The last thing you want is an ineffective web site. Your church web site must share your story and connect with your intended audience. To do this, you must determine who will build it and maintain it and what tools and resources they will need.

You also need to know what to look for when evaluating possible platforms for your church web site. Have a clear set of requirements ready as you look for your solution for an effective web site.

A conversation consists of more than 2 people talking - it also involves listening by all parties involved. What does this have to do with your church website? Everything!

Are you using your website as another vehicle for broadcasting your message, or are you also using it to listen to what others are saying? A recent study by LifeWay Research indicates the majority of churches (even those with fewer than 50 in attendance each week) maintain websites for their church. Yet, of those, only about 40% are actually engaging their members and visitors in conversations on their websites through features such as prayer requests.

The web has changed. In the beginning, it mimicked print media's "Publish and Read". In a relatively short time, however, the web has become dramatically different - instead of a few publishers, everyone is contributing content to the web. Internet users no longer just consume content, they also create content. Position your site to be one of the 'Net Generation's places to be.

People are bombarded with information - radio, television, magazines, newspapers, text messages, email and social media updates. Despite all the noise, people are still starved for good information. How do you get heard above the noise? Contribute to the noise? Quantity does not guarantee quality.

The biggest factor in getting heard is actually saying something on a regular basis. Not just anything, but something of value - timely and relevant. I will bet you have something of importance to share with people, but you haven't used your website to share it. Or, by the time you did post it, the timeliness or relevance was lost.

'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.' ~Aristotle

Print formats have fixed physical dimensions - 8.5" x 11", 4-page, 1/2-page folded - and the temptation is to fill every available square inch of space in an effort to get the most for your money. The web has no boundaries and pages are not limited by a fixed format, but the temptation still remains - publish everything, including the filler. The result? Lots of web content with little impact. We look at some of the consequences of continuing to follow the print mentality when publishing on the web.

When technology works - it's great. When it doesn't, life can be miserable. God had Noah build the ark. He also had Joseph store up grain for the famine. What preparations have you made for the ups and downs you'll experience?

We all remember being taught the Five W's (and one H) in school, don't we? Well, they are still relevant in the realm of the World Wide Web. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How apply not only to your online content, but also to your online outreach.

Having a web strategy for your church is really a part of having a communications strategy for you church - your website is just one aspect of all your communications media. Even your web strategy will be broken into several components - a website, possibly a Facebook page and a Twitter account, maybe other online channels like YouTube and MySpace.

There are many pieces to your web strategy, but just having all the pieces doesn't mean they all fit together - yet!

Just like shaking the box won't assemble the jigsaw puzzle for you, you need to have a picture of how it will all fit together and then take steps to make it all happen. Today, we'll look at the pieces and the steps in the context of an overall strategy.

Being responsible for at least one web site, if not more, there are things you may not give much thought because they seem beyond your control, of little interest, or of any value to your users. Security usually falls in this category.

In spite of all that, anyone who maintains a site has the task of taking the initiative when it comes to security. If you don't, your visitors may find one day a new version of your site - a defaced one. Or, your host may suspend your account because a script on your site is causing a high server load. So, you have to do something.

Where do you start? Most of us will need guidance when it comes to security, server configuration and optimization. There is good news - help is readily available, if you ask for it! I spent some time reviewing the security notes for the different aspects of running a web site and spoke with a few people to get some useful tips to protect your investments of time and effort.

After you have done all your planning and organizing and finally have your site online, is it doing what you expected it to? Your web site is quite a bit different than the place where you worship - you don't see the faces that visit your web site or get a chance to shake their hands. You will need some tools to help you discover if you are hitting your goals for your web site. You will need more than just a simple counter to properly gather and analyze the statistics and trends for your site.