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Selecting a CMS for Your Church Website


The Method for Selecting a CMS for Your Church

Once I had a list of content managements systems I felt would be appropriate for churches and ministries, I set about discovering them as a ministry would - through search engine results. I had to target the searches because the number of results is staggering when using generic searches like 'church websites' or 'building church websites'.

The following phrases were used in the searches. Substitute the name of the cms for 'cms' in the following search phrases - for example: "Drupal for churches" or "christian Joomla resources" or "building church websites +ImpressCMS".

  • 'cms' for churches
  • 'cms' churches
  • 'cms' church
  • 'cms' christian
  • church 'cms'
  • christian 'cms'
  • christian 'cms' resources
  • building church websites  +'cms'
  • 'cms' church websites

The search results were interesting, but simply conducting searches doesn't get you closer to making a decision. The volume of results for the various content management systems was higher than similar searches for various church denominations and building church websites. All we've accomplished, so far, is to create a list of content management systems that are viable options for building church options. An effective selection process does involve a bit more than that.

The effectiveness of a tool lies not only in the purpose and design of the tool, but also in the hands of the people using the tool. In fact, the latter has more impact on what is accomplished with the tool than the tool itself. There was a sign in the dance studio my girls attended - "He who can't dance blames the floor."

Before we get into the details of each of the various content management systems for churches, let's spend a little time talking about defining your web project. Not every church website will solve the same set of problems or appeal to the same group of people. The project needs to be tailored to your specific situation and the goals of your ministry. Because of this, the #1 rule for selecting a CMS for your church website is to view your website as a ministry effort and not as a technology project. As soon as it turns into a technology project, the success and overall satisfaction will drop. Things that matter to only a few people start to override the needs of the many.

What kind of things should you be asking about your potential CMS? Focus on 'How do I ... ? instead of 'Does it ... ?'

  • How easy is it to add and edit content?
  • How do I identify different roles for visitors?
  • How do I present different content based on a visitor's role?
  • How do I know when the system needs updating?
  • How can we organize and structure the information on the site?
  • How do we customize the functionality and appearance of the site?
  • How do we provide different types of content? You'll have articles (sermons, announcements, notices), documents for download (study guides, calendars, registration forms), audio/video, photos, links to other websites.
  • How do people find what they're looking for?
  • How can people interact with the site? Will you let them?
  • How can you gather information from visitors?
  • How do we maintain multiple versions of information, if needed for historical purposes?
  • How do I get help when I need it?

You can certainly create a requirements list for your web ministry, but keep it simple so it doesn't turn into an IT project.

Where do you go to get all these answers? On the following page, we'll look at the selected content management systems and what they do to answer them. For any system you are considering, you'll want to be able to test drive it in an environment where you can begin to see how it will fill your needs. There are demo sites (links are provided) and because the systems selected are opensource, you'll be able to download them freely and set them up yourself (or with the assistance of someone more technically inclined).

Once you have shortened the list of candidates, have your IT people evaluate it for security, ease of setup and maintenance, availability and quality of support for advanced issues and server requirements.

Now, on to the content management systems...

 

Subtitles
  1. 13 Content Management Systems for Churches and Ministries
  2. The Method for Selecting a CMS for Your Church
  3. The Results - 13 CMS for Churches and Ministries
  4. The Summary: Which CMS For Your Church?
Pages:
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