack of thriving churches, and a community that is in deep need of godly voice. This area of town deserves dignity and an identity of excellence, and we want to express that in every way possible, including our website, as we establish our roots there. Not only are we going to plant a church there, but we will be a church planting church with a goal of planting at least one church every four years around the Pacific Northwest.

    We are doing our very best to do things right by seeking wisdom and counsel from those who have gone before us such as Vince Antonucci, and Ben Arment – as well as a being assessed for high level church planting from the GHCnetwork. As great as counsel & coaching is – we still obviously need resources, and this website will be a great piece to the puzzle as we move forward.

    Hope City Church: Reveal Christ, Change Lives, Transform Cities.

    Brian Becker
    Portland Oregon
    @brianbecker

  • http://www.cougarsforchrist.com Derik Roberts

    First of all. What a fabulous idea!

    Secondly, this would be incredible blessing for the campus ministry that I helped start several years ago as a student and now lead as a campus minister called Cougars for Christ. It is a college ministry in Columbus, GA at Columbus State University. Our current website is one I developed and maintain myself, but it is lacking in several areas of functionality and relevance. As a college ministry, the website literally is the front door to our mission field on a secular campus. The website is posted all over campus, on our t-shirts, and on banners we hang on campus also. To have something this professional would be such a blessing as well as help me in the time it takes for me to update and maintain our website. We don't have much funding at all, so something like this is quite the opportunity. PS Love your new website!

    Derik Roberts
    Campus Minister,
    Cougars for Christ
    http://www.cougarsforchrist.com

  • http://www.praisechapelkc.com Carlos Garcia

    Wow…this is exciting. Thank you very much for the great idea of blessing a winner with a new website. I know that the Lord will bless you greatly for your efforts.

    We are Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship of Kansas City. We are one church in two locations. We have a location in Kansas City, KS and in Lee's Summit, MO. Our church was launched out to Kansas City 16 years ago from our mother church in Los Angeles. We have made a great impact in Kansas City and surrounding areas thru full-length evangelist dramas, outreaches and many other evangelistic efforts. We have seen a growth from just 5 people in a living room 16 years ago to over 400 on a Sunday morning. The vision of our church is "Win One, Build One, Send One". We truly believe in winning souls to the kingdom of God and building and discipling them into the will of God and then releasing them to fulfill their call. We are a church planting church. We have send out 3 church plants from Kansas City. Two have been to surrounding cities in Kansas City and one to Chicago. We are truly needing a new look to our website that will be impressive and help connect those who are looking for a church online. We truly would like to make our evangelist efforts more effective online.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • http://www.rockbrooklyn.org Rob Monroe

    Hi, this is an awesome idea, thanks so much for this!

    I'd like to nominate my fellowship, The ROCK Brooklyn for a new website. We're a relatively new church plant in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn – http://www.rockbrooklyn.org. The vision God has given us is to lovingly make disciples and build His kingdom. We focus heavily on the Word. Our shepherd Pastor Louis Straker Jr., takes no salary and with his family's support has been pouring into our community. We've seen God move, heal and change lives. NYC is a very challenging place to reach. As we focus our efforts on college students, we need a web presence that can communicate, attract, nourish, challenge and inspire people to live sold-out lives for Him. Out of gratitude for what God has done and our love for the people of NYC, a fresh website would be a valuable tool. Thanks for your consideration!

  • http://twitter.com/jdarnell @jdarnell

    Hey Tim!

    What a great opportunity for guys like me!

    So the short and sweet version goes like this…

    My name is John Darnell. My bride and I pastor Vivid Church in Jacksonville, FL. We will be celebrating our first year of ministry on March 6th. And what a year it has been!

    Vivid began as a dream of connecting people back to God and to each other. With a big vision and no resources, we launched out and God has shown up for us time after time after time. We are seeing people connect to the vision and to the culture of love, grace, and fun that makes up Vivid.

    We have attempted to leverage a wide variety of web based apps to create one larger maximized web presence. Sometimes it has worked great… other times, not so much. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google Apps, Livestream, Wix, etc… been there, done that.

    Our current site is based on the free hosted plan from SkyCMS. It has worked to meet the need, but as we are entering a new season of ministry we are really hoping for something more dynamic and complete. With your site and the resources God has given us, we could build a cohesive page that reflects that ministry in a way we've only barely been able to do until now.

    We have the knowledge, skill set, and resources to really benefit from the site and the service of Ekklesia360.

    And our hope is that we would one day be in a position to provide the site to some other church in a similar situation.

    Ok, that's the story… maybe not as short and sweet as I'd hoped.

    Really appreciate the opportunity to be considered. And I do not envy the decision you guys have to make!

    Many thanks!

    John Darnell
    Lead Pastor
    Vivid Church
    VividChurch.tv

  • http://twitter.com/CLETEBONTRAGER @CLETEBONTRAGER

    Hello Tim and Drew,

    I just saw your twitter feed and am excited about this opportunity.
    I was at Gospel Coalition a year ago and actually found your church in Chi-town through your website.

    We are stepping away from a comfortable suburban ministry & going to the last frontiers of urbanity, Detroit MI (July 2010). We have a vision to plant multiplying gospel-centered missional-oriented churches for the marginalized.
    Detroit MI has been neglected and look forward to what God will do in and through RESTORE DETROIT.
    We currently have no website and that is on our to do list along with moving 2 families this summer. Money is a great factor to us and a windfall like this is would be incredible.

  • http://www.ardentchurchbham.wordpress.com Steven Castello

    Praise God for your generosity. We are starting Ardent Church in Birmingham, AL. We have been gathering and developing a core group for about 6 months and have seen God bless us and give us incredible opportunities to serve the community. Birmingham is in the heart of the Bible Belt and would seem to be the last place to start a church. But although Birmingham is incredibly "church saturated" it is not "gospel saturated". The spiritual ethos of the city is very nominal/traditional Protestant on one end and very new age on the other. Our desire is to be a church that is missional that is in the city and for the city.

    "Missions exists because worship does not." – John Piper

    This quote exemplifies our mission. We want to make much of Christ by being, living, and teaching the Gospel in all we do. As for most plants, money can be an issue. We currently use a wordpress site due to budget limitations.

    Regardless of who you choose, praise God for your generous heart.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/pastorajjones pastorajjones

    My name is A.J. Jones and I am the Senior Pastor of the City of Hope Church in Bolingbrook IL. We are a new church plant currently in the gathering phase. We held our first informational meeting on January 28th and have a commitment from 20 individuals to support our church plant. We do not have a website right now because of limited funding. We are in desperate need of one for evangelism and outreach to our community. We need to be able to use it provide info to our launch team. A website will greatly assist us in living out our core value of creativity, innovation, and excellence. It is my hope that we win this great opportunity for our church in it's infant stages, but at the same time I know that any of the church plants that are seeking this website will also be well served by this as they seek to fulfill their mission and expand the kingdom of God. I'll pray that the Holy Spirit guide your decision and direct you to the church plant that needs this the most.__Thank you for the opportunity, __Pastor A. J. Jones____

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/pastorajjones pastorajjones

    City of Hope Church is a multi-ethnic church where people from all ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds can find hope, forgiveness, acceptance and love in the good news of Jesus Christ. We seek to be a church of worship, prayer, encouragement, and vision. We are a church who connect people to God, grow together, serve the city, and extend God’s kingdom through church planting. We seek to be good news to those who are not a part of the church because God loves all people and we will love them also. We will love and serve the city because God loves the city. We will network and partner with other groups and organizations to collectively serve the city. Our values will shape every aspect of the life of our church.
    We Value Outreach & Evangelism
    We Value Application of Scripture
    We Value Unity and Diversity
    We Value Prayer
    We Value Praise & Worship
    We Value Planting New Churches
    We Value Service
    We Value Excellence
    We Value Creativity and Innovation

  • http://twitter.com/dgoodmanson @dgoodmanson

    Tim, A lot of good options to choose between!

  • Kerem

    This is Kerem from Antalya, Turkey. We are starting a church plant here in Antalya. We have 75 millions muslim againist 3000 Christians -100 Christians in my city againist 1 million non-believers- and that put us number one non christian reached per capita. Our Country has persucition for Christians, but Lord can do bigger things here and I believe that with all my heart. We need a web site, so that we can reach non believers (there are a lot of modern non-believers) , I do believe a good web site can make big impact.

    We would be so happy to have a free professional web site.

    Even if we don't please still pray for us and our families safety.

    Thanks

    Kerem Koç
    Antalya Protestan Church Pastor

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  • http://www.lwcconline.org/ Mark Bonilla

    Just found your website and offer am I too late!!!

    Pastor Mark

    This comment was originally posted on Goodmanson.com

  • http://twitter.com/dgoodmanson @dgoodmanson

    Thanks everyone who participated in the give-away! The website for the church plant is now live! See the site: http://www.2pillarschurch.com/

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